St John’s Girls’ School

Newsletter 3 November 2017

Principal’s Comments

Tena koutou katoa – Greetings to you all.

Welcome to Nevaeh Roughan who starts school on 13th November, joining her big sister Lilly.

Writing Moderation

On Monday all the St John’s teachers spent the morning looking at the consistency of expectations around writing. We

have always had a writing moderation day. Over the last few years we have invited other schools but choose not to this

year. Everyone agreed it was a very worthwhile exercise which allowed teachers to learn from each other.

The teachers are now busy testing your daughter(s) ready for reporting to you at the end of the year. I enjoy this, as the

teachers are frequently very excited about individual girl’s progress. Seeing the growth is why we teach.

Fair

I want to acknowledge the great support we have from the Parents’ Association. They support the school in a myriad of

ways, the main ones being fundraising so that your daughters and teachers have great resources in the classrooms and

playground and providing delicious morning teas at our numerous events. They excelled themselves in the weekend.

Many people have commented that the recent fair was the best school fair they have ever been to. The committee have

spent many, many hours planning this special event. Thank you Parents’ Association. You are truly amazing and your

work is appreciated.

The staff were all very proud of what the girls achieved too. Thank you for your support with PrEP. It’s a great

programme.

2018 Classes

We have almost finalised the classes for next year. We have several composite classes and are taking our time to ensure

we make the best decision we can for each girl. Year 6, 7 and 8 are all single year level classes.

Our Familiarisation Morning for new students in Years 2 – 8, to St John’s in 2018 is on Friday 17th November. All girls

spend an hour with their 2018 class and teacher on this day so we will let you know what room your daughter will be in

prior to this day.

Nga mihi nui (Kind regards)

Brenda Mackay

TERM DATES:

November 8th BOT meeting 5.30pm

14th Y8 HPV Vaccination

16th Years 3&4 speech exams

Health Nurse Visit

17th Familiarisation morning

22nd Thank You Assembly 10am

24th Stripes awarded

27th BOT meeting 5.30pm

December

4th Tabloids

5th Dance Sharing

7th Christmas Service practice am

8th Christmas Service 2pm St John’s Church

12th Prizegiving practice am

13th Prizegiving 1.30pm St John’s Church

Y8 Leavers afternoon tea 3.15—4.30pm in hall

Last Day

January 2018 30th 1st Day Term 1

Congratulations to the following girls who received

awards recently—

Room 1 Kiran Gilmete, Sophie Purdon,

Kadi Cantley

Room 2 Shanna-Beth Smith, Amaya Swale Jones,

Christabel Billcliff, Chloe Taylor

Room 3 Lily Hillman, Lilly Roughan,

Charlotte Hainstock, Sophie Hall

Room 4 Sienna Hunter, Isabella Rhind,

Amanda Henderson, Bailey King

Room 5 Isabella Willis, Kate Goodeve,

Phoebe Barlow, Brooke Egerton

Room 6 Meg Wisely, Grace Watson,

Rebecca Laverock, Sarah Slee

Room 7 Emma Pope, Ivy Turner, Holly Driver,

Louella Mirrielees-Huxtable,

Values Cup:

27 Oct Niamh Doherty Rm 3

3 Nov Katie Dennis Rm 7

ROOM 1—Year 1—Mrs Jagoutz

Room 1 were amazing at running their “Flowers and Photos” stall at the Centenary Fair. They all took turns to be the

shop keepers and everyone was very impressed at how they could talk about the plants that they had grown. One of the

visitors commented that I had been very busy packaging all of the plants and I was very proud of the girls when I could

say that it had been all of their hard work and not mine. They ended up packaging and labelling 300 plants!

Nakaysha’s older sister nominated Room 1 for a Subway Shout Out

from the Hits radio station. We all had a bit more morning tea

yesterday – thank you.

Room 1 have been writing about grandparents and here are some highlights……

“My grandparents are special because they give me chocolate” – Kadi.

“My grandparents spoil me sometimes.” – Leah.

“My grandparents cheer me up when I am sad.” – Kiran.

“We go on outings. It is so much fun.” – Ave.

“Granddad takes me to the park and from the park I get ice cream.” – Aaliyah.

“My nana makes me laugh.” – Esme.

“Grandparents are special because they always give us pudding when we don’t eat all our dinner.” – Willow.

Greats and Grands Day is a very special time to share all of our class happenings and highlights. Room 1 will also use

this time to ask their special visitors all about when they were at school and the differences between then and now.

What a wonderful start to the term we have had. It has had a real summer feel to the last week or so and wonderful to

enjoy the fair in the sunshine.

We were very proud of our class ventures for the fair. Everyone did their jobs with pride and it was wonderful to see

the confidence with which the girls spoke to their customers. Preparing for the fair has developed skills and knowledge

in a whole range of areas.

This week we have spent preparing for grandparent’s day. The girls have written beautiful letters and made lovely

teapots to give their guests. It was great to have some help from our boarders after school to put the finishing touches to

our teapots. We certainly had a lot of fun quadruple checking that the right letter went in the right teapot!

I was astounded at our final practice today with the quality of the performances. Our girls have such a variety of talents

and are so confident.

Next week we have our visit to Demolition World to look forward to. Thank you to our volunteers. We are looking

forward to having Mrs Devlin back in our class next Friday. Enjoy your weekend.

ROOM 2— Years 1 & 2—Mrs Kelly

ROOM 3 — Years 4 & 5—Ms Wilcox-Clarke & Mrs Dawkins

What a wonderful culmination of our PrEP adventure to share our products and services at the school fair.

We are so proud of what our girls achieved in developing the ‘Fear Factor’ theme. The ‘mystery maze’, our monster

keyrings, our ‘see, feel and taste experiences’, the owl kits, muddy marshmallows and creamy jelly eyeballs were an

absolute tribute to the girls’ efforts.

There has been a great deal of learning across the curriculum. Many life skills have been learned.

We are very grateful to our parents for their support and the St John’s community for recognising the value of what

the children created.

The Parents’ Association deserve to be proud of their efforts in providing such a totally fun day! It was AWESOME

and we loved every minute of it!

The centenary was special. Everyone will remember this momentous occasion.

From one celebration to the next, Greats and Grands Day.

Our annual Greats & Grands day has been an opportunity to share our learning and connect with the special people

in our lives.

As teachers we are constantly amazed at the talent of such young children.

In maths we are revisiting addition/subtraction, multiplication/division to consolidate and extend our earlier learn-

ing. The girls are involved in a number of assessments at the present time.

We look forward to a productive and happy term before our next celebration!

SPORTS NEWS

GOLF

MINIBALL

DAY SPORT TERMS PLAYED

Monday Summer Football

All grades T4 2017 / T1 2018

Tuesday Basketball Y 7/8 T1/T2

Tuesday Badminton Y 4/5/6 T1

Tuesday Girls Smash Cricket Y 3-8 (new) T1

Wednesday Primary School Touch Rugby

All grades T1 / T3 - T4

Wednesday Volleyball Y 7/8 T1 / T3 - T4

Thursday Volleyball Y 5/6 ** new T1

Thursday Touch Rugby & 7/8 T1 / T3 - T4

Friday Waterpolo T1 2018 and continues

All Grades T3 - T4 2018

On Monday 6th

November we have four teams competing in the Town Zone Golf

Tournament to be held at the Invercargill Golf Course. This series of tournaments

provides children with an opportunity to participate in the game of golf in a format

that is both competitive and fun. The girls will play up to six holes of ambrose golf

as well as participating in a number of skill based golfing activities.

A huge thank you to all the parents who have kindly offered to manage the girls.

We hope you all have an enjoyable day and the sun shines for you!

TERM 1—2018

VOLLEYBALL

There will be no miniball on Tuesday 14th

November. There are only three rounds left to play.

The dates are Tuesday 7th November (round 8), Tuesday 21

st November (round 9) and finals

night on Tuesday 28th

November (round 10). I hope the girls are enjoying the competition and

wish them well for the last three rounds.

Good luck to the St John’s Slammers and St John’s Spikers who have their ‘finals night’ next week.

We wish the teams well and hope you have enjoyed the social competition. A huge thank you to

Trudy Slee and Bernadette Forde who have travelled in each week to manage the St John’s

Slammers team and to Glenda Corson who has managed the St John’s Spikers team. Many thanks

for all your time and I know the girls really appreciate the travelling and effort you have all put into

the season.

TENNIS

Congratulations to Grace Watson who was placed 6th

at the Southland Primary School Championships. The girls’

competition was held at Gore on Wednesday 2nd

November. Grace has now been selected to represent Southland

at the Southern Junior Teams Event in Dunedin 10/11/12th November. Fantastic effort Grace!

TABLE TENNIS

PHOTOS

The date of the Southland Primary School Team Championships has been changed to Wednesday 15th

November. We have two teams entered:

St John’s Emeralds – Holly and Pippa Keary

St John’s Pearls – Kobi Harpur and Lindsay Black

We wish the teams well and look forward to hearing how the day goes.

REPRESENTATIVE NEWS

If anyone has taken any photos of our after school sports teams in action, please feel free to email them through to

me as it would be nice to put some in the sports section of the newsletter when space is available. Thanks,

fsmith@stjohnsgirls.school.nz

Sofia Campbell-Wall and Jane McDowall received a bronze medal in the Dolphin Combo section at

the New Zealand Synchronised Swimming Championships that were held on 10th-12th October in

Invercargill.

Eva Sexton also competed in the Championships. Congratulations on your excellent results girls!

Kobi and Lindsay represented Southland in table tennis, when they played Otago on Saturday 21st October in

Dunedin. They played some fantastic games and won the U11 B grade against Otago 10-2.

Once all the grades were added up, Southland lost the shield to Otago, however Kobi and Lindsay should be very

proud of their efforts.

If your daughter has made a representative team or has excelled in her sport, please remember to inform either

myself or Mrs McEntyre in the school office so we can acknowledge it in the newsletter. If they participated in a St

John’s Girls’ School sports team we will note this for end of year merit certificates and for Y7/8 stripes. Thank you.

My email is fsmith@stjohnsgirls.school.nz

COMMUNITY SPORTS NOTICES