Welcome to 2014!

Dear Parents and Caregivers,     

                                                                            

Welcome back to a new school year. I hope that you and your family have had a good holiday. The highlight of my holiday was a climb up to Mueller Hut near Mount Cook with my husband Ralph and my daughter June last week.

The mountains and glaciers were stunning, well worth the1800 steps up to the hut, and the knee-shattering climb (or shall I say, crawl) down.

It is always exciting to start Term 1 with a new class. I hope that your child is excited about coming back to school, even if it means getting up early again… 

Apart from welcoming the children who are coming to the senior school for the first time, I would also extend a warm welcome to Lauriann who joins us from Ireland, and Ava whom a lot of us already know through Kiwisport.

This year’s overarching focus is sustainability.  The learning area this term is health. Our inquiry will lead us to learn about how we can lead a sustainable lifestyle, ie food/nutrition, physical activity, relationships with others and physical safety.
We will be spending the first few weeks getting to know each other and creating a positive classroom learning environment.

Stationery

You can buy stationery packs at the office. If you still have items from last year (rulers, colouring pencils etc.) that you don’t need to purchase, you can tell Lenore or Kirsten at the office, and they can take them out of the box. 
Can you make sure all stationery is named please, including each coloured pencil. If your child still has a reading folder and/or spell-write booklet at home could they please bring it back as well. Thank you.

Swimming

From tomorrow on, we will be swimming every day at 10.30 am, weather permitting. Please make sure that your child has his/her togs every day, even if the weather does not look promising in the morning. If your child is unable to swim, could you please send a note along. Thank you. 

Class Dojo

Class Dojo is a web-based behaviour management system that I would like to trial in Ruma Kakapo this term. It looks appealing to children and sounds exciting to use. 

Attached you will find a note with a login to a website that allows you access to your child’s report. You can select to receive a daily report about your child’s behaviour. Children have their own login to change their avatar and look at their report. Please note that only you and I will be able to see your child’s report, nobody else. If you are unable to access the internet at home, you are most welcome to use our classroom computers. It would be great if you could send the attached slip back to school as soon as possible.

Thank you.

I would love to meet you (again) sometime in the next couple of weeks. Please feel free to pop in any time to introduce yourself. You are always welcome to come in and see your child ‘at work’.

Have a great first week,

Annie Rehmann