A warm welcome to our new students: Isabelle Kaan, Hunter Verhoek, Jake Gillespie

Kia ora everyone,

We have had a busy couple of weeks with some wild weather but thankfully the days we have had events such as the Eastern Waikato Country Schools Cross Country and Rippa Rugby, the skies cleared up for us! 

A couple of weeks ago our staff attended a Professional Learning Day with our Kaahui Ako. Our Kaahui Ako is a group of 21 ECE’s, Primary Schools and High Schools in the Waikato that are working together to meet the outcomes for all our learners across the cluster of schools. The teacher-only day was set up to help build the knowledge and capacity of all our teachers across the cluster. The focus of the day was around the Aotearoa Histories Curriculum, with a particular emphasis on sharing stories from Ngaati Wairere. We also had the privilege to listen to Professor Rangi Matamua who taught us more about Matariki. He shared some of the traditional narratives around Matariki, what the stars of Matariki stand for, the lunar phases and how Matariki can be celebrated. I didn’t realise how much I didn’t know about Matariki until I learnt more about it! His website is livingbythestars.co.nz and he has some really interesting content there. 

Matariki will be a learning focus across all of our spaces next week, leading into the long weekend. 

Our teachers have recently finished making their mid year Overall Teacher Judgements, deciding the Curriculum Level each child best fits into. Our senior leadership team has started analysing this data and because at the end of last year we were unable to make Overall Teacher Judgements, we have been comparing this year's mid data with the previous two years mid year data. 

As we all know, the past two years have been very disrupted and for some of our young learners, their whole schooling experience so far has been that of disruption. This of course impacts the learning for many children. We will share our data report with the Board once it’s complete.  Also, each child Years 1-8 will be receiving their Mid Term Report at the end of week 9. This report has a Powerful Learning comment and the achievement graphs for Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Then in Week 10, we will hold our Student Led Conferences where you will be able to gain further information about how your child is progressing with their learning. We hope you can make it to these in Week 10. We will send out the booking information closer to the time. 

We won't be having another newsletter before the Matariki public holiday, so we hope all of you get a chance to celebrate with your loved ones, reflect on the past, celebrate the present and plan for the future. 

Kia pai te toenga o to wiki. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Ngaa mihi

Nyree

Good morning Parents/Caregivers

School photo day is scheduled for Tuesday 28th June

We have chosen again to go online this year. Orders are now open.

Portrait orders close  Monday 27th June you cannot order portraits after Monday 27th June NO EXCEPTIONS 

Class photos will remain available to order after the portrait cut-off date. Free delivery for class photos ends Friday 8th July.

If you would like to order a class photo or pre-purchase a portrait of your child/ren, please click on the following link:

If you have any queries on how to use the website, please contact Masterpiece Photography directly at (07) 823 4306 or masterpiece@xtra.co.nz. Do not contact the school. 

Remember to get your Portrait order in before Monday 27th June or there will be no Portrait taken!

Kind regards

The team at Masterpiece photography

The Board of Trustees elections are due to take place on Wednesday 7th September.  

If a position on the school board is a way you would like to contribute to our school please consider standing.  Nominations have been sent to eligible people, these will need to be returned by 12pm on Wednesday 3rd August. 

If you would like more information please contact one of the current board members  or check out the link below.  

The school is once again fundraising to help resource our environments. Last year the school raised over $4,000, which is a significant contribution, and is hoping to reach a similar target this year.

The oldest or only child in each family will be sent home with one box of fundraising chocolate. We appreciate that there are families who would prefer to support the school in other ways and not sell chocolates.  Please contact the School Office if you DO NOT want to sell chocolates by 22 June before the boxes are ordered and go out to the children.  If you take a box it would be appreciated if the entire box could be sold.

We suggest you sell to family members, colleagues in the workplace, at busy sports fields, friends or neighbours. If the children are involved in selling, they should do so under adult supervision, especially if selling door to door.

Thank you for your support.

Hello all.

Quiz night reminder.

Our annual Quiz night on Saturday July 2^nd at The Keg Room is fast approaching.  I believe there are a couple of tables still available so be in quick to join in this fun night.  Check KINDO for availability and tickets.  Any sponsorship for prizes most welcome.

Oxford Pie Orders

We set a record with pie sales this year so thank you to all who got behind this initiative. A special mention to the Dee family and the Ward family who topped the list with their huge orders. We have made just under $3,000 from this fundraiser. Thanks to our parents who helped sort the orders yesterday. We really appreciate the team effort involved in getting this job done.

Spring Fair 2022

At our PTA meeting on Tuesday, we decided we need to kick off the Spring Fair organisation with an initial meeting at The Lone Star, Rototuna Monday 27^th June at 7.30pm. The Spring Fair is set for Saturday September 24^th (we had to postpone it last year because of Covid restrictions). It is an event that is an opportunity for a lot of our wider parent/caregiver community to pitch in and help with our flagship fundraiser event of the year, rather than just the PTA being involved. So please come along, we work on the many hands make light work philosophy so would love to see you there. If you could email pta@puketaha.school.nz if you think you could attend it would help us out for numbers when booking a table.  To new parents of the school the Spring Fair is a really neat event held every two years, where we have a day of lots of indoor and outdoor activities for the school and wider community come along and enjoy the day. There usually is a big garage sale, amusement rides, animals, smash-a-car/plate, food stalls, plant sales, baking, raffles and student lead initiatives, something to please everyone.

Finally, the PTA would like to thank Mel Hammond for being our chief photographer at so many of the school events. Recently it was the school cross country.  We see your lovely photos in the school newsletters and there are parents who receive photos of their children through personal messages, and we know it must take you ages to sift through the hundreds of shots you click off. Nice one Mel.

 Kind regards,

Merynn Connors    

PTA Chairperson

M:   027 629 6820  E: pta@puketaha.school.nz

Puketaha Student Results

Dear Parents / Caregivers,

We would like to offer the opportunity for some students to enter the ICAS competition. We offer English, Science, and Mathematics for Years 4-8. The International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) are independent skills-based assessments with a competition element and are administered by the University of New South Wales. 

This is an extension opportunity designed to challenge some students who show particular strengths in the areas of Science, Mathematics and/or English. They will be completed online, during school time on the set dates. Each test takes approximately 1 hour. Please note that these assessments are completely optional and are not suitable for all children. 

The school does not benefit from these assessments or use the information to help inform our planning. If you would like to chat further about the suitability of your child completing these assessments, please talk to your child’s teacher. 

Registering your child and payment

To register please og into the ICAS shop and purchase the assessments for your own child. Use the link to access the shop and the school code. This information will then come to the school via their system and we will organise for your child to sit the test.

Go to-  https://shop.icasassessments.com/pages/pps

School Code- GNI216

You will need to do this by 1st August please. 

Yours sincerely 

Nyree Olliver 

Entertainment book