Kia ora koutou, Kowhai Parents and Caregivers! Phew - week four has just flown by, and we're all here scratching our heads and wondering where the week went, and how it went so fast! This week we started into more of our normal programmes, and it was nice to get some familiar routine and structures up and running. Welcome to Maiwand and Kobe who joined us this week - we hope you enjoy your time in the Kowhai Learning Community. We all had a great time today in our mufti clothes - there was lots of fun and laughter, and lots of money raised for those in Tonga who need it. Meet the team
Thelma Herring is our Leader of Learning (Team Leader) and has been teaching at West Melton school for thirteen years. Thelma has two adult daughters and worked in the Emergency Department at Christchurch Hospital before she trained as a teacher. Thelma is level headed and able to cope with any emergency!
Sonja Beaumont has joined us this year from Wellington, and has been teaching for sixteen years. Sonja has a daughter at West Melton school, and a son at the Cat's Pyjamas preschool. She is looking forward to joining the West Melton community when her house is finished later this year. Sonja leads our school-wide Jump Jam sessions, and is the newest member of the Friends of West Melton. Christina Sands has been teaching for twenty-two years (she started teaching when she was 8). Christina has three boys, two are at West Melton school, and her eldest has just started Rolleston College. Christina previously lectured at the University of Canterbury (there's a natural progression from tertiary education to New Entrant teaching). Christina is responsible for Digital Technology across the school, and is our staff representative on the Board of Trustees. Jo Buckenham has been teaching for fifteen years, and has previously worked at Banks Ave, Ilam and Pukekohe East Schools. Jo has three boys, two are at West Melton school, and Jo's youngest son is at the Learning Centre. Jo leads our Gifted and Talented programme across the school. Jo is a keen member of West Melton Physical training and an active member of the West Melton community. (She could be found most often at either Boot Camp or Two Fat Possums). So that's a wee bit about us! We realised when we added it up that collectively we've been teaching for over 65 years - no wonder we're so tired! ;o) Responsible Use Agreements Our apologies for not sending these home last week - they have come home today! Please take some time over the weekend to discuss the contents with your children, and to sign in the appropriate place. Please cut off the grey (signed) section, and return this part to school - keep the rest of the notice at home so you can refer to it during the year. We're not starting to use digital technologies yet, and when we do, this will be very closely monitored. We also have a digital citizenship programme that we will be implementing, and we will share details from this through the year. If you have any questions, please contact Christina ([email protected]) Swimming With the rain this week we noticed a dramatic drop in both air and water temperature, and so we didn't swim on Thursday. We intend to keep swimming on a Monday and Thursday afternoon, but will only go if the conditions are suitable (ie warm!). We will let you know if we need to stop our swimming programme due to the weather. Discovery Friday Today we talked about rain! We had lots of great questions, so we found out about the wettest place in New Zealand (and then the world), as well as the driest place! We talked about the water cycle (ask your child to show you how this works!) and we talked about different types of cloud formations and what they mean. We also talked about the different sizes of raindrops, and sung a spectacular rainy day song! We intend to video this next week, so watch this space... Parent help Thank you to those of you who have offered to help in our Learning Community. We've got ourselves a little bit muddled about which parents are helping and when, so can we ask you (please) to email your child's pod teacher with the days and times you were available to help (even if you've already been to school to help!) Mathletics Mathletics is an online maths programme, available through a paid subscription. You can find out more details about the programme here. Mathletics is an optional programme, and you can purchase a reduced subscription through the school shop to support learning at home. Play-based learning Next Tuesday evening we will be hosting a parent workshop on play-based learning. You are warmly invited to come along and find out what we do when we play, and how this aligns with the rest of our classroom programme and the New Zealand Curriculum. Details on time and place were in last week's school newsletter, or previous K.I.T. notices. Kia pai tō mutunga wiki (have a great weekend), Thelma, Sonja, Jo & Christina kowhai@westmelton,school.nz
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K.I.T. noticesK.I.T. notices are published every second Friday. They contain information that we hope will help to keep you up-to-date with what is happening in our learning community as well as the wider school. Please feel free to comment on each week's post with any news items or community notices of your own, or to ask any questions you may have! Archives
December 2020
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