Our Greendale School Vision is to: L. E. A. R. N. Lifelong Learner

Excellence Actively Involved

Relationships Now and in the Future

Get ready for flu season – protect your whānau and community Colder weather also brings along a nasty passenger – the flu. As you may have seen in the media, it’s shaping up to be a tough flu season, with flu already circulating widely across New Zealand, and Australia reporting a record number of flu cases and even deaths. Influenza infection rates are generally highest in children, and healthy children are the major cause of the spread of the virus in the community. You can spread the flu bug without knowing you have it – and the elderly, pregnant women and people with chronic health conditions are particularly vulnerable. Canterbury District Health Board is urging you to protect your whānau and the wider community by getting your flu shot as soon as possible. Getting your flu shot every year offers the best protection against the flu. Flu shots are available for anyone for a fee from a doctor, nurse or some pharmacists or you or your whānau may qualify for a free shot – check out www.flufree.co.nz for more information and flu facts. Canterbury DHB Medical Officer of Health

Selwyn District Council: Matariki celebrations: visit www.selwyn.govt.nz/matariki for further information

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NEWSLETTER PĀNUI

Week 5 Term 2 2019: 31 May 2019

**** Super Power (Social Action) of the Week ****

Shared communication We take turns to talk about things we’re

both interested in

a: 187 Greendale Rd, RD 1, Christchurch p: (03) 318 8436 e: office@greendale.school.nz

Cross-Country competition

at Hororata

22 May 2019

Calendar of Events 2019

3 June Queen’s Birthday holiday - school closed 6 June Malvern Cross-Country competition at Sheffield School - for selected students 6 June Parent evening 6 30 - 7 30 pm: with Maths specialist, Marg Wright.

You’ll learn about how our children learn, and how you can help at home, and there will be opportunities to ask questions

7 June Malvern Cross-Country competition at Sheffield School - postponement date 7 June Board of Trustees election date - see further details on Board page 10 June Greendale School Poem and Speech competition - whole school 10 June PTA meeting at 7 pm - everyone welcome. Ideas for fundraising also welcome. 7pm at PTA Chair’s abode: 151 Greendale Road. 11 June Mataī class trip - full day; noticce has been sent home 13 June Malvern Speech competition - for selected students 19 June Board meeting at 7 pm to appoint newly elected Board 22 June Matariki in Malvern - 5 pm - 8 pm at Darfield Recreation Centre - our combined schools’ kapa haka group will be performing 26 June Assembly at 1 30 pm at Greendale Hall - everyone welcome. Buses

will collect students from the Hall at 2 25 pm. 3 July Reports sent home 5 July Final day of Term 2 2019

22 July First day of Term 3 23 August School ski day at Mt Hutt - “opt in” 10 September School photos - individual, sibling , class and whole school 27 September Final day of Term 3

14 October First day of Term 4 14 - 16 October Mataī Camp at Wainui 28 October Labour Day holiday - school closed 14 November Teacher-only Day - school closed 15 November Canterbury Anniversary holiday for Show Day - school closed 16 December Final day of 2019 school year - to be confirmed Wheels Fridays are on this term; students can choose to bring their bikes, scooters, etc on Fridays this term, to play on during breaks. Bible in Schools: The children that have indicated to "opt in" to this will begin this Friday afternoon

for 30 minutes. They will be accompanied by a teacher aide. The other children will remain in the class with their teacher and will be doing work around our school values.

Ralph Brown: My main qualification is having five grandchildren. I want them to succeed, not just academically, but in life. I have no children at Greendale School, but I’ve visited many times and I’m impressed. I like the focus on everything that helps children thrive – reading, writing and numeracy, but also managing their emotions, developing resilience and getting along with others. I recently stepped down as managing director of the corporate training company I founded more than 30 years ago. My wife Carol and I moved to Greendale three years ago. We love living in this community and want to contribute more.

Kelly Hitchins: I'm mum to Isaac (8) and Austin (5). We've been part of the Greendale School family since 2015, and the wider community since we moved from Burnside in 2013. Joe and I run our own business in the construction industry, which keeps us very busy. This is my second term on the BoT. I've learned a lot over the past three years, and intend to do more training courses as they are available.

Janet MacDougall: I am a grandmother, with Toren and Cearnaigh at school here, and the carer for the boys before and after school. I retired six years ago as a Human Resources Advisor with Ecan,and have been on the PTA and am a member of Red Cross locally. I am delighted to be a member of the BoT and offer my experience with committee roles gained during my career and as a community volunteer.

Colin Steven: I'm a farmer and contractor in the Greendale area. I have a son, Ben, in Horopito at Greendale School. We moved to NZ three years ago from Scotland and my interests are rugby, skiing and travel.

Cat Tijsen: Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takatini: Success is

not the work of one but the work of many. I have two children here at Greendale: Lachlan in Year 5 (Mataī) and Breanna in Year 3 (Horopito), as well as an older son, Harrison, in Year 10 at Darfield High School. I am the science technician at Darfield High and live in Kirwee with the above-mentioned children and their dad, Jim Beresford. I believe that a solid grounding in basic education will allow children to realise their full potential as lifelong learners, and let them flourish.

PTA meeting: Monday 10 June, 7pm at my place, 151 Greendale Road .

Everyone welcome!

Can you help? We desperately need a space to house our

woodwork table, gear and also our science equipment – so a multipurpose area! We think a container is the best as we don’t need any consents. Please let us know if you find a good priced 40-foot container and/or if you can help cutting it and putting a sliding door in. And possibly lining it too? Contact Carey-Anne or Rhyannon (George’s mum). On-going focus: Aiming for wrap-free lunches (students using reusable

containers, fabric lunch wraps, etc). Children will be rewarded with wrap-free tickets if they have a wrap-free lunch, with a lucky ticket draw at the end of each day. Prizes include: mufti for a day; take a friend to break 15 minutes early; make a milkshake with the milkshake maker; take milk home; or 15 minutes computer time before break.

Greendale School Board of Trustees’ election

Declaration of Parent Election Results At the close of nominations, as the number of valid nominations was equal to the number of vacancies required to be filled, I hereby declare the following duly elected:

Ralph BROWN ; Kelly HITCHINS; Janet MacDOUGALL; Colin STEVEN; Cat TIJSEN Declaration of Staff Election Results At the close of nominations, as there was only one valid nomination received, and I hereby declare the following duly elected:

Delia GAMESON Deb Palmer Returning Officer

Tēnā koutou katoa What a fabulous day at Hororata Domain last week for our annual cross- country. The weather was glorious, behaviour was great and the running was tremendous. We acknowledge not everyone enjoys running, so for some it was a real challenge. We were so proud of everyone completing the run. Thanks, Xavier, who took many photos throughout the day so you will enjoy seeing them in the newsletter. It was great to see so many supportive whānau along as well. An Enviro meeting was held recently, where many excited boys unpacked the woodwork gear. SADLY we don’t have an area yet to put this gear, or woodwork table. Please, if anyone sees a container at a good price let us know. We think a 40-foot container would be ideal as we could also put our science gear in it, so it could be used as a multipurpose area. A container would need a sliding door added and possibly lining? I’m hoping we can get a lot of parent hands to help in this project. Please, if you are able to help with this idea contact myself or Rhyannon – George’s mum (she leads our Envirogroup). The local Men's Shed are keen to come and work with children on woodworking projects. Thank you for your support this week during the NZEI strike. We lost pay to show New Zealand that we need to negotiate better work conditions. Hopefully something will come of it. I have heard some great interviews on the radio covering the effects of : mainstreaming high needs children without enough teacher aide support”; and, millions being spent on bringing in overseas teachers – who is going to do their two years of induction and mentoring – the already busy teachers and Principals?; and reducing class sizes.

We are so very grateful to our supportive BoT who have prioritised our budget, so that we have as much teacher aide support to students and teachers as possible. Sadly other parts of the budget had to be cut to make this happen. But with growing needs in classrooms we think this is a necessity!

We already have three dads who offered to come in and take physical games at long play on Thursdays, which is GREAT. If you can help for this half-hour let us know. It might be that we need to run a roster! The children are very excited! continued ...

continued .. On Tuesday, welcome Emily-Rose to Greendale School in Year 2. Her family are returning to Greendale and they are very much looking forward to it. We have trialled Play-Eat-Learn for the past four weeks and teachers have made observations. Staff noticed the following:

Many children are “sneaking” food as they are really hungry by 9 40 am, which makes sense as many children have early breakfasts!

Children didn’t have enough time to eat their lunch, before the bell rings for class

Many children didn’t want more food at long play eating time so they were sitting doing nothing.

We are very interested in what our student voice is also, so at our whole school hui this week we voted. There is a clear preference by children as to which order: 42 students prefer the way we used to do it, 16 students prefer to play first then eat, and and 8 students don’t mind. SO this week we returned to the way we did things, which is the following:

9.40am Read and Feed - children eat inside as the teacher reads to them. Once they’ve eaten, they go outside to play, then bell and coming back in to class.

11.30 Sit and eat lunch outside. When eaten, the duty teacher lets them go to play. Bell rings and then back into class.

1.00pm Children have long play.

1.25pm Bell rings. Children return to class, if they want to eat inside then they can. We hope to see many of you at our Maths Parent Night next Thursday night. The

speaker, Marg Wright ,is a maths specialist and her fee is covered by the PTA, so please support this hour on Thursday. Ngā mihi Carey-Anne Hamilton Tumuaki

from Mrs Maude and Mrs Hamilton

Musings from Mataī… Our reading programme is going super well - over many weeks, we have been building up different activities during the rotations of each group, and are now starting to introduce the opportunity to choose an activity from the repertoire we have developed. The learners are also having the opportunity to share what things they would like to do to practice the spelling patterns, and show they know what the word means. Plasticine, sand, chalk have all been popular choices, so we will be weaving this in! Buddy reading has also been a great way to practice reading out loud with expression and fluency. If you have pets at home, they can read out loud to their pet (they are a very forgiving audience!) Speech writing has been a huge focus as we gear up for speech competitions. Mrs Hamilton and I have certainly been learning all kinds of things from the wide variety of speech topics!

Mrs Kilday returning: Mrs Kilday will be back in the school over the coming

weeks, working on maths across the school. We’re looking at the best tests to use for students transitioning from Horopito class into Mataī class. We currently use different tests but have discovered some loopholes and are wanting to make this more consistent. Science: The teachers are really looking forward to working with Warren Bruce

from UCan. This begins next week. Mr Bruce will be in and out of all classrooms, working with teachers and students for the rest of this term and all of next term. We are really lucky to have won some funding to cover his hours. Science rocks! Potential Pathways Inquiry topic this term: The whole school is studying

“possible pathways in the future.” We’ve tapped into local workplaces and have a senior and middle/junior field trip planned. Before these take place, Oli and Matthew’s dad, Andrew, a pilot for Air NZ, and some cabin crew are visiting school on Tuesday. The seniors have prepared questions to find out “what it would be like to be in their shoes”. We look forward to this next week. Individual teachers will have sent out notices about their field trip this week. Long play timetable: We always try to offer activities for our longest break at

school. If your child has not spoken about this, here is our latest timetable:

House Tug of war challenge: Hawkins House came out on top for our long

play house challenge. Followed by Waireka then Selwyn. Sorry no photos to show. Malvern Cross country: Congratulations to our place-winners from the

recent cross-country runs at Hororata. Good luck to the following students who are going on to the Malvern Cross-Country run at Baldoon Farm, Sheffield next Thursday. Year 1: Essie, Haidee and Alyce. Year 2: Abi, Meg, Mikayla, Arlan, Matthew, Rex. Year 3: Breanna, Saphia, Keira, Konnor, Ryan. Year 4: Max C, Chloe, Annalyse, Lukas, Henry L, Cearnaigh. Year 5: Tessa, Lachlan, Mitchell, Jayden. Year 6: Greer, Madi, Lucy, Toby. Pool keys: Please return pool and pool shed keys to the Office now; let Deb know if you want your deposit returned, or applied to your child/ren’s account.

Long Play Activities 1 00 - 1 25 pm

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Soccer Or Unihoc with Mrs H

Game with Bee OR Indoor activity with Aimee

Gardening with Sarah OR Fuse Drumming with Mrs G

PALs (1 - 1.15) OR Game with a Dad

Bike or scooter ride with Mrs H (only if no blue chair in the week)

from Mrs Youngman helena@greendale.school.nz

Wow what lovely weather we have had over the last two weeks. It is hard to believe we are already half way through the term.

I have tried to keep to Helena’s classroom routine as much as possible; however I do realise we have not been making a weekly trip to the library. I will be scheduling a library visit each week until the end of term, so please remind your child to return their library books if they want to get some new books out. Last week I was reading the children a story and it mentioned something about human beings so I asked the children if anyone knew what human beings were. I had a little giggle when Essie put her hand up and said, ‘they are humans with beans in their tummies’.

Speech and poetry is fast approaching ,so please get your child to practice their nursery rhyme with you. It is fantastic that we have an array of nursery rhymes that have been selected.

Last week was our last week of measurement and amongst other things we looked at length. One activity the children did was to order themselves into the length order using the cuisinere rods. They did a pretty good job as you can see by the photo.

Well done to those children who have been using Mathletics at home. This is a great tool and I highly recommend using it to help your child with their maths knowledge. Lots of house points have been given out in the last two weeks in Tūrepo to reward children for remembering to put their hand up and not call out while on the mat, and also for showing amazing whole-body listening. We have also been trying super hard to keep all our belongings in our lockers.

Well done to those children who have been consistently doing their reading and sounds at home. Congratulations and good luck to Essie, and who will be representing Greendale School at the Malvern Cross Country next Thursday up in Sheffield. Go Girls!!!

Mataī Awards

Class Award: to Nim for catching up so diligently after being away from school Class Award: to Jacob for working consistently hard in maths - keep up the great work! Class Award: to Max C for working hard in improving sentences in reading rotations. L.E.A.R.N. Values Award: to Lukas, for N (Never Giving Up) for never giving up with learning and always actively involved Milk Monitor: Angelie Lamborn

Horopito Awards Class Award: to Henry S-T, for working well in class at Reading and Maths time Class Award: to Breanna, for role-modelling positive behaviour at all times L.E.A.R.N. Values Award: to Liam for N (Never Giving Up) for working hard at Reading time L.E.A.R.N. Values Award: to Konnor for N (Never Giving Up) for consistently trying his best in all learning areas

Tūrepo Awards Class Award: to Eli for always starting his work straight away and trying his best at all times L.E.A.R.N. Values Award: to Charlotte, for R (Relationships) for always including others and being so kind and caring

Wishing our June birthday children a Happy Birthday:

*Blake, who turns 7 on 2 June *Arlan, who turns 7 on 15 June *Jayden, who turns 10 on 17 June *Xavier, who turns 10 on 19 June *Breanna, who turns 8 on 20 June *Liam, who turns 8 on 23 June *Henry, who turns 8 on 25 June

Any questions or queries, my email contact is deliaroom1@greendale.school.nz Our new Reading and Spelling combination, where I am basing the spelling words from the decodable texts that the children are reading, is working really well. The children are achieving much more success with their spelling and are able to practice their words as a rotation during Reading time. I have heard the children sounding out words at Writing time, using the Speed Sounds they have been learning from the back of their reading books … it all ties in together! This is proving the strength of the routine of Speed Sounds, Heart Words, Speed Words (if there are any) and then reading the book. It is all giving a much more solid foundation to the Literacy area for each child as they can see the link between sound, word and sentence. A couple of requests for all families: the Poetry and Speech competition is coming up very soon - 10 June - and children must have their poems memorised for the day. A request also to check your child/ren’s hair; we’ve been notified of a case of nits in Horopito, so the long weekend is a great time to check, and treat if required. At Writing time, we have been using our senses as a focus. On a blustery day, we went outside and lay on the tennis court and used our ears (I hear), eyes (I see) and bodies (I feel) to help us. The learning intention was to use at least one describing word in a sentence for each sense. The following authors went above and beyond in their stories, and we celebrate their stories here.

Mikayla wrote: I heard the birds tweeting. I felt raindrops falling on to me. I saw the wind blowing the leaves.

Breanna wrote: I felt raindrops on my body. I saw nothing. I heard birds tweeting and singing. I saw nothing because my eyes were shut up tight. It was exciting, fun and it felt like the leaves were falling on me.

Ryan wrote: I heard the wind blowing. I felt the green grass tickling me. The birds were flying above me. I heard someone walk. It was fun.

Oakley wrote: When it was windy, leaves were falling. Branches were rubbing. I could see the tyre swings moving.

from Mrs G