Welcome to the 2020 school year. A warm welcome to all new students and whānau joining us, and a warm welcome back to all returning families. We hope you have all had a lovely summer break with family and friends and are well rested and ready for an exciting year ahead! This email contains some basic admin information for Term 1, along with details about our Module 1 inquiry and main events for this term.
Whanau Groups
This term Koru has six whānau groups, Harakeke has six whānau groups and Pōhutukawa has five whānau groups. The role of your child’s whānau teacher is to act as a learning advocate for your child at school. They are your first port of call if you have any questions, comments or concerns about school or your child. The whānau teacher is not your child’s overall ‘class teacher’, most students will work with multiple teachers throughout the year, but the whānau teacher will have particular oversight of your child.
The following information is relevant for all students throughout the school. If you have more than one child at school, you will receive an email for each child, letting them know who their whānau teacher is. However, you only need to read the following information once!
New Staff
We are happy to introduce four new teachers to our Amesbury team. Matt Hutchinson will be joining us from Pukerua Bay School. He is an experienced junior teacher and he will be in our Koru team. Esther Koh will also be joining Koru. She has been involved in education and teaching abroad for a number of years. Gar Kee Wu, who will be joining Pōhutukawa, has experience working in the Waikato with Hamilton City Council and several school-linked organisations. Our final teacher, Eilis Chaiside, is an experienced teacher from Ireland. She has taught in both English and Irish medium schools. She will begin as a release teacher and will then move into Koru full time as the numbers grow. We are very happy to have all of our new staff joining us and we are sure they will be very positive additions to our fabulous team.
Our teaching teams for 2020 are:
Koru: Amaria Picard (team leader), Esther Koh, Jemima Colquhoun, Matt Hutchinson, Natalie Douglas and Steph Coleman
Harakake: Kristen Liddell (team leader), Sonali Singh (assistant team leader), Camella Botha, Derek Champion, Zelda Van Zyl and Zoe Jiang
Pōhutukawa: Kalesha Segatta (team leader), Andy Little, Gar Kee Wu, Kieron Sexton and Michelle Prinsloo
*Regina Singh will be teaching in Pōhutukawa for the first 5 weeks of this term as the team settles into their new learning environment. She will also be our library-based and ESOL teacher.
*Eilis will be a release teacher across the school for this term but will move into Koru as the numbers grow.
*Navy Ny will continue as our amazing teacher aide. She does such a fantastic job and we are pleased to have her join us again in 2020.
Communications
We communicate and share learning through our school blog, which forms our school newsletter and is updated regularly with information about school admin, events and general educational information, along with information about events in our local community. All of this information is then stored on our school website. Subscribe to our blog to receive notifications when new articles have been published. You can also download our school app by going to your phone’s app store, typing in Amesbury School and installing ‘SchoolAppsNZ’. You will then need to follow the instructions to set it up for you.
Please like our Facebook page for regular updates, photos and conversations with the Amesbury School community. We’re on Twitter too.
We have a school planning site, where planning for all teachers is stored and can be accessed by everyone. No personal student information or names will be included in this planning. Any documents or planning including specific names are kept as private documents and cannot be accessed by anyone except Amesbury staff. Here is the link to our planning site.
ALF is available at all times for parents to see their child’s latest writing, maths and reports. Those who have gmail accounts can access ALF through their own account. Please email Andy Little (andy@amesbury.school.nz) if this has not already been set up. If you require support setting up a gmail account, please feel free to ask at the office.
Module 1 Inquiry
In previous years, we have always had one inquiry per term. However, we find that the timeframe is often too short to get to the depth and breadth of learning that is necessary, particularly in Term 4. This year we will be running three 13 week inquiries. As such, the timing of our learning celebrations will change this year, to link in with the end of each inquiry and celebrate the learning completed within that module.
The first inquiry will run from Week 1 Term 1 to Week 2 Term 2. This inquiry will begin by looking at the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in both a historical context and present-day New Zealand. Students will explore why the treaty was created, what each article guaranteed and the impact that this treaty has had on the development of Aotearoa New Zealand. We will then move into looking at the importance of the bicultural heritage for Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly focusing on the place of Te Ao Māori (the Māori world, which includes the language, rituals and understandings). Students in Harakeke and Pōhutukawa will explore being mindful of whose voices are heard and whose voices are not heard in any situation, and how this can create inequalities. We will also explore what being a bicultural nation means for all people living in our increasingly multicultural country.
Our inquiry will include a speech where students express their understandings and opinions about the bicultural nature of Aotearoa New Zealand. Students will also create resources that increase awareness of Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Mihi Whakatau
Our Term 1 Mihi Whakatau to welcome new students and staff will be held in Week 1 of the term. The Mihi Whakatau will happen on Friday 31 January at 2:30pm in the hall. Everyone is welcome to come along and join in. Families of new students are warmly invited to come along and join in the powhiri as we welcome you all to our school community.
Teacher only days in 2020
As part of the Primary Teachers Collective Agreement, schools can take 8 days across the next three years (2020-2022) as teacher-only days for professional development, without extending the school year. We have decided to take three of these days in the 2020 school year. Those days are:
*Thursday 9th April (Thursday prior to Good Friday). This means that term 1 will end on Wednesday 8th April. A company will come in and run a Te Tiriti o Waitangi workshop for our staff on this day.
*Friday 15th May. This will be a Mathematics review day for a staff, from which we will begin a major review of how we teach mathematics at Amesbury.
*Friday 29th May (prior to Queen’s Birthday weekend). This will be a day where schools in our local cluster are all spending the day planning collaboration across our local school cluster.
Open morning and Teacher Meet and Greet
We wanted to let you know in advance about two special events to add to your calendar. On Friday 14 February we will hold a Meet’n’Greet event at Amesbury School from 5:30-7:30pm. Come along to meet the teachers in your child's hub(s), find out some general admin information about how the hubs run, and learn about useful links and information sources to help the year run smoothly. This evening will also be an informal community event, with a chance for all families to spend time playing and eating outside in the evening sunshine. There will be music, pizza and a sausage sizzle. More details will be sent out shortly.
We will also be having an open morning across the school on Tuesday 17 March between 9:00-11:00am. This is an opportunity to observe how learning happens at Amesbury School, see how things run in the learning spaces, and ask questions. Again, more information will be sent out about this closer to the time.
Trip to He Tohu/National Library
As part of our inquiry this term, we are planning a trip to He Tohu to view the treaty document and other artifacts related to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and New Zealand history. This planning is still in the pipeline and we will send out an article as soon as we have confirmed the dates/times for each team.
Amesbury Speech Competition
We are planning to run a speech competition again this year. We are still in the process of finalising dates and details but will send out information about this when everything is finalised.
Stationery
Your child will be issued with everything they need for the year, including books, pencils and felts/colouring pencils. There will be a cost of $45 for the year for this. This cost is charged to school accounts at the start of the year. There has been a slight increase in the stationery fee this year; the fee has been $40 since the school opened in 2012, and it has increased slightly to $45. This includes a subsidised ‘Matific’ (online Maths programme) licence fee, and a subsidised ‘IXL’ (online English and Maths programme) licence fee.
If students have their own personal stationery that they would also like to use, they are very welcome to bring it in and keep it in their tote tray or bag. All students in Years 5-6 will be issued with a Chromebook and all Years 3-4 will have access to their Chromebook when necessary at school. Younger students will have access to a range of devices. If you would like to purchase a Chromebook so that your child can use it at home and at school, please contact Andy Little (andy@amesbury.school.nz).
Clothing and lost property
Named items within hubs will be handed directly back to your child. There will be a small lost property box in the main school office for any unnamed items, but no items with clear names in them will be held here.
In order for all items to be returned to their owners quickly and easily, please ensure that all uniform items are very clearly named with your child’s name before the first day of school. Please be aware that young children will often be the people reading the names on clothing, so ensuring that names on all items are clear and easy to read is important. Thanks for your help with this. We recommend purchasing iron-on name tags to make ownership of items very clear. Here are a couple of label companies to consider: Stuck on You & Name it
Toys/Belongings at school
While we do not recommend that students bring toys to school, we do not have a ban on this. If your child chooses to bring a toy or another item of interest to school, it will need to be put away in their bag during learning time and we cannot take responsibility for lost, traded or broken toys/items. Therefore, we do recommend that your child leaves any treasured possessions at home.
First Day of School
On Thursday 30th January school begins for the year at 9:00am. Children can head straight to their hub and sign in on the touchscreens - teachers will be in each hub to help with this. Children will need to come to school in their uniform and bring their school bag, school sun hat (named), lunch and water bottle. In Term 1 (and Term 4) all children need to wear a school sunhat outside for sports and break times. We ask all students to take their shoes off before heading inside - there are shoe racks outside of Koru and Harakeke to put shoes on. For students who are in Pōhutukawa, place your shoes against the wall under the overhang by the hall kitchen or under the overhang by the piano hall door. Here are instructions for settling into the hub on the first day:Koru: All students, will leave their bags on the blue matting area (outside Karaka/Orange). Then come inside to find and greet your whanau teacher who will sign you in. When the bell rings at 9am, we will all meet in Karaka. At the end of the day we ask that parents wait for their children outside in the courtyard between the hubs. Your child’s end of day space will be the same as their bag area. These will be projected for you to see on Thursday morning or feel free to walk around and find this. We will organise students putting their bags and shoes in the right places as part of our day.
Harakeke: Your bag space will be in Māwhero or Kikorangi. Please check names on the screens to see where your space is. When the bell goes, students can go to the mat space where their name is projected.
Pōhutukawa: Once students have taken their shoes off, they can come straight into the hall and put their bags against the wall. We will give further instructions about bag spaces on Thursday morning. The sign in screens will both be in the hall. One screen will be for Year 5 students and one screen will be for Year 6 students. Teachers will be in the hall to greet students and support them where necessary.
Hubs are open for students from 8:30am onwards. We ask that students do not arrive at school prior to 8:30am, as they are not supervised by teachers at this time. Kelly Club operates a care programme before school for students who need to be at school before 8:30am. Please see the Kelly Club information page on our website for more details. We encourage all students to be at school by 8:45am. This allows children time to settle in, put their bags away, read the timetable for the day and then say ‘hello’ to friends and teachers before the bell goes.
Lunch time activities
Throughout the year we will have a number of lunchtime activities running. This term, we will have:
Wednesday: Tech Club
Friday: Gardening Club
The library will be open every lunchtime for students to read books, play board games and create amazing arts and crafts.
Parent Helper/whanau helpers
We are looking for any parent/whānau helpers (grandparents, etc) who would like to regularly assist the learning programme in Koru Hub during the afternoons. This would be between 2-3pm and be supporting students with their learning by either listening to them read, practising word recognition, testing spelling or assisting with handwriting. Any help is greatly appreciated. If you’re interested, please email amaria@amesbury.school.nz with which day/s you would be available.
Toys and Resources for Play-Based learning
This year we are wanting to expand our play-based learning resources. If you have any suitable items at home that you no longer have a use for, we would love to give them a second home and life in the hub. Please bring any items to Lisa in the Leadership Office or to teachers in the hub so we can check its suitability. We ask that you not drop things at the office and only bring in complete/working/unbroken items.
Here is a list of particular things we are looking for:
Puzzles (full sets)
Dolls, doll prams, clothes and accessories
Old telephones/cell phones
Accessories for dress ups - bags/shoes
Magnets - eg magnet building blocks
Plastic toys - dinosaurs, animals, food or kitchen toys, small cars (Matchbox or hotwheels) etc
Water trough
Plastic tubing
Spray bottles
Old magazines and newspapers
Geometric shapes
Natural toys such as shells, driftwood, pebbles etc.
Lego and duplo
Dominos, marbles and marble runs
Baskets to transport dolls/toys/play food
Containers to store things
Calculators
Term 1 Dates 2020 As always, our school events are all added to our school calendar as soon as we become aware of them. Please follow this link to our school calendar, housed on our school website. Some events may be added to our calendar as we go through the term, so please keep an eye on the weeks coming up on the calendar. Here are the main school events to date:
Thu 30 Jan School starts
Fri 31 Jan Mihi Whakatau (welcoming new students)
Thu 6 Feb Waitangi Day (school closed)
Fri 14 Feb Meet’n’Greet the Teachers
Mon 17 Feb-Fri 21 Feb Pedal Ready
Mon 24 Feb-Fri 28 Feb Pedal Ready
Tue 25 Feb PSW Northern Zone Cricket
Tue 10 Mar Northern Zone Football
Thu 12 Mar NZ Opera in Schools Performance
Tue 17 Mar Amesbury School Open Morning
Tue 7 Apr PSW Futsal Years 1-2 and Years 3-4
Wed 8 Apr PSW Futsal Years 5-6
Tue 7 Apr-Wed 8 Apr Student Conferences
Wed 8 Apr School finishes for the term at 3pm
Thu 9 Apr Teacher Only Day
Enjoy the last few days of the school break and we look forward to seeing you all next week.
Warm regards,
The Amesbury Team
