FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK

Kia ora Koutou,

Welcome to Week 2, Term 2!! We had a great start last week, it has been lovely welcoming everyone back in Orange Level, people can come in, drop children off, meet the teachers, and hold sports practices all more easily. Please be mindful that we do have Covid in the community, although it is a very small percentage that includes two teachers absent from the Junior school. The current percentage this week is 3.2%. We continue to be vigilant with hygiene, ensuring all children that are unwell are at home and enable masks to be worn if wanted. We have boxes of masks here for both adults and children if you would like your child to be wearing one, please let the teacher know.

Focus this week:

  • Powhiri
  • Winter Sports Teams 
  • Photo Day
  • Road Safety Week
  • FOWS Meeting
  • Board Meeting
  • Pink Shirt Day

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

Powhiri – Our first Powhiri since 2020 was held last Friday morning, it felt wonderful to have an event that enabled us to meet all together in the hall, sing waiata and dance, then have a cup of tea and kai together. It was lovely to meet the new parents, and some that have been here for a while and to welcome properly our teachers; Miss Cavanagh, Mrs. Tollemache, Mr. Cochrane, Mr. Wotton, and Miss Hunter. A pōwhiri is an official welcome and it removes the tapu (restrictions) of the manuhiri (visitors) to make them one with the Tangata Whenua (hosts).

Winter Sports Teams  – It is fabulous once again to see so many children, parents, and teachers involved in sports teams being able to practice and play regularly is something we are enjoying returning to everyday life. I had a wonderful excited conversation with a group of Year 3 boys telling me all about their rugby game, the first of the season!! It obviously means a huge amount to them.  Thank you to every parent/ caregiver and teacher that has in some part enabled this to happen.

We have 7 netball teams, 3 Basketball teams, 5 Hockey teams, 2 Flippa Ball teams

THIS WEEK 

  • Photo Day –  Thursday 12th, May all class photos will be taken and sports teams. Please ensure you have your sports uniform for this photo.
  • Road Safety is this week for New Zealand  “Wainui School Road Safety will focus on our Driveway”.

Last week we sent home a “Safety-Wise” magazine. Inside was a section on Road Safety and a paragraph on Driveways – this is Wainui School’s real “hot spot” to worry about.  Their message was “Be Smart, Be Safe, Be Seen”.   Time of most concern – pick up. We have been lobbying Auckland Transport and the Council to reduce the speed further outside our school. We have managed to get the bigger warning signs about a school and some lines painted on the road but it is still not enough.

But some further thoughts are:

  1. Stagger the time of pick up – pick up is from 3:00- 3:15 pm, if you come after 3:05 it is much easier to get in the driveway and there are no queues and plenty of room to park.
  2. Turning right into the driveway from the Waitoki side; we suggest refrain sitting in the middle of this road with the trucks driving straight through, it is very dangerous. Continue and turn around at the corner of Waitoki and Wainui Road and approach from the Silverdale end.
  3. Parking in the “Little Bush Road” that is the lower car park, park closer to the next car to ensure more cars can fit in.
  4.  If stopping in the Drop and Go zone of our driveway, for safety let children out on the path side.

Thank you everyone for your patience and care around our children, it is a tricky area being one driveway in and out.

FOWS Meeting –  Wednesday 18th May – 7.00pm – Staffroom – Please come and join this positive, lively group of parents, we would love new members.  Drinks and nibbles are on the menu as we will celebrate a successful Bike-A-Thon.

Bike-A-Thon update  from Tania Cummack-Ledger

What a fun-filled day that we had on the last day of term, Thank goodness Mr. Irvine was able to pull off his amazing and very dangerous stunt! We had such a great turnout under the current circumstances and as a school raised an amazing amount! The sun even put on a smile for us. A massive THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored and donated from near and far, to all who came to see the children on the day, those who helped behind the scenes to make this all possible and gave up their time to help on the day including our Year 8s. We even had children doing their part from home on lockdown and have photos to share from Jacob and Oliver. We hope the kids enjoyed themselves and a big congratulations to all our prize winners – WELL DONE!!

Major Prize – Chloe Epp

Most Money Raised – Eve Robinson

Most Sponsors – Alicia Bailey

Pukeko Team Spot Prize – Tristan Krull

Kiwi Team Spot Prize – Mikey Smith

Tui Team Spot Prize – Flynn Dixon

Takahe Team Spot Prize – Harry Browne Hale

Whole School Spot Prize – Scarlett Thew

Easter Raffle – Felix Latham

Top Class Fundraiser – Pohutukawa

Second Place Class Fundraiser – Koromiko

Third Place Class Fundraiser – Rimu

Our top 3 classes will be able to enjoy their prizes in the next couple of weeks! Watch this space…  On behalf of our FOWS team, I would like to thank you all and look forward to seeing you at our next fundraiser!  Bike-A-Thon signing out for 2022!

**We would love to see some new faces in our FOWS group so please email us at [email protected]

Board Meeting – Tuesday 17th May – 6.30pm – Staffroom – Term 2 policies for review are Healthcare and Behaviour Management.

NEXT WEEK

Pink Shirt Day –  Friday 20th May 

FINALLY

Garden to Table and Technology Rotation – What a fantastic start to the term it has been for Tui and Takahe Teams. On Wednesday we had the first day of our Garden to Table and Technology rotation. The students were involved in many amazing learning experiences and were all very engaged in the activity they were taking part in. Over the term the students in Takahe and Tui teams will experience learning activities in hard tech- making planter boxes, soft tech- making soft toys, art- painting and drawing skills, music-learning to play the ukelele, gardening and cooking.

On Friday the Year 8’s had their first day back with the bees, the day was a perfectly sunny, very hot day, a fabulous day for beekeeping. We are very lucky to have Jenna from SJA Honey back again this year, we are learning so much!!

On Monday of this week, Tui and Takahe began their performing arts rotation. The classes will be rotating through classes in drama, musical instruments, digital music, dance and singing over the coming weeks. It was great to see the energy and enthusiasm shown by all of the students.

Ka kite ano,

Gillian Bray

FOR YOUR CALENDAR

  • Thursday 12th May – Photo Day (Remember to bring your Sports Uniforms if you play a sport)
  • Monday 16th May – Kahikatea & Kauri trip to Te Tuhi Art Gallery
  • Tuesday 17th May – Totara trip to Te Tuhi Art Gallery
  • Tuesday 17th May – Board Meeting – 6.30pm – Staffroom
  • Wednesday 18th May – FOWS Meeting – 7.00pm – Staffroom
  • Thursday 19th May –  Kowhai trip to Te Tuhi Art Gallery
  • Friday 20th May –  Nikau trip to Te Tuhi Art Gallery
  • Friday 20th May – Pink Shirt Day
  • Friday 17th June – Whole School Assembly – 2.00pm
  • Friday 24th June – Matariki Holiday (Public Holiday – no school today)
  • Friday 27th May – Whole School Assembly – 2.00pm – 3.00pm
  • Monday 6th June – Queens Birthday – Public Holiday – No School Today
  • Friday 8th July – Whole School Assembly – 2.00pm
  • Friday 8th July – Last Day of Term 2
  • Monday 25th July – First Day of Term 3

OTHER

Photo Day – It will soon be time for your photos again and your photo day is on Thursday 12th May.  (Don’t forget your Sports Uniform if you play a sport)

The City to Farm Project is a larger scale version of the Zero Waste Zero Carbon Programme being rolled out this month – Introducing the Zero Waste Zero Carbon Programme – Wainui School is one of only 6 schools in NZ to trial a climate change mitigation programme designed to relieve students of climate anxiety and do something positive to address the climate change emergency.   The Zero Waste Zero Carbon Programme (ZWZC) is about diverting food scraps from landfill to build topsoil.  Building new topsoil is a carbon sink.  Keeping food scraps out of landfill avoids methane emissions.

Wainui School is ahead of many other schools in this regard as it has been practicing composting and soil building since Richard Lee was the caretaker in 2020. But what is a bit different is the addition of biochar to the process.  The local City to Farm Composting Project is using biochar to control odours, hasten the heating and maintain the compost heat over a longer period of time.  Once applied to the soil, this “charged and inoculated” biochar acts as a “permanent” form of compost, holding onto water, nutrients and increasing soil friability.  The idea is for students to turn their school gardens into “carbon sinks” or perhaps create new gardens in raw clay by digging in bokashi-composted food scraps and biochar.   It is hoped students will take this technology home and start creating carbon-garden sinks at home. The ZWZC Project has been generously funded by Foundation North.

Another aspect of the Zero Waste Zero Carbon Project is its focus on regenerating local soil in the direction of regenerative agriculture.  The City to Farm Project is looking for another farm to participate in its composting–soil building project. The C2F project has diverted over 100 tonnes of food scraps from the HBC area to a farm in Waitoki and would like to find another farm in Wainui.  If you would like more information, please email [email protected] or visit www.citytofarm.co.nz

SPORTS RESULTS

– email your sports results to Mrs Elliott in the office, kelliott@wainui.school.nz 

BASKETBALL

Year 5/6 Hawkes.  Lost:  19/4

Wainui Senior Vs Kingsway.  Lost: 8/26.  MVP:  Hamish Allen

FLIPPERBALL

Wainui Rippers Year 3/4.  Won.  POD: Millie Dunn

Wainui Surges Year 5/6.  Draw.  POD: Alisher Mamashayer

COMMUNITY

Hibiscus Coast Football Fundamentals Flyer – Wainui Fundamentals Term 2

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint +PDF