PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGEIt is the last day of March already and this is thelast newsletter for the term. Week 11 will be prettyhectic with tournament and I can not see myselfbeing anywhere near my desk for most of it.

Congratulations to Rowan, Abby B andBrooke who represented KAS at the BullerAthletics last week. I will not say too much aboutthat as Abby and Brooke have included a write-upin the Primary News section.

Well done to the entire Karameacommunity for coming to the party by providingspace in their homes for the 120 visitors that willdescend on Karamea in less than two weeks.There are a few families who have agreed to take4,5,6 and even 9 billets. Thank you once again.

Next week the school farewells a familythat have been a big part of the Karameacommunity and the school over the last 4 and a bityears. Fabienne, Sam, Leila and Naomi will bereturning to Switzerland next week to join Raoul.Bon voyage.

This week I am happy to confirm the permanentappointment of Phoebe van der Pol.

Hi my name is Phoebe van der Pol and I am thenew Year 5 & 6 PE and Health, and the Year 9and 10 Maths and Science teacher. This is my firstyear teaching at a school. Last year I was theeducator at Natureland Zoo in Nelson. Before thisjob, I worked for NIWA, National Institute of Water& Atmospheric Research, as an EcologyTechnician.

My qualifications include a GraduateDiploma in Secondary Education through theCanterbury University and a Bachelor of Sciencein Marine Biology through Victoria University.Currently I am studying extramural towards aMasters in Conservation Biology so I can continueto learn and research New Zealand's naturalenvironment. I enjoy being and working in theoutdoors. My hobbies involve tramping, cavingand diving. I have volunteered for the Departmentof Conservation, Kea Conservation Trust, KaroriWildlife Sanctuary and the Waimarama BrookSanctuary. I have been involved in weta tracking,insect collecting, bird counting and catching(tagging) and predator control (trapping).

I’m passionate about teaching youngpeople about the environment. I hope to makethem more aware of what is going on in the worldand to become actively involved.

Rowan, Sami and Laylah with the “money board”which raised $726.50 towards the Canterburyearthquake Red Cross appeal.

FROM THE PRIMARY TEAM

UGLY SHAKESPEARE PERFORMANCE

This has become something of an annual event inour calendar and it never fails to please. Thisyear's show was a farce comedy based on MuchAdo About Nothing and As You Like It.

The three actors played a huge range ofroles and put enormous energy into the 50 minuteshow, which was funny, fast and a little crazy.There was time for some questions at the end,and the actors commented afterwards that theywere really impressed by the quality and depth ofthe questions that the students asked.

Quentin Jamieson

31 March 2011Week 9- Term 1 2011.

ROOM ONE'S TOTEM POLEOur class are studying Native Americans and webuilt a life-size totem pole representing differentanimal spirits that some Native American tribesheld as sacred.

It will be on display at our Countries Expocelebration day on April 8th.

Quentin Jamieson

THANKYOU!!!!!!

A huge thankyou goes out to all the parents andchildren who gave their time on Sunday to help usraise money for our Year 7/8 ski trip this year. Wehad a very busy day and without your support itwould not have gone so smoothly. A big thank youvery much to the Galway family for their use of thetractor and motorbike. the Tinomana family fortheir log splitter and their muscles, the McCarthy'sfor their trailer, log splitter and muscles and toJennifer for organising the food side of things thatwent exceptionally well.

Thank you Roger for your motorbike skills and toSteve for your trailer and delivery finesse! Jane,Cathy, Tania T, Tania F, Chris, Gail...the list goeson but thank you so much, we raised over $1500this weekend. It is very much appreciated.

Primary Celebration: Country FestivalFriday 8th April 11:00am Start in the school

hall.All Parents, Caregivers, Whanau and otherinterested parties are hereby invited to helpcelebrate our studies into different cultures with acelebration event next Friday. All children havebeen studying a different country in their classesthis term and we would like to show you howmuch we have learnt! Please come and share insome Native American Culture, Ancient Egyptianhistory, Japanese life and a Spanish Fiesta. Itshould be well worth coming to see. We lookforward to seeing you there.

Whio

On Monday 21st March Barry talked about BlueDucks. In Mãori they are called Whio. The boywhistles if you go in their territory. Barry whistlesback to say ‘I am a friend’. Barry told us wherethey like to live. They like living in fast water andbumpy water. They sit on rocks. They arecamouflaged because they are grey with a whitebeak. If you look underneath their beak there is abit that looks like a broom around their mouth. It isused when they eat bugs and drain out the water.So there is only the bug left to eat. Then we usedthe telemetry transmitter which is a radio tracker.Laylah was the first Whio and India was the tracker.Next it was William as the Whio and Sarah as thetracker. Then it was Jaxson as the Whio and me asthe tracker. We learned a lot about Blue Duck.Then Laylah said “thank you for talking to us aboutBlue Ducks”. Then it was time to go home. We hada great time. By Stephanie Hislop

DISTRICT ATHLETICSOn Monday 14th March Abby Brownlie, SamiJames, Rowan Jamieson and Brooke Tinomanawent through to Westport to represent KarameaArea School at the Buller Athletics.Rowan participated in the 60 metre sprint and 400and 800 metre runs.Sami participated in long jump, discus, 60 metresprint and a 400 metre run.Abby participated in shotput, discus and a 60 metresprint.Brooke participated in 100 metre sprint, long jumpand discus.Brooke and Abby made it through to the WestCoast Athletics.We would like to say a big thank you to Rochelleand Angela for supporting us and taking usthrough.

FROM THE SECONDARY TEAM

Weta living on the mainland are prey to cats, rats,stoats, ferrets and weasels. They only survive inplaces where they can be protected from thesepredators.Last week, the Year 10 Science class, studied thenative weta. As part of this unit, students wereactively involved in conservation, by building theirown weta motels.The weta prefer motels without windows. Ourweta motels have windows made from perspex sowe can check up on them to see what they're upto.Weta adapt well to living in a modified habitat. Thefemales can lay 100 -300 eggs so if you build ahome they like, then the weta will live there andnumbers will grow.Weta motels help bring weta to our school. Theweta motels have been placed in trees around theschool grounds.

Year 9’s Heaphy trip!After another 15 minutes of getting over excited(yeah right!), putting our bags in the back andfighting over the back seats, we were good to go.It was an ever ending bus trip all the way toCollingwood. We were literally starving by the timethe bus stopped FINALLY so we Dave could buy

some fresh apples for us just before the Takakahill. We ate those in four seconds and kept driving.When again we stopped after what seemed forever, we all got out to order some Fish ‘n chips.The wait was long so we decided to play a gamewhere we would try and get as many ‘hello’s orwaves. 1million waves and ‘hello’s later the ladyfinally brought our food out and we ate our foodhungrily in the bus while driving another half anhour to Collingwood. Then we got out of the busand walked for five minutes to Brown’s hut. ToKeri and me, that felt like the worst and everlastingwalk ever. But of course we didn’t know what waswaiting for us…Day 2. After a good night’s sleep for some and aworst night’s sleep for others we packed all ourstuff which was piled all over the floor. We had afilling porridge breakfast and took five hundredphotos of the hut and the ‘Brown’s Hut’ sign andstarted the five hour walk up the mountain. Wehad Akita, Allan and Paul in the lead followed byFinn and Fynn. After them were Abby, Naomi andMrs. Roberts and miles away were Keri and mewith Mike and Penny supporting us.With acking bones the sorest backs and legs, wewere on the verge of giving up when finally Paulcame back, to announce to us the good news, wehad reached the shelter! We had a good hour’srest and a delicious lunch and set of to completethe day’s journey. Another one hours walk wearrived at Perry Saddle Hut. I don’t know howpeople did it, but Naomi, Akita, Fynn, Finn, Paul,Allan and Mike all decided to walk another 1 hourup the Perry hill and an hour back down. Asexhausted as we were, Keri, Abby, Mrs. Robertsand I chose to stay, following common sense.Meanwhile while they were walking, we chose togo explore. We were walking when suddenly Mrs.Robert’s pants fell down! Keri fell into a bushlaughing. Once we had gotten over it and theothers came back we had our tea and off we wentto bed.Day 3. The following day was normal, walking,eating, resting and walking again. After what feltlike years of walking we saw Saxon hut. We wereso excited we could have ran. Unfortunately wewere too tired to. Mrs. Roberts, Akita and Abbywent off for a nap and the rest of us girls left to goswimming in a nearby creek. Although the waterwas freezing, it was refreshing and so we swamfor a bit in the shallow waters. When we cameback we waited for the time to turn into 5:00pm sowe could have tea and when it did we cooked it,ate it and then played the animal game which Iintroduced to the class. Naomi tried telling theclass a scary story which ended up being funny.Then it was off to bed.Day 4. An exhausting day followed us. We walkedfor ages until lunch time and then another hugeamount of time until we finally arrived at JamesMackay hut. Over there we went up a small hill to

a lookout and we saw the sea far off but it wasgood to know we were getting there. The girls allwent off for a swim in the creek but it was reallyshallow lay in the Day 1. At quarter past eight wearrived at school. water until she felt numb andwas started to feel sleepy so we had to pull herout before she had hyperthermia. Crazy kiwis!Then we played different versions of go home,stay home before playing man hunt, a gamewhere one person hides and the others go find theperson. If you find the person you hide withhim/her. First up Finn left to hide. After a long timewe found him and waited for the last people to findus. Next it was Fynn’s turn and after quite a verylong time we finally found his sneaky hiding place.Seeing I was the first person to find him, I left tohide. When finally the last people had found me,Penny went off. We searched for at least half anhour. We looked everywhere. Mrs. Roberts evenmade a little team that went off looking while shesupervised, standing on the table to see if anyonedisappeared. It was such a. One word to describethe temperature of the water: FREEZING! It wasso cold but Keri just good hiding spot that we evengave up. When Penny came out of her hidingplace, we realized that some of us had actuallybeen staring straight at her! So feeling depressedthat we had lost, we set off back to the hut. Miketold us he had seen a Morepork on the hill sosome of the people went up to see it. It was a fewcentimeters away from them and it didn’t even getscared of them! They got a really good view of itand happily climbed down.

Day 5. To the Heaphy Hut. In the morning wewere all really excited because we were goingback down to sea level and the good old HeaphyHut where we’d all already been. But eventuallywe got less excited as the track proved to go onforever. After a short lunch rest we realized thatinstead of going across the bridge, we could crossthe river! BAD IDEA… the rocks were reallyslippery and we had to go at an agonizing slowpace so as not to slip and fall into the river. Somuch for a short cut… We walked and walked andfinally spotted the river that would announce thefinish of the day’s walk. When we got there, the

dads, Keri, Naomi and I went swimming in theriver, it was quite a good cooling down, but assoon as we got out the sandflies swarmed inaround us. So we played card games in the hutand tried resting and going to sleep. Soon enough,Penny came in with boiled potatoes! Yum! We atethose ravenously and then made our tea. SmartMike decided to fry his potatoes so we stared athim longingly. Once we had finished we triedhaving a bonfire with marshmallows when itstarted raining. Great! What about spotlight? Wenever got to play it. So, angrily we made our wayback to the hut. Mike decided to take some kidsdown to see the caves across the river but failedsince the river was too high. Too manydisappointments! But to make up for that, Pennycame in with a big pot of rice pudding withmarshmallows and fruit salad in it! With gladstomachs we left to go to sleep.Day 6. We all woke up excited that we were goinghome. The good thing was that people had said itwould rain but there wasn’t one little drizzle of rainto be seen. We all set back for the 5 hour journeyback to Kohaihai. It was long but there were lots ofswing bridges and a few tiny river crossings whichmade it all the while fun and we all had theknowledge that we were going home. We stoppedat the shelter having walked for two hours withanother two hours in front of us. We had quite ashort lunch but were glad to get going again as thesandflies proved to be menacing. At least theydidn’t follow us while we walked! Finally after whatseemed quite a long time indeed, we arrived atScott’s Beach where most of our families awaitedus and Fabienne had brought us a bag of apples.Glad to be so close to going home we eagerly setforth again and make our way back home. Thistime the walk didn’t seem as long as it might haveand we soon arrived at Kohaihai. We all had afamily member to transport us back home and wesaid our goodbyes and gladly sat down.It was the best and most tiring camp ever!

By Leila Jaccard

TOURNAMENT NEWS

With all the organisation that has gone into hostingan event that caters for 140 visitors we now needto start ensuring that our parents and studentshave all the information they need.A great deal of negotiation has gone into keepingcosts as low as possible. We are please that wehave been able to keep the participant cost fortournament at $55.This fee applies to both the visiting and hostschools.

COMING EVENTSPostponedDate TBC

Year 5/6 Overnight trip

5th April Primary West Coast Athletics

6th April Vision & Hearing testing

8th April Country Expo Year 1-8

11-15th April TOSI Tournament (Karamea)

15th April Last day of the term.

16-20 May Year 10 Wangapeka Track

21-22 June Year 11/12 Rock Climbing

9-12 August Year 11/12 Mountain Craft

31 August-2nd

September

Year 7/8 Ski Camp

COMMUNITY NEWS

Athletics.

Friday March 11th saw the whole school relocateto the domain for our school athletics day.In the morning there were six events that thestudents participated in, these were: Long Jump,High Jump, Discus, Shot Put, 100 metre sprintsand a fun event. The afternoon comprised ofseveral heats of 400m races and some relayraces. The highlight of the entire day was seeingthe senior students encourage just about everystudent in the school to take part in theOPTIONAL 800m race to finish the day off- it wasa spectacular sight to see approximately 65students running around our track!!In every age range we had students that were

achieving at or beyond the standards setnationally which is obviously very pleasing. Someof our junior students achieved particularly welland were chosen to go away to district sportsin Westport the following week (their report willfeature soon).The staff and students would like to thank allmembers of the community that came and gavetheir support and help to ensure we had a greatday- Thank you. Pat Donovan

EASTER RAFFLE TICKETS STILL AVAILABLEThe Year 7/8 ski trip fundraiser is going really welland we now have some new prizes to add to theprize pool.

First prize is a HUGE box of Easter Goodies.Second prize is a $100 meal voucher at theRiverstone restaurantThird prize is a trailer full of firewoodOther prizes include: meal vouchers, giftvouchers, sports gear, children's toys and more.

We would like to thank the following businessesfor their support in this raffle.Karamea Four SquareRiverstone KarameaEllerys 100%Bradleys FurnitureBuller PrintCriterion HotelGibbys CafeDennis BookshopBNZSwann Art and SignsMitre 10Sweet DreamsProduce SuppliesNBS BankSutherland TyresRainbow Cake KitchenCut N Edge

Purchase your tickets now for just $2 from theschool office or any year 7/8 child.Many thanks and GOOD LUCK!!!!

Brendon Smith

Back by popular demandThursday Afternoon Movie

CHARLOTTE’S WEBYour community Playcentre would like to inviteschool children, preschoolers and adults to amovie afternoon on Thursday 7th April, atPlaycentre.Door charge - $2 per child.Time – 3.20pm until approx. 5pmRefreshments will be available, all for the bargainprice of only $1:Fizzy drink and Homemade LemonadePopcorn and ChipsWater- freePreschoolers must be accompanied by an adult.Please ensure that your child/children havetransport home after the movie.Funds raised will go towards upgrading thebuilding to meet the new regulations so pleasecome and support this great cause!

Your help please.Recently some items went missing from astudent’s bag during an Irish dancing session thatwas held after school on a Friday afternoon.The items include a long line hard top pencil casewith embossed bubble and Smiggle logo design,lined with grey felt and containing space for pensand pencils and mesh pockets.It also contained a range of felt tips, colouringpencils (aquarelle = good quality and not cheep)Smiggle brand metallic pens, smiggle pencilsharpener, smiggle eraser, biros etcAll in all over $70 worth of stationary…. These items are quite unique and hold special

sentimental value to the student. If any parentshave seen a pencil case like the one pictured turnup somewhere please contact the school office.

Last EVER Community Software Plan! All titles$10! Last Chance!After 10 years the Community Software Plan isbeing discontinued. Our school is participating inthe Last EVER CSP. EdAlive has created one lastopportunity for parents to purchase qualityeducational software at an amazing $15 per title.There are even greater savings on bundles. Thesoftware is fully Australian-made, directlycorrelated with the school curriculum. Our schoolreceives a free licence for an EdAlive title and aBonus Licence if lots of families purchase. Don’tmiss out on this last opportunity to purchase thesequality resources at bargain prices!Please return your orders to the school by08/04/2011