Hororata Primary School Tel (03) 3180 803 · Fax (03) 3180 682

Email: office@hororata.school.nz

http://ultranet.hororata.school.nz/

Diary Alert

TERM ONE (Began) Monday 30 January 2017

MALVERN - TRIATHLON Thursday 16 February (DARFIELD)

BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING Thursday 16 February

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES Mon 20 - Wed 22 February

MALVERN TOP TEAM Thursday 23 February (GLENTUNNEL

PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION Thursday 23 February

CELEBRATION ASSEMBLY Friday 3 March (1pm)

MIDDLE ROCK WALK/RUN/CYCLE Sunday 5 March (WINDWHISTLE)

HORORATA SWIMMING SPORTS Friday 10 March

MALVERN SWIMMING Monday 20 March

CANTERBURY DUATHLON Monday 27 March

CANTERBURY SWIMMING Thursday 6 April

AUTUMN FESTIVAL Thursday 13 April

TERM ONE ENDS Thursday 13 April

EMERGENCY CONTACTS…

Please ring the school on ph. 318 0803 and listen to the answerphone message. In the event of an emergency contact the Principal at ph. 027 229 1163

Alternatively, you could go to our new , Parent Teacher Calendar (PTC) http://www.parentteachercalendar.co.nz/

Newsflash…

PARENT TEACHER ASSN MEETING (PTA)

An invitation is extended to all to come along to the PTA meeting which has been scheduled for Thursday 23 February 2017, 7.30pm here at the school. This will precede the Annual General Meeting which will be held during March. Everyone is encouraged to attend.

HORORATA IS AN ACTIVE SCHOOL

Hororata pupils are urged to take an active part in their lives. Be it swimming, running or on any of the sporting courts or fields. Not only through sporting interests they are also encouraged to be active in their classrooms by being responsible for their own learning and taking an active interest all around.

AND THE BEEP GOES ON...

What considerable interest is taken at the beginning of the year with Mr G conducting the start of year Beep test for all pupils from Years 4-6. The test is carried on out throughout the year and comparisons are made. Generally the childrens scores improve and already there have been impressive inroads made.

ROUND AND ROUND THE WOBBLY TRACK

All Years 1-3 children run the wobbly track, some once, some twice, some thrice. Almost a hundred percent of our school ran the track without a stop. Looking forward to our cross country season already but, it also adds to our fabulous fitness for the swimming season.

JUBILEE STEERING COMMITTEE

Thank you to the people who ventured forthwith to assist with the 2020 Jubilee Celebrations. The school have very exciting plans to follow during 2020. A follow up meeting will be held either Term One or Term Two.

The Hororata Flyer Hororata Primary School’s Official Newsletter (07.02.2017)

Kia ora Koutou

Quote of the week… ‘Speed without accuracy is wasted’ - Mr G

Welcome back to what promises to be another action packed year in the life of our school. A year that will see us extend upon our reputation for strong teaching and learning programmes; a year that will see us welcome many new students and families into our lives and a year that will see us our learners achieve success across the region.

Let me introduce our team… Marty Gameson (Mr G) – Yr 4-6 teacher (Tui), Head Teacher, Bus Controller; Julia Raybould - Yr 0-1 teacher (Piwakawaka), Deputy Principal, Literacy Leader; Megan Stewart - Yr 2-4 teacher (Kea), Numeracy & e-Learning Leader; Amanda Cullen – Yr 3-4 teacher (Kakapo); STEAM Leader; Jenni Foster - Yr 4-6 teacher (Tui), Special Education Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO); Dianne Woodward – Reading Recovery Teacher (Kiwi); Mrs Penny Oliver (Mrs O) - my ‘right hand woman’ and our secretary; Maureen Chatterton – teacher aide (Piwakawaka); Anne Merriman - our Cleaner; Dee Oliver our Caretaker and Bridget Parsons our Swimming Pool Caretaker… Welcome back team; buckle in for what is going to be a very busy year!

Active Culture… Our Active Culture encourages our children to make responsible choices for how they use their free time.

School Swimming… As part of our Active Schools’ Programme, proudly sponsored Min Cookson and PGG Wrigthsons, Christina Clarkson has been employed as an Aquatics Coach to work with small groups of students in ability grouped swimming programme. The programme beginning Wednesday 1 February 2017 will continue on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays until the end of the swimming season. Children are encouraged to bring their togs and towels everyday.

Hororata Harriers… This year the Harriers will be focusing on preparing for the upcoming regional Duathlons, Triathlons and Fun Runs. Our first big event is the Malvern Primary Schools’ Triathlon to be held on Thursday 16 February 2017, in Darfield. We had planned to take part in the Weetbix TRYathlon. Unfortunately this year there is no place for our athletes as it has been over-subscribed. As an alternative we will be holding our own TRYathlon here at school …. Watch this space!

Learning Culture…

Our Learning Culture encourages our children to ‘Think outside the box’; to use flexibility, creativity, innovation, and wisdom to solve every day problems.

Classroom Stationery… As per 2016 we are providing Stationery Packs for all students. Our aim is to get consistency with material used across the school and provide a seamless supply of the correct material in classes. Students should have their full stationery packs by the end of the second week. Parents are invited to cover and name stationery items and are required to purchase individual reading folders.

Young Leaders… Bus Monitors are appointed each year to assist me with the management of student Health & Safety on the school buses. Monitors are my eyes and ears, reporting inappropriate and dangerous behaviour on the buses. The following students have been selected as Bus Monitors for 2017: Poppy Freeman, Robert Harris (Downs Rd); Kaiya Amorante, Cameron Loveridge (Te Pirita); Ayla Abraham, Xavier Loos, (Karanga).

Haere Mai… I would like welcome the following new faces to our school: Benson McCorkindale, Mathew Tuer (Piwakawaka) and George Daly (Tui). Sadly, we farewell Jackson Blair-Monk, Emily and Niamh Wilding, and their respective families from our school. Thank you for the contribution you have made to our school during your time here.

Finally, over the past few years a small group of Hororata students have been involved in the weekly Malvern Kapa Haka Group. This group co-ordinated by Paula Buechele, travelled each week (parent transport) to Kirwee to meet with other students from across Malvern to learn about tikanga Maori and perform Kapa Haka. I am pleased to report that we have been able to secure Kaiako Anton McClean (Teacher) again this year. Our students will be joined by students from Greendale, Glentunnel, Sheffield, Springfield and Windwhistle schools on Friday mornings (11:45am-12:45pm).

If you would like your child to be part of the Malvern Kapa Haka Group, please forward their name(s) to me as soon as possible (starts this week).

Thanks for supporting our school

Marty Gameson (Principal)

Piwakawaka (Yrs 0-2) Miss Raybould

Hi everyone Welcome to a new year. Just a few notes about Piwi at the moment. Reading - All children should be bringing home a reading book each night, however they are only able to bring one home if they have their book bag and have returned the previous day's book. I write the date in their notebook and it would be greatly appreciated if you could write the title of the book beside it. They have sight words to learn pasted in their notebook and some children will have special words to focus on each week. Any help you can give to help your child learn these words will be hugely beneficial to their progress. Library day for us is Tuesdays - although sometimes this does not happen until later in week. Books do need to go home in a their large library book bag. This helps protect the books. We are loving swimming on those hot days! so please bring swimming togs each day as the weather can be quite changeable and we will swim if possible. Julia

Kakapo (Yrs 1-2) Ms Cullen Hello to all, Welcome back to a new term and a new classroom. I am very excited to be back in my old classroom and what a huge room it is lots of room for a class full of boys and enough space for the girls to have their very own table. It is going to take a little while for the kids and teachers to get used to the new routine in the morning and I am sorry to say we will probably have a lot of things left behind until the kids get their heads around the new timetable We have started our swimming assessment this week and after next week we will be swimming every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Christina, Tues and Thurs also please remember those togs. Keep an eye on those reading folders it's where you'll find most of the important information that your kids will not remember. My door is always open. Hope to catch up with you all soon Ka kite ano Amanda

Kea (Yrs 2-4) Miss Stewart Hello all and welcome to 2017! We have spent the last week getting to know each other in Kea and this week we will be practising our daily routines. We are a busy bunch at Hororata and over the next few weeks we have some events on: Swimming lessons are starting this week so make sure togs and towels are bought to school daily. We also have the ASB Get Wise programme this week and Harold from Life Education visiting soon too! We have also been busy learning about the Treaty of Waitangi and also about how to collect data to make a graph. Megan

Tui (Yrs 4-6) Mrs Foster

Hi Everyone Wow didn’t those holidays fly by. I hope you all had a wonderful break and managed to get away and also had a fabulous long weekend. It is lovely seeing all the children again, it always surprises me how much they have grown over such a short time. This week we have been settling in and learning the ropes. Thank you to those parents who have already covered books and got their child sorted with their stationary that they need. It was great today when we went to the library today and lots of children had their book bags. I am really looking forward to this year we have lots on and I think it is going to be a great year. Cheers Jenni

PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION

The School Canteen

American Hot Dog $2.00

Mince Pies $2.00

Cookie Time $1.00

Please ensure orders are written on an envelope and handed into the school office prior to the start of a Friday school day.

A meeting date for all interested people has been set for

THURSDAY 23 FEBRUARY 2017

7.30pm in the School Library.

At this first meeting for 2017 a date will be selected for the Annual General Meeting of the Hororata Primary School Parent Teacher Association (PTA), Lucy is also looking for a positive response from interested people to step forward as Office Bearers, namely President. So, as this is a friendly position with areas of expertise mainly in delegating tasks please consider standing.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

2017 Donation/Activity Fee Update:

Donations and Activity Fees are most welcome to be paid. Accounts may be made term-by-term or annually.

Payment by instalment is perfectly acceptable.

Bank Account for the Hororata Primary School Board of Trustees is ASB 123441:0019878:00

HOME EDUCATING IN HORORATA Nicki Inch, who lives in the Hororata Township has started up her own business of home educating in Hororata. Nicki is a former Hororata Primary School student and has a wealth of experience in dealing with children from babies through to Primary School children.

Nicki is a qualified, professional nanny. Her hours are open from

Monday to Friday 7am to 5.30pm.

Contact Nicki on 03 318 0093 or 0212111605 for further particulars.

WANTED The school are always on the lookout for pre-worn school polo tops or hoodies. We offer $20.00 for these and we can usually sell them on.

If you would prefer, please advise uniforms you would like to sell and we will advertise them on your behalf or pass on to you who is looking for a pre-used top. Thank you.

COAST-TO-COAST All the best to Mike Henriksen who is competing in the one day event of the upcoming weekends Coast-to-Coast. Great advantage points are at the Waimak Bridge site or further up. We are rather proud of Mike for training so hard to give this a go.

STANDING OUT IN THE CROWD

Our children achieve much success in the classrooms and sports fields of Canterbury every year. To help our kids and school stand out in the crowd, our school has a smart school uniform. The uniform consists of the following items:

Black Polo shirt branded with gold flash along both sides, a red embroidered rata on the left chest and gold text printed front and back

Plain unbranded black shorts, trousers, track pants, leggings or skirt

Black school branded Hoodie

Bucket hat (provided by school)

Safety Vest (provided by school)

We appreciate that the set uniform for some may not be enough to keep them warm. The trend appears to be for children to wear thermals or the likes under their uniforms or addition jerseys/sweatshirts over top. Under and over garments should be plain, unbranded and black.

We are proud of our school; our uniform and the children and staff represent us. Our uniform plays a small part in bringing our community together as one and making those outside of our community stop and notice the great things we achieve.

It is important to uphold strong standards

for how we represent ourselves.

Our uniform, is unique to our school and represents the heritage of this area with it’s strong ties to gold, black and the red of the Rata.

We want our kids to wear the uniform with PRIDE and rely on parents to help children make the right choices at home about what they are wearing to compliment the uniform… plain,

unbranded and black.

Thanks for supporting our school

EXTRA FOR FOUR YEAR OLDS Every Friday at school from 9.00am the senior leaders of the school run a session especially designed for late 3 year olds and 4 year olds to come along to. Miss Raybould, our teacher for Years 0-2, organises the weekly lessons with exciting things for pre-schoolers to do. It is an extremely valuable session for our pre-schoolers to attend as it gives them the benefits of what to do when they turn five and are ready for school.

TWINKLE TOTS The Parish of St John (Hororata) host a morning of music and dance at the Hororata Primary School every Wednesday morning. This session is held in the School Library and starts at 9.30am. Lucy and Jenni who run the session invite parents and their pre-schoolers, no matter what age, to come along to join in the fun. The sessions last for an hour and everyone has so much fun. See you there. Contact Lucy on 318 0718

SUPPORTING OUR SCHOOL Schools are not about bricks and mortar, library books, laptops and sandpit toys. Schools are about the people. The people of Hororata are our school’s greatest asset. Unfortunately, although we all know that school are about the people, experience tells me that it is often the same small group of people do all the volunteer work, respond to surveys, or attend meetings… Parents, teachers and most importantly, children are missing out!

Here are some ways you can help our school.

Join the team… The Parent Teacher Association (PTA) provides outstanding support for the children, teachers and families of Hororata Primary School. Our school relies heavily upon the P.T.A to supplement the school’s annual funding entitlement. Being a part of PTA not only contributes to our school, but also helps to connect you with other parents and community members.

Share your time and your talents… Teachers often need parent volunteers to help with small group activities, reading to children or working with children during writing or at the computer. Do you have the time to work alongside our teachers to make a difference in the education of our children?

Get out your green thumb… Have you noticed that the school grounds could use some work? Talk to the principal about supplementing the great work undertaken by our grounds-person around the school. A little digging here and a little weeding there will make a big difference everywhere!

Get on board … Attend a Board meeting and get an insight into how the school board makes decisions that affect our school. Learn more about the challenges and rewards associated with being on the Board of Trustees.

Spotlight Piwakawaka

Miss Raybould asked her Piwakawaka children what they would like to be when they are older:

They wrote When I grown up I want to be a…

Policeman Ayden

In the Army Benson

A teacher Billie

A Baker Caitlin

A Farmer C.J.

A Policeman Hunter

A Farmer Lance

A Baker Lexi

A Ballerina Lilly

A Cook Matthew K

A Farmer Matthew T

A Wrestler Oliver L

A Wrestler Oliver T

A Teacher Trinity

KEEPING OURSELVES SAFE Safety vests are a compulsory part of the Hororata Primary School uniform for all students. All students in transit between home and school must wear the school’s safety vest, including pedestrians and all modes of motorised and non-motorised transport. School Hats have been issued to each child at the beginning of the year and are a compulsory part of our uniform. All hats have been individually named, should not be shared and remain at school. Dur-ing the summer months all children will sit in a shaded area for morn-ing tea and lunch. Where shade is unavailable in the lunch area, other suitable sites throughout the school will be used at the discre-tion of the Duty Teacher. The school operates a ‘NO HAT, NO PLAY’ policy. If a child loses or misplaces their hat, they will be di-rected to play in a shaded area of the playground.