Welcome to week 9

    

Kia ora whanau,

We all hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend with your family and friends and managed to relax and put your feet up. 

Congratulations to Peyton Riri, Amoe Wharehinga and Manaia Haenga who represented Te Tairawhiti at the Maori Netball Nationals in Hamilton this weekend. We look forward to the girls sharing the highlights of their trip at our team hui on Wednesday morning. 

Last week Matua Puri took 24 members of our syndicate to Tolaga Bay for the Uawa Waka Ama regatta. Turanganui would like to sincerely thank Matua Bruce Campbell for offering to train our children and for guiding them for their events. All of our students came back buzzing and eager to race again. Some of our students were first timers and their confidence soared through this experience. Thanks so much to all of our awesome whanau who helped transport to and from Tolaga too. The children absolutely loved it! Check out Matua Puri's highlights video in our last blog post.

Here are most of our gorgeous waka ama crews...trying to get this bunch to all face the right way and smile at the same time on a chilly morning was not an easy task......Nonetheless we had fun doing it.

Unfortunately, our touch teams did not get to travel away last Wednesday and Thursday due to the stormy conditions across the North Island. Pictured above and to the right are the Turanganui students who made these teams. 

All of these awesome students did not let this get them down, kept  smiling and got on with what was happening back at school. Hopefully they will still get to compete against other schools in the future. 

Last week Mrs Devery needed some support with a situation in the playground and these fantastic young men came to her aid. It is fantastic to be a part of a team who really look out for one another and so many of our Turanganui students are striving to follow our school values 

Congratulations to all of our awesome triathletes who competed in last Tuesday's school event. We were proud of you all and will now focus on the next whole school event which is the cross country to be held at the end of term 2. Check out this neat triathlon video made by Mr Fourie.

Respect, Integrity, Self Management and Excellence 

as well as our Turanganui values

Manaakitanga, Whakawhanaungatanga and Kotahitanga

Everyday we see so many examples of the children living and breathing these core school and team values and it makes all of the Turanganui teachers very proud. 

Team Certificates
Below are our new team certificates that feature two very important pieces.To the left is a beautiful Pukaia that Matua Walter carved for our team. This taonga will be presented each week by our syndicate leaders 'The Tekau ma Rua' to our most deserving student. Matua Walter spoke to our team last week about the significance of this taonga. 
The Pukaia has been placed in front of a piece of artwork also created by Matua Walter that is situated in three panels outside room 14. These art pieces have segments of 'Hautoto' inscribed on them and Matua Walter will be teaching the Tekau ma Rua who will then teach their classes this Moteatea/Karakia/Tauparapara that has a huge significance to our region through the Horouta waka. This also connects to the lessons all of Turanganui did with our Museum staff at the beginning of the year. We will get our students to relay their learning on their personal blogs throughout the year. All classes aim to have these set up by the end of the term as we will be sharing a lot of assessment data this way regularly and all students will be doing weekly goal setting and reflections for you to follow at home. 

In week 11 we will be holding our learning conferences and would love to see 100% of our whanau so we can celebrate your child's all round progress to date. Next week, a term 1 summary report will be sent home that tracks your childs progress in relation to the national standards. We ask that you bring this report along with you to the learning conference where we will set goals together. All Turanganui teachers will be emailing an online booking sheet out to their whanau on Wednesday if they have not done so already. We will make phone contact with our whanau who are not accessible via email. We look forward to seeing you all in a couple of weeks for these 20 minute conferences.

What's happening in Turanganui this week?

Tomorrow our students begin a new cycle of tech. Please look at the roster below to make sure you have all of the gear you need. 

Wednesday

Tech - 1st Session of new tech class

Thursday

Tech 2nd session of new tech class

Friday

Assembly

Kapa Haka

Kapa Haka Extension

Tech Extension

BOP/PBLake Swim

Reminders

If your child has not yet paid their $2 for the Mindlab visits a couple of weeks ago could you please give this to their classroom teacher asap. 

What are we working on at the moment?

1: Influential Person Project 

Please scroll through this project outline and marking guide for one of our team projects due at the end of next week. We have been covering lessons in class that pertain to this project and will have the finished pieces out for show during our learning conferences. The students had to select someone they were passionate about and who also inspires them. 

2:Reading Strategies - Through Values

• Main Idea
• Summarising
• Note Taking
• Inference
• Silent Reading - Reading for Enjoyment

Our Current Class Shared Readers

• Room 19 - Cry of the Taniwha
• Room 20 - Willie Apiata

• 
• 
  
• Room 21 - The Whale Rider
• Room 22 - 2Much4U
• Room 24 - A Handful of Blue

3: Statistics, Number and Problem Solving for Maths

• Otago Problem Solving is coming up in the last week of school for our extension students. 
• Turanganui will also be offering our own extension groups for Writing and Maths. Writing begins this week and our students were selected based on their in class work and start of year writing samples. 

4: Collaborative Creative Challenge
Students are working in mixed ability teams to create a team performance. We aim to showcase these at a week 11 celebration of our learning/term 1 shared lunch on Friday the 15th April. 

5: PE Hauora - Health Unit

This has been very successful with a number of students actively working toward being more active and upping their personal bests each time. In term 2 we will look at doing some whanau hauora challenges too so keep your eyes peeled on our blog for more info. If you work in the fitness, healthcare sector we would love to hear from you regarding ideas on what to teach our kids in this area so they are fit, healthy and ready to learn.

Well that's all for now but please check back each day incase there are updates. We look forward to seeing all of our Turanganui Taonga on Wednesday.

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa
Your Turanganui Teachers

Waka Ama Regatta Uawa 2016

A huge mihi to our Waka Ama paddlers who attended the Regatta in Uawa on Wednesday. Also to the parental support, you guys are amazing.

Y8 Boys Won 2 out of 2 Races - Against Uawa 1 and Te Waiau 1

Y8 Girls Won 1 out of 2 Races - Beat Mangatuna 1 and Lost to Uawa 1

Y7 Boys Won 1 out of 2 Races - Beat Te Waiu 1 and Lost to Uawa 2

Y7 Girls Won 1 out of 2 Races - Beat Uawa 2 and Lost to Uawa 1

Tri tomorrow, new tech cycle starting Wednesday

Kia ora Koutou,

There are some awesome things happening at school at the moment and your child may have come home with a new taiaha (Year 8) or pinball machine (Year 7) from Woodwork. Many of the students were proudly showing their peers their masterpieces today. We will share some examples of other completed pieces from the other tech classes as well as your childs assessment sheet via their personal blogs in the near future too.

Congratulations to Mairangi Campbell, Paige Tamatea and Attlee Waitoa who made it into the school Stage Challenge team. We are very proud of you three.

Tomorrow we have our school triathlon starting at 11am on the back field. Spectators are most welcome to come and enjoy the morning with us and we have 8 individuals competing in each gender and year level as well as two teams per gender and year level as well. Our spectators are encouraged to bring along blue things to wear to support our competitors. No face paint or body paint is allowed but ribbons, blue banners, T-Shirts streamers etc are encouraged. Good luck to all of our competitors - we will be cheering you all on. Competitors must have shoes for the bike and a helmet and a water bottle. Our competitors may bring their bikes to room 23 to store safely. 

The event times are.....

11am Year 8 Boys individual

11:10am Year 8 girls individual

11:15am Year 7 Boys Individual

11:20am Year 7 Girls Individual

11:40am Year 7 and 8 Teams Event Starts

12:30am Lunch

Paige Tamatea who was absent when the group pic was taken.

Our next wave of team leaders have been announced. These students have been helping to organise different syndicate activities and have been supporting the teachers with Room 23 at interval and lunch as well as doing lunch duty alongside the teachers. This team meet each week and are the positive role models for our team as well as spokespeople for their peers. Each week they will have a session on leadership and be able to discuss any issues arising in class and in the playground. All of our leaders for now are pictured above except for Paige Tamatea who was absent that day. We anticipate this group growing in size as there are a number of awesome students right across our team and we really appreciate the positive contributions made by these ones already. 

Upcoming events

Tuesday - School Tri 

Wednesday - Uawa Waka Ama regatta and BOP/PB Touch teams depart.

Thursday - BOP/PB touch teams return

Friday - Good Friday - School returns next Wednesday. 

Please keep checking back throughout the week as we share more results and celebrations about our representative teams for the Tairawhiti Maori Netball Reps, Waka Ama, Touch and others. 

Uawa Waka Ama Regatta 2016

A huge mihi to those students and parents who showed up to Waka Ama practice today. Big mention must go out to Matua Bruce Campbell (Mairangis Dad) for showing us the ropes and giving up your time. We would also like to thank you for loaning us the extra paddles and life Jackets needed for next weeks regatta. We are lucky to have awesome parents like yourself within our kura. Just a reminder that the regatta is next Wednesday the 23rd of March. We will be leaving Gis Int at 8.15am and returning to School at approximately 2.45pm. The regatta starts between 9.30am and 10am. Students are to bring morning tea and lunch. Students will be paddling in their Turanganui P.E gear. The weather is looking dodgy on Wednesday, so we will make the call early Wednesday morning whether we go or not. Thank you to all those parents who are also providing transport. The Herbert, Tuari, Tamanui and Kaa whanau. Nga Mihi.

Waka Ama

Thank you to those students who showed up to Waka Ama practice today. There was an awesome turn out of whanau as well. A huge mihi must go out to Matua Bruce and Koka Kiwi (Mairangi's parents) for coaching the students today and also providing extra paddles and lifejackets. Remember we have one more practice next Sunday at 12.30pm before we head to Uawa on the 23rd of March. Thanks to all the parents, papas and siblings that were out in force showing your support. Massive afternoon on our Turanganui awa. Mauriora.

Kia ora and welcome to week 7

Kia ora koutou and welcome to week 7!

Thank you all for the continued awesome support. Last week we had three classes attend sessions at the Mindlab and we were able to transport our children to and from because of our wonderful whanau. Room 21 are due to head to the Mindlab this Thursday at 12:15pm so if you are able to help them out and experience the Mindlab yourself, please email Matua Bruce - bruce.hill@gisint.school.nz or send a note to school with your child. The Mindlab is a fantastic resource for introducing our children to technology such as stop animation, coding, green screens as well as 21st century skills such as collaborative learning, problem solving and creativity. We will be carrying on with this learning in our classrooms and adding to it throughout the year. Unfortunately, due to the Mindlab limiting their accessibility to ensure attendance is equitable across all Gisborne schools, we may not be able to get there again in 2016. The Turanganui Teachers are going to source other ICT experiences for our children as we know the importance of exposing our tamariki to future thinking and learning. If you have specific skill sets in this area and would be happy to share these with our kids please make contact with your childs teacher and we will organise the best way to share these skills with our kids. We are hoping to organise a careers type expo within our team whanau and friends so will be sending out a Google Form and notice to gather your ideas and thoughts. We look forward to working with you all in the very near future. Thanks to everyone who paid their $2 for the Mindlab. If your child attended and has not yet paid, and they did not sell 2 or more donuts, they will need to bring their $2 in to their teacher as soon as possible.

Uniform

The Turanganui teachers expect all of our students to look sharp on their way to and from school as well as at school. If you are having difficulties with providing your child with some uniform then please send a note or email your childs teacher and we will help them get the right gear. All items need to be named clearly too as we have had a few things go missing and sometimes there have been no names which makes returning things very challenging. Failure to have the correct uniform or note and mufti set (For PE gear) will result in a trip to the reflection room. Self Management is one of our four key school values so we expect our children to be organised at all times. 

A few helpful uniform reminders are...

• PE gear is expected everyday - Shorts MUST BE PLAIN BLACK. Togs are also essential.
• High Top shoes are not allowed and covered shoes and jandals/sandals must be plain black. Socks should be navy blue only for girls and regulation socks for our boys.
• No nail polish is to be worn to school.
• Shorts should not be rolled up - this is an emerging trend.
• Canterbury pants are only to be worn in terms 2 and 3. 

Farewell for Matua Quentin and Announcement of our next wave of Turanganui Leaders

Last Friday we had a fantastic farewell for Matua Quentin.  

 Thank you to all of our whanau for the delicious shared lunch. We were very proud of the way the children thanked Matua Q and for the way in which they celebrated our next wave of Turanganui leaders. We will be profiling these leaders this week and will continue to add to their group over the year.

Australaisan Exam Entries - Due 24th March

If you would like your child to sit one of these extension exams, please send the money to school by the 24th March. If your child did not bring home one of the notices, or they lost theirs then let their teacher know and they will give them another one. We have a large number of year 8's currently working in the extension tech classes, our whole syndicate does extension kapa haka and sound amazing and many of our children are putting their hands up for other sporting, academic and cultural activities. We had a large contingent trial for the stage challenge on Friday too which is awesome. Many thanks to Matua Bruce Campbell who has also offered to train a group of our students for waka ama starting today at 12:30pm at the Marina. Six boys and girls from each year group have been identified to represent our syndicate at a regatta in Tolaga Bay on the 23rd March. Thanks also to Matua Puri for accompanying our children. 
 Our first lot of badges were presented at last Fridays assembly with Lil'Dre and Sonny getting theirs for being students of the week. Both boys are encouraged to wear their badges daily with pride to inspire the others to follow in their footsteps. We look forward to our Turanganui Taonga being decked in awesome leadership badges as the year progresses. Who will be awarded the next lot of badges?
Criteria for the end of year major awards will also be shared with our whanau soon so our children know what they need to do to be considered for these prestigious awards. 

Internet Safety, Devices at school and Social Media Safety

It has come to our attention that a small number of students from across the school are breaking our school internet agreements and using their devices outside of class time to take pictures and post on social media sites. These images are then attracting unfavourable comments which is one of the reasons devices are not meant to be accessed out of the class. We want to ensure that all of our students are safe. At the start of the year all Gisint students signed a clear cut BYOD/E-Learning agreement so we will be following up with any students who have broken this agreement tomorrow. We urge all parents and whanau to actively look into the language, the sites and the photo's your children are using via their social media accounts. We had a quick look over the weekend and a large number have their Facebook pages wide open, are engaging in 'Live Subscription' Sites where they either film themselves or watch others around the world which may not always contain safe material and the language some are choosing to use are not portraying them in the best light. We will be following up with some of our students in the morning however we strongly encourage parents, caregivers and whanau to check out your childrens pages (Both private and public) to ensure they are acting safely and responsibly. Following on from Jim Parsons 'Cyberbullying' sessions we are disappointed that some students are leaving themselves vulnerable. 

We will also do further lessons on digital citizenship and digital footprints in class. 

So what's on in Turanganui this week?

Monday

Normal Day 

Tuesday

Tech

Wednesday

Tech

Thursday

Room 21 to the Mindlab

Friday

Kapa Haka

Kapa Haka Extension

Assembly

Room 20 Student of the Week Award

What's happening in the near future?

School Triathlon - March 22nd

Marine Reserve Trip - Postponed until term 4

Have a go at sailing - Monday 21st to 23rd - Notices due back asap.

New Tech Cycle starts 23rd March

Uawa Waka Ama Regatta 23rd March

BOP Touch and Lake Swim 24th March

Have a wonderful week everyone and keep checking back for more updates throughout the week.

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou

Turanganui Teachers

Week 6 ahead

Kia ora koutou,

Thank you all for contributing to our Omaio Bay excursion. Although the weather was not ideal for the first two days we still managed to do some awesome team building and have fun together. All of the Turanganui teachers were most impressed with the attitudes and flexibility of our students. Without a doubt had we not been staying on a marae we would've had to have come home. Special thanks to all of our wonderful parent helpers and whanau who accompanied us, did pick ups or drop offs, donated kai and equipment. We are very appreciative of your ongoing support and we love having your children in our team. Here are a few highlights from camp.

On Wednesday morning Room 20 will be heading to the Mindlab and Room 22 will be heading there in the afternoon. Room 19 will be heading there on Thursday afternoon and Room 21 next Thursday. The cost of this educational opportunity is $2 if you did not manage to sell 2 or more donuts. Please send this money in to school as soon as possible. If you are able to assist with transportation please let your child's teacher know too. You are welcome to stay for the session and learn alongside the students or drop off and then return a couple of hours later to transport back to school. Whilst at the Mindlab we will be looking at Greenscreens, Stop Animation and Digital Storytelling. Once again, we are very appreciative of your support and look forward to sharing your childs learning in the near future.

Congratulations to Lil'Dre Waru (Room 24) and Sonny Perston (Room 22) who were our first Year 7 Student of the Week Recipients. Both boys exude our school values Respect, Integrity, Self Management and Excellence and were standouts on camp. They are both highly respected by their peers, teachers and syndicate. Tau ke korua!

This Friday we will be having a shared team lunch to thank Matua Quentin Mill for his hard work as a student teacher in our team. Matua Quentin has been an invaluable source and is highly respected by the tamariki and staff in Turanganui as well as the wider school. Could you please send a shared plate along if you are able. We will also be announcing a few more of our Tekau ma Rua leaders along with some other certificate recipients. 

Congratulations to Attlee Waitoa and Peyton Riri who represented Turanganui in the Girls Cricket team that played against Morrinsville today. Congratulations to our team who were victorious today. 

Now that we are back from camp we are all looking forward to settling into our normal school programme. Our next team excursion is a trip to the Marine Reserve on the 5th and 6th April. 

Have a great week everyone.
Turanganui Teachers