Dear Parents and Caregivers
Welcome to the latest Junior Jottings. A warm welcome to the new children and their families who have joined us throughout the year. We hope you are enjoying being part of our Junior School family.
'Jungle Bungle'
This show was enjoyed immensely by our Junior School. The children were absolutely spellbound throughout the entire performance and hung on every word that the actors uttered.
Kapahaka Performance
Last Friday afternoon the entire school was mesmerised by the outstanding Kapahaka performance that they witnessed, performed by Year 7 and 8 students from Pukeatua School in Wainuiomata. They certainly exuded pride and commitment.
Parent Workshops
Thank you to all those parents who attended the workshops on reading, writing and mathematics over the past month. I hope you now have a better understanding of what your child does during the day in these areas. If you have any further questions about these or wish to know about any other areas of learning please do not hesitate to ask me. I will put a synopsis of each of the workshops in next week's Junior Jottings so that you can see where your child is at when you receive their report and discuss their progress in the upcoming conferences.
Parent and Teacher Conferences
These will be held on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 June from 1.30pm to 7pm. Please book a time online using the school code VM7KP if you have not already done so. At the conferences you will have the opportunity to ask questions about your child's learning and their portfolio of work samples, their written report, their next learning steps and how you can help them at home. If your child has just started school in room 1, you do not need to book a conference. Mrs Mills Smith will contact parents of children who have been at school for more than 6 weeks to arrange a comprehensive New Entrant Conference.
Reports
Every child in the Junior School, apart from Room 1, will bring home a written report on Friday June 25th showing their progress and next learning steps. All children in year 1 who are in rooms 2, 3 and 4 will have the Year 1 report. All children in year 2 in rooms 2, 5 and 6 will have the Year 2 report. They have achievement across the year level regardless of which room they are in or how long they have been at school. The Achievement Key is 'not yet', 'at times,' 'mostly' or 'always'.
An example on the Year 1 report, in writing it says 'is able to sequence their ideas into a beginning, middle and ending'. Your child may get a tick in the 'not yet' column because they are not at this stage of their writing development or they only write a beginning and an ending and not the middle in their stories.
In mathematics, also on the Year 1 report, it says ' can count forwards within the range of 0 - 100.' They will get a tick in the 'always' column if they can count consistently to 100 and beyond or they may get a tick in the 'not yet' column if they can only count forwards up to, for example, seventy.
Wet Lunchtimes
Over the past few weeks we have had some wet lunchtimes, which has, of course, meant the children have had to stay inside their classrooms. We thank the senior children from years 7 and 8 very much, who have braved the wet and cold conditions to come into our Junior classrooms to play games, read to or draw with our classes.
PALS
We are hoping that it is fine on Tuesday at lunchtime, so that our specially trained Year 7 and 8 students will be able to come over to teach our Junior children a range of fun outdoor games. Special thanks to Mrs Cody and Mr Chadwick for all the organisation, training and supervision that they have done for this programme to get underway.
Found Clothing
We have a mountain of lovely clothes, (unfortunately unnamed) that belong to our students in the 'Lost Property' bins under the stairs of room 10. Please encourage your children to have a look there for any clothes that they have not brought home. Parents and caregivers are welcome to go through the bins too.
Matariki
This starts today June 14th and we are going to do some activities around this, including ti rakau, waiata and listening to myths and legends.
Dyslexia Action Week
This is from June 15 to 21. Last week Sarah, our Learning Support teacher, attended the Dyslexia Conference, in Auckland. She has posted some interesting items on her blog so please have a look at her blog as well as all the other junior school ones.
Best wishes for a warm and dry week.
Kind regards
Maureen Buckley
Deputy Principal
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