The final week of term 1 is here...thank you for your ongoing support!

Kia ora koutou,

The final week of term one has arrived and we are looking forward to celebrating your child's all round progress at this week's learning conferences. Your child's teacher will be sending home a confirmation of your time today or tomorrow if they have not done so already. We are really looking forward to seeing you all. A friendly reminder that school is not closed on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon and that supervision will be provided by our tech teachers for anyone who does not have parental permission to leave school at 12:30pm. Buses will run at their normal time of 3pm and a school notice will come home tomorrow outlining all of this information.

Last Friday we visited the Tairawhiti Museum to visit the C Company house to prepare us for our school ceremony taking place at 11am tomorrow in the hall. Whanau are most welcome to attend. There are poppies for sale in our school office for a gold coin donation if you, or your child would like one to wear tomorrow. 

The children shared their learning from Friday when they got back to school and the highlight for many was seeing their surnames on the wall. We hope that they came home and asked questions about how they were connected to these soldiers if they did not know already. We spoke to the children prior to leaving about the 'Price of Citizenship' and how proud they should be of their whanau who served. We are sure because of this pre visit, tomorrows special school ceremony will have greater significance to them. Many thanks to Mr Hart for the behind the scenes work for this ceremony and to Papa Pura for coming in to lead the National Anthem and Haka.

Many thanks to Koka Jodie for running two extension writing lessons for approximately 30 of our students. These students were selected based on their persuasive writing essays and they will be sharing their learning with our team tomorrow morning at team hui. We will be planning further extension  activities during the holidays around Reading, Maths, PE, ICT, Leadership, Science and Art using the expertise of our Turanganui teachers and are offering these across all curriculum areas as we recognise that excellence does not only fall under reading, writing and maths. Our aim is to develop the leadership in these students by teaching them  specific skills that they will then share with their  classmates ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities to learn.

On Friday we also enjoyed some games and pizzas as a part of our Turanganui green card day. Thank you to Matua Richard McClutchie for coming down to support us and carrying some gear back to school for us in his vehicle.

Last week the out of town action week choices were sent home and a lot of awesome self managing students have already returned them. Could you please ensure that these forms are signed by a whanau member and that the application is filled out thoroughly. Many of the trips are very popular so it makes Mr Udall's job a lot easier if children have really identified why they deserve to be selected to travel out of town. There are a number of really neat Gisborne based activities that will be distributed next term as your child does not have to go away. All out of town forms must be returned by this Friday.

Turanganui End of Term Celebration 

Please come along to our school kapa haka extension class this Friday in the hall from 10am to see a few of the items we have been learning with Papa Pura, to see some of our collaborative tasks for term 1, to celebrate our students and enjoy a shared brunch together. You are welcome to come for as long or as short a time as you can. We anticipate everything being finished by 11:45am.

There are a number of very important things happening at Gisint this week.....

Monday

• Turanganui Tech - Year 8's 1st Year 7's 3rd Block
• ANZAC Day Remembrance Service - 11am in the hall

Tuesday

• School Photo's - Class and Individuals
• Learning conferences 3pm

Wednesday

• Learning conferences 1pm

Thursday

• Learning conferences 1pm for some classes

Friday

• Last day of term
• Turanganui end of term celebration and invitation to whanau to experience kapa haka extension
• Lawn Bowls
• Surfing
• Extension Classes
• Stage Challenge
• Kapa Haka
• School finishes at 3pm
• Assemblies

Congratulations to our touch students who represented Gisint with pride last week. All touch representatives were awarded their leadership badges at assembly on Friday afternoon and are encouraged to wear these to school each day with pride. All Turanganui students of the week are encouraged to do the same and be proud of your achievements - We are definitely proud of you all!

A big congratulations also to Sonny Perston, Dakora Tihore, Oliver Lodewyk and Mason Tuari who represented our school at the Special Olympics. All of these students came back with an assortment of awards and are pictured here being acknowledged by our syndicate. Koka Sam and Koka Kat were very proud of our students. Unfortunately, Oliver had already gone home when this was taken. 

Last week we had a welcome at school for Matua Quentin Mill, Matua Wayne Ensor and 6 of their  colleagues from Te Wananga o Aotearoa. The Wananga came in to spend the block with our Tekau ma Rua leaders and their focus was on further developing their leadership skills. All of the Tekau ma Rua leaders thoroughly enjoyed this experience and look forward to a continued relationship with Matua Quentin, Matua Wayne and Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Our next lot of Tekau ma Rua leaders are going to be announced tomorrow and these students will be travelling to Wellington in June for the All Blacks vs Wales game along with a trip to Te Papa and having brunch with a number of influential people who are excelling in their chosen field. We will announce our next wave of leaders in tomorrow's blog entry. 

Congratulations to Carlos Hihi for an outstanding fight in the Ihi a Tu fights held at the YMCA. Carlos in his usual humble manner fought with determination and was then gracious in defeat. We were all very proud of you Los! 

Congratulations also to our syndicate Mums and Dad's Koka Richelle Tarsau, Koka Karyn Jamieson and Matua Daryn White who represented Gisborne with pride in their respective events. The tag team event was awesome to watch and we spotted a lot of Turanganui students in the audience being inspired by you all. 

We have a large proportion of students currently trialling for various teams and events in and around the school. We pride ourselves at Gisint on the number of opportunities on offer to our kids - It will definitely be a neat thing to share exactly how your child is going with this at this week's learning conferences. Please remember that you are able to check what is being offered at home via your childs Google Account. Get them to see their teacher if they are not quite sure how to access these. 

Have a great week everyone and we will see you at the learning conferences or at Friday's team celebration. Thank you all for the continued support and encouragement. We hope to work with our whanau a lot next term with our Hauora unit so would love your ideas and for you to share your expertise at this week's learning conferences.  

Finally, there are a number of uniform items that have been misplaced or are missing. Could you please have a thorough check at home and return anything that is not your childs to school tomorrow. There are still a number of children with the incorrect PE gear - this needs to come to school everyday even if it looks like rain. 

Nga mihi

Your Turanganui Teachers