We have welcomed Daytona to Marama recently. As she is a year 8 sadly she will only be with us for a short time, we hope she enjoys being part of our team.
Last night the opening of Our Fibre Exhibition was held at the Old Post Office. The exhibition will continue for the next two weeks so you have an opportunity to view the artworks created by our Year 6, 7and 8 students. Fleur Woods has been working with the students since February thanks to a successful application to Creatives in Schools. Fleur has shared her passion for stitch and our students have shown real determination to achieve an artwork thats tells a personal story.
You may have seen that you can now access a couple of comments on your child’s progress in Reading and General through the @ School App. Check out the Spotlight or Learning Space Tabs. We have purposely written the comments directly to your child as we believe any feedback should be for them in the first instance as they take responsibility for their learning. Most students will have also shared their voice in relation to our Learning Light Value, Responsibility and this will be found in the same tabs. Rachael’s class have not done this as unfortunately she has been on leave this past week. Some senior students may have a Mathematics comment too as Toby and Heidi have been trialling adding some evidence to a comment with a small group. Next term you will continue to receive regular comments across all our Learning Lights via this App.
We will hold Student Led Conferences in Week Three of next term. So please keep Wednesday 5th August free for this.
Our building work has had a few hiccups due the weather recently and some products being held up due to the lockdown. It may still be possible to have our opening of these spaces at the end of our first week back, but we may need to be flexible on this. Our painting contractors will be in next week to undertake their annual touch up and repaint of any exterior areas that need attention. Kidz Klub Holiday Programme will be in Marama over these holidays.
Speaking of holidays, today sees the end of a very strange term. We are looking forward to returning next term to school as we usually know it. I am encouraging my team to have a real break from school over the next two weeks. The last holidays were thrust upon them and were spent preparing for ‘Distance Learning’ a concept none of us had contemplated before. Though this has officially been a 12 week term it has in reality been 22 weeks with a very weird period in the midst of it!
Next term, we have several interschool sporting opportunities on the calendar. Vanessa will be in to teach tennis skills, we host the annual Year 7&8 Speech Competition, we have our annual performance by New Zealand Playhouse scheduled and we have our two weeks of swimming lessons at the ASB Aquatic Centre booked for later in the term… it should be another good one…oh and our School Theme, ‘Imagine and Create ‘is going to have an e-learning focus. Using e-learning tools to both enhance our learning and /or produce our learning.
Have a great break everyone.
Noho ora mai
Grant & the team at Upper Moutere School