Welcome to Week 2

Kia ora whanau,

We had a fantastic first week back at school and already our school calendar is filling up quickly.

Congratulations to all of our tamariki who competed in their respective finals or games in the weekend. Many of the Turanganui teachers popped down to Rugby Park on Saturday to check out the action and it was neat to see so many of our awesome children on the field. Well done!

A few highlights from our first week back at school

Mathletics...holiday..what holiday? so many Turanganui kids kept up with their maths over the break. We will continue to monitor and celebrate each week. Well done to our syndicate leaders for week 1!

Helping Koka Tarn to dye room 16's harakeke flowers that they made at Focused Friday

McKenzie, Koka Tarn, Hurene, Taine and Lena-Marie

Wananga with Papa Pura at last Fridays kapa haka extension session.

Our school and syndicate send our aroha and sympathy to the Wehi whanau on the passing of Koro Bub Wehi. Every Friday our tamariki are proud to learn and sing waiata that he composed. We are very sad to hear of his passing and will be sending a representative roopu out to Waihirere on behalf of the school.  Arohanui to Papa Pura and Koka T as well. 

Room 20 boys - Maths in action - Statistics

Woodwork Pinball Master Piece - Well done Anna Manuel

Room 19 and Koka Jodie hard at work last week and some of their awesome 'Cry of the Taniwha' reviews and art work. 

Room 21 and Matua Bruce just settling in to their morning Maths session..lots of quality learning taking place. Our Turanganui classes have started the term off with a Statistics unit for maths. We had a lot of great results last term and will be continuing to monitor our Mathletics improvements each week and celebrating at team assembly and on room 22's windows. Practise makes permanent and the children who are investing extra time are seeing huge improvements with their learning. 

Eve and Nathania working on their Olympics Reading tasks together.

Room 22 playing Ki o Rahi. Thanks to Hurene and Tamati who taught the class how to play. This week Matua Shane from Turanga Health will be in to work with Koka Ana, Koka Jodie and the Tekau ma Rua around Takaaro Tawhito. Our Tekau ma Rua will then be sent around the school to offer the other classes an opportunity to learn these games with them as the teachers. 

Last week we started our Kaitiaki unit off with a syndicate Wananga lead by Matua Puri in room 19. Our children are all mixed into six groups and will spend two consecutive lessons with each Turanganui teacher on a different kaupapa based around Kaitiakitanga. We are very keen to get whanau on board and will use the information gathered from our consultation forms and conversations to share your skills with our children. Next week each class will also be picked up to head up to Titirangi (Kaiti Hill) to assist with planting new native trees up there. A separate panui will come home in the next couple of days with all the info you need. Thank you to Koka Trudi Ngawhare for offering this to us. We are very keen to give back to the community and assist where possible so please get in contact if you have more suggestions for us. 

Life Education 

Room 22 completed their three life education sessions last week and covered the brain, cyberbullying and making decisions. Each child also receives a workbook to reinforce the learning done in these sessions. The rest of Turanganui will complete their three sessions over the next two weeks.

You may have seen on Facebook that we were lucky to host Miss Amber Church in room 19 last Tuesday. Miss Church departs for Rio at 9:30am in the morning and she delivered a hugely inspirational speech to our students. Some of her key messages were to listen to advice, to work hard, to not let your location or situation affect your desire to achieve your goals, to use negative comments from those who say you can't do something to drive you, to always remember where you are from. We wish Miss Church a safe and prosperous trip and will be looking out for her in the opening ceremony...she showed us her stylish outfits that she has to wear for official duty!

Turanganui Heritage Trails with Turanga Health

In week 4 two of our classes will begin three sessions around the Turanganui Heritage Trails. These trails are designed to increase physical participation and knowledge around the history of our area. These will be fantastic for building on the knowledge acquired at the start of the year with our Tairawhiti Museum 'Our Place' lessons. Turanga Health will pick each class up and return them to school at the end of the block. All students need covered shoes to protect their feet. We are very grateful to Turanga Health for supporting our tamariki again. 

Room 20 girls hard at work on their reading 

What's on in Turanganui this week?

Monday

• Maths Extension

Tuesday

• Australaisan English Exam

Wednesday

• Attitude Presentations Click here for attitude information

Thursday

• BOP/PB Winter Tournament
• Tech

Friday

• Assembly
• BOP/PB Winter Tournament

Things on the horizon

• Kaiti Hill Tree Planting
• Turanganui Heritage Trails - with Turanga Health
• Maths Week - Next Week
• Olympics Week - Next Week
• Science and Technology Fair
• Action Week - Out of town payments due 2nd September
• Variety Show
• ERO visit week 4

Good luck to all of our Turanganui Taonga who are heading to Tauranga this Thursday and Friday for the Winter Tournament. We hope you all have a safe and enjoyable trip. 

Kia ora koutou and welcome to term 3

Kia ora everyone,

We hope you all had a lovely holiday with your children and recharged your batteries in time for term 3. This is a short 9 week term which culminates in week 9 with our much anticipated Action Week. We have students heading to Fiji, Auckland, Mt Ruapehu, Waikato, Rotorua and Taupo as well as some awesome activities back here at home. Thank you for supporting our children with these awesome experiences - it will be a fantastic way to end another busy term at Gisint. 

Congratulations to all of our students who completed the cross country at the end of last term. All of the Turanganui teachers were extremely proud of everybody's participation and seeing our RISE and team values in play. 

Congratulations also to Mairangi Campbell who represented room 24 with pride in our school speech finals. Mairangi is an extremely talented young man and his speech on celebrities had everyone in hysterics. Tau ke koe Mairangi!

Well done to Paige Tamatea who was awarded the Year 7 Student of the Week award on the final Friday. Paige is a lovely role model who strives for excellence in all areas. She is a popular member of her classroom and our team. Kei runga noa atu koe Paige.

Well done also to all of our Turanganui students who earned a leadership badge and had it presented at our final assembly for term 2. Pictured above are our year 7 recipients with Mr Hooper and Mr Udall. 

On the last Friday of term 2 Matua Josh Wharehinga came in to speak to our year 7's about the great migration. The year 8's had already listened to this interesting korero the week before. We always love having our whanau and friends come in and share their knowledge with our children. Tomorrow every Gisint child will be bringing home a consultation survey that will help us to identify what we are doing well and what we can improve on for the benefit of our children. The MOE requires schools to consult annually with our Maori community so if your child is of Maori descent they will receive the same survey but there will be an extra question asking what Iwi they affiliate to.  It would be most appreciated if these could be returned to room 22 by this Friday. We are aiming for a 100% return rate. We will share the summaries in the near future.

Maori consultation survey

Non Maori Student Consultation Survey

Rona and the Moon - Room 20 Production

Thank you to Matua Puri, Matua Walter and all of the room 20 students who put on a wonderful adaptation of the myth 'Rona and the Moon'. The students put a more modern twist on this traditional kiwi legend and it was well received by the rest of the syndicate. Awesome work again room 20!

Well done to our awesome year 8 Mako Maths students who made positive improvements with their results. Mrs Barclay came to present her special certificates to our children. She was very proud of their improvements too. 

The year 7 group will start this term and Mrs Barclay has identified a handful of year 7 students to work in this area. Maths week is in week 3 of this term so we are going to get in as much practise as we can.

We had a lovely visit from Koka Kat and Emmi during our final week and hope to see more of them both this term too. 

A few brief reminders to prepare for tomorrow.

• Canterbury track pants may still be worn during term 3 with the correct shoes or shorts if you prefer. 
• Turanganui students have tech tomorrow - Year 8's First Block and Year 7's Last Block.
• Winter Tournament - Next Week
• Consultation Surveys

We look forward to sharing more updates with you all throughout the week. 

The final week of Term 2 is here!

Kia ora koutou,

Nau mai, haere mai ki Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori!

Throughout the week there will be various challenges held through our daily notices and syndicate to encourage the use of Te Reo Maori however we like to celebrate Te Reo Maori every week as it is a part of what makes every New Zealander unique in this big world of ours.

It was great to see so many of our Turanganui whanau at Rugby Park on Friday supporting our Turanganui Matua along with Mr Udall, Mr Hart, Mr Barclay, Mr Notting and Mr Hooper. Thank you for braving the chilly weather to cheer our MiE (Men in Education) along! All of the Turanganui teachers along with Mr Udall and the other MiE were so proud of our kapa haka extension roopu and Matariki Kaa for the warm welcome and discipline shown to our manuhiri at the powhiri. Well done also to our main kaea last Friday Taimana Teneti, Jade Vercoe and Skye Maurirere. Footage of the powhiri can be viewed on our school Facebook page. 

Our boys showcasing their learning that they have been doing in Mau Rakau each week. It was great for our boys to put their learning into real life practise.

Mathletics Leaderboard Week 10

Speech Finals

Well done to the following Turanganui students who made it through to the school semi finals last week. 

Terina Maraki

Daniel Lee

Alyssa Herbert

Amelia Pasikala

Kia Manuel

Attlee Waitoa

McKenzie Pepere

Paige Tamatea

Hayley Ahu

Taine Chesley-Pirini

Mairangi Campbell

Monaro Haenga

 We congratulate and wish Mairangi Campbell all the best for the School Finals being held in the school hall this Thursday evening. Mairangi can be seen in the centre of the picture below. Spectators are warmly invited to come along. 

Poi Making

While our boys have been hard at work learning mau rakau the ladies have been making poi to use in Kapa Haka extension and to use in a collaborative performance that we will showcase next term. Here a few pics from our session last week - we have 6 stations and each group were responsible for a different aspect of quality control. We had shapers, weavers, plaiters, threaders, plastic bag technicians and overall quality control officers. 

Our very first 100% finished poi!

BOP/PB Rugby Tournament Team

Congratulations to the following students who have made the team to travel to Tauranga next term. We are very proud of the 12 boys and 2 girls from Turanganui who made the cut. 

What's on this week?

Monday

Tekau ma Rua hui

Action Week Meetings @1pm

Donut orders and money must be in to room 22 today - $2 each or 12 for $20 - See flavours below.

Tuesday

Year 7's have tech

Year 8 Mau Rakau first block

Staff vs students Netball @lunch

IKAN Maths Testing

PAT Science Test catch ups 9am Room 22

Wednesday

Turanganui Donut Day Deliveries

Year 7 and Year 8 Tech

Staff vs Students Rugby @Lunch

Thursday

Turanganui Green Card - The BFG/Finding Dory - $10

Ultimate Game @The YMCA - 50 cents
Year 8 Tech
School Speech Finals in the hall

Staff vs Students Soccer @Lunch

Friday

Final Day of Term 2

Room 24 Student of the Week Award

School Cross Country - Our students will be competing in the individual and team events. Please see times and information regarding team colours below. Please come along and support our children if you are free.

Update on Oliver

Rachel and Oliver made it to Boston and are doing a bit of exploring around the city before they meet with different specialists. We will keep you updated.

Maori Consultation Survey

Click here to complete the Maori Consulation survey online

All schools are obliged to consult with our Maori community on a regular basis. We are very keen to hear how we can continue to improve for you and your children. It would be most appreciated if we could get these back to school by the end of the week so we can look at implementing your ideas in the future. If you have any patai regarding this survey please make contact with me and I will get back to you as soon as possible but thank you all in advance for helping us to grow for the benefit of our tamariki. 

Nga mihi - Ana Devery - ana.devery@gisint.school.nz

Finally, have a wonderful week and a huge mihi to you all for the continued support. We would like to have a lot of parent involvement in term 3 so keep an eye on our blog and for panui about up and coming events. We hope to see lots of you this week especially at Friday's cross country event but if we don't have a very safe and enjoyable two week break and we will see you all on Monday 25th July.

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa

Your Turanganui Kaiako