Event Calendar
Newsletter 31 March 2016
31 March 2016
From the Deputy Principal
Our values for term 1 are PCS:
Polite, Considerate and Sensible
Our focus is on really good manners
Greetings, Kia ora, Namaste, Ni Hao, Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Kia orana, Ni sa bula vinaka, Salaam
Dear Parents and Caregivers
Although we can see autumn arriving on our trees at school the warm weather continues nicely and the students are outside for most of the break times for a good run around and some fresh air.
Year 6 Camp Mufti: I apologise for any confusion about the date for this week’s mufti day. Any students who came to school in mufti today can happily come in mufti again tomorrow. This is a special mufti to support our year 6 students fundraising for their outdoor education camp in term 4.
Anzac Ceremony: For our Anzac ceremony, we would like to include a slide show of photos of family members who went to a war in which New Zealand has been involved. If you would like to participate, could you please place your photos in an envelope and forward to Mr McGowan.
Zone Swimming Sports: Please check the full results below.
Photolife: Photolife will be in school to take class and individual photos on Monday April 11. Please check below for ordering instructions.
Sausage Sizzle: A sausage sizzle will take place on Tuesday April 12. This event is run by a very committed group of parents and the continued community support is very much appreciated.
Have a lovely weekend with your special children.
Kindest regards
Susan Fidler
Deputy Principal
General Notices
Welcome to our new students; Shiloh Sharma,Xavier Wallis-Young,Pranav Reddy, Angela Wei and Nivish Prasad.
Assembly Days:
- Monday, 4 April: Room 22 will lead our assembly.
- Monday, 11 April: Room 17 will lead our assembly.
As always you are most welcome to attend but please make sure that you are seated by 1.15pm.
St Christopher’s Residential Home class visit:
- Friday, 1 April- Room 22 (1.30pm weather permitting)
- Friday, 8 April- Room 17 (1.30pm weather permitting)
Wonderful Worm Tea: Worm tea may not sound too appetising but your plants will really love it. Worm tea is a liquid produced by worms, which is high in nitrogen, and when diluted with water makes a highly nutritious plant food, as well as an effective fungicide and insecticide. Worm tea lets you fertilise with something that is really nutritious for your plants. The soil and plants in your garden absorb the beneficial microorganisms contained in the worm tea immediately.
You can buy this amazing fertiliser from our school office. We have two worm farms on site. A group of dedicated student gardeners who look after it and carefully collect the worm tea into bottles. These bottles of garden goodness are available for $3.00.
School Photos Important Information: A prepaid envelope for each student will be sent home this week. Please return the envelope and money to the school office by the morning of Monday, 11 April ready for photos to be taken on 11 April. For a special photo of your children together, collect a pre paid “Sibling Envelope” from the school office. No individual or sibling photos will be taken without pre payment. Please make sure you use the envelope which is pre printed with your child’s name, room etc as we are only given a few spares for new children.
Papatoetoe Interschool swimming sports: As mentioned in the previous newsletter our swimming team finished third overall in the sports. Below are the correct results for our place getters in the champs and non-champs races:
Champs races
- Kimora Iakapo – 1st 8 year girls freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke
- Ritorya Tamilo – 1st 10 year girls breaststroke
- Max Powell – 2nd 9 year boys breaststroke
- Kace Hipkins-Taimai – 3rd 8 year boys freestyle
- Zeddah Te Ao – 3rd 9 year freestyle and backstroke
- Lucy Smutz –1st 10 year old backstroke
- Brooke Aiono- 3rd 10 year old girls freestyle 50m
Non champs races
- Lucy Smutz – 1st 10 year girls breaststroke, freestyle
- Brooke Aiono 1st 10 year girls breaststroke
- Ritorya Tamilo – 1st 10 year girls freestyle
- Max Powell – 2nd 8 year boys freestyle
- Georgina Para – 2nd 8 year girls backstroke and 3rd breaststroke
- Grace Wu – 2nd 10 year girls backstroke
- Rebecca Church – 2nd 10 year girls freestyle and backstroke
- Keira Anderson – 3rd 8 year girls backstroke and breaststroke
- Navid Panah-Fischer – 3rd 9 year boys freestyle
Thank you to Mr Duncan for organising these results.
Newsletter – Receiving Electronically: From the beginning of term 2 our Thursday fortnightly newsletter will now be sent to parents/caregivers electronically. If you have an email address you will receive an electronic copy. If you have a new email address or need to update your email address please fill in the form below.
Please note that all our newsletters are on our website: www.pcs.school.nz
New or updated email address return slip
My new / updated email address is:
(please print clearly) …………….………………………………………………..………………………………
Student’s name and room number……………………………………………………………………………
Parent/caregiver’s name this email belongs to…………………………………………………………….
I wish to get a hardcopy YES NO (Please circle one)
Term 1 Events
Friday, 8 April – Year 2 Howick Historical Village Trip
Monday, 11 April – School Photos
Tuesday, 12 April – PTA Sausage Sizzle
Friday, 15 April – Last Day of Term
Monday, 2 May – First Day of term 2 – back to school
Term 1 Events
Friday, 8 April – Year 2 Howick Historical Village Trip
Monday, 11 April – School Photos
Tuesday, 12 April – PTA Sausage Sizzle
Friday, 15 April – Last Day of Term
Monday, 2 May – First Day of term 2 – back to school
Newsletter 17 March 2016
17 March 2016
From the Principal
Our values for term 1 are PCS:
Polite, Considerate and Sensible
Our focus is on really good manners
Greetings, Kia ora, Namaste, Ni Hao, Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Kia orana, Ni sa bula vinaka, Salaam
Dear Parents and Caregivers
The term is racing by as usual and your children are working well at school. We are having a very settled and exciting term with many optional programmes underway during break times as well as our focused teaching of the NZ Curriculum.
Zone Swimming Sports: Our talented swimming team came third overall at last Tuesday’s championships. I was so proud of them. In particular, our ten year old girls’ relay team had a spectacular win. Please see Showcase on our website for a photo of this winning team. Thank you to coaches Phil Duncan and Trisha Lelei.
Individual Placings:
Kimora Iakapo -1st place 8 year old girls Freestyle, backstroke, Breast stroke
Kace Hipkins – Taimai 3rd place 8 year old boys Freestyle
Ritorya Tamilo – 1st place 10 year old girls breaststroke
Zeddah Te Ao – 3rd place 9 year old boys freestyle
Lucy Smutz -1st place 10 year old backstroke
Max Powell – 2nd place 9 Year old boys Breaststroke.
Brooke Aiono – 3rd place 10 year old freestyle 50m
10 year old girls relay – 1st place- Kimora Iakopo, Maia Garland, Rebecca Church, Lucy Smutz, Ritorya Tamilo, Brooke Aiono
Manukau Regional Taekwondo Event: Congratulations go to Latishna Kumar for first place in the Sparring and Pattern event. Well done, Latishna – you are a star, also.
Science and Technology Seminar: Thank you to the parents and caregivers who came along to our Science and Technology seminar on Monday. It was great to see you here and enjoying yourselves as you participated in the related activities. I am sure you can now see why our students enjoy their weekly lesson so much.
PTA AGM: Thank you very much to the parents who came to the first PTA meeting of the year.
Newly elected office holders are Harsha Chhima chairperson, and Barbara Lucas in the role of secretary. Congratulations and a sincere thank you to Harsha and Barbara. Thank you also to our staff representative Sharlene Howe who will continue to do a great job in the important liaison role between the PTA and our school staff. Special thanks go to Shara Henderson for her wonderful stewardship as recent chairperson of the PTA. While Shara will no longer be an office holder, she will continue to support the work of the PTA. Special thanks also go to Michael Lucas who is also a PTA stalwart – and sausage sizzler extraordinaire.
As always, the PTA have a number of fund raising activities planned including this week’s sausage sizzle, that was well supported, and a car boot sale (Saturday 2 April). I can see that we will continue to have an active and supportive PTA. If you offered to be a class parent, you may be contacted from time to time to assist the PTA. Thank you all so much.
Support for Moto Sanatan Dharam School: Ba, Fiji: Thank you very much for your generous support for our Fiji fund. The money raised will be sent directly to this school that has been very badly damaged in the recent cyclone. I am sure we will receive updates on how they are getting on re-building their school, and I will keep you informed. Your contributions from the mufti day and at the office have reached a total of $1310.30.
Recent Student NZ Flag Vote: The outcome of your children’s voting was:
Current flag: 221 votes
New flag: 443 votes
The national student vote will be announced at the same time as the referendum results late in March. It will be interesting to see whether students across the country like the idea of a new flag, as PCS students have indicated. Remember that you can see both options flying at school outside the library. If you haven’t either voted or made your mind up, please feel free to check them out.
PCS Charter: 2016-2018: Our school’s charter is available in the school office. Please feel free to view this. We have a busy and very productive year ahead of us again this year. The charter contains our broad strategic goals as well as our 2016 annul plan. Our key focus areas for 2016 are:
- Introduction of Prime Maths in year 2 and 3, and continuation of maths enhancement, year 4-6
- Specialist PE programme
- Development of learner agency and a PCS learner profile
- Maori and Pasifika students’ writing development
- Four MOE national standards targets – one in Reading and Writing and two in Maths
- Assessment for learning teacher PLD
- Amended assessment programme to provide for more teaching time and the introduction of more Progress and Achievement testing (NZCER to complete the analysis reports): year 3-6 PAT Maths and Listening, year 4-6 PAT Reading with Comprehension and Reading Vocabulary
- Students with strengths in visual art, plus one other teacher identified area – (non-core curriculum areas in 2016)
- Introduction of Google docs/Google Classroom in year 4-6
- Introduction of staff and student wellbeing committee to acknowledge new Health & Safety legislation (17 actions in Nag 5 – Health and Safety)
- NZC key competency focus: Participating and Contributing
- New building underway
New Building: After 20 months of negotiation with the MOE, we have finally had approval for a new eight-classroom building to be constructed at our school. It will be a two-storey building with four classrooms on each level. It will replace our relocatable classrooms (rooms 14-19) on the boundary next to the recreation ground. The MOE is including two extra classrooms in the new building to assist us with managing the growth in our roll. I am sure you will be interested in observing the project as it unfolds. Planning is well underway for a start in the upcoming April holidays.
Manukau Beautification Trust Support: Thanks to our Science and Technology specialist teacher Lena Erakovich, our school has been active in supporting the ongoing stream restoration project in our part of Auckland. The Trust has helped to restore streams all over Auckland, including a record-breaking clean-up of the Puhinui stream, by the airport. On Monday of this week, Lena, along with 18 senior students and supporting parents, spent time weeding the Otara stream area where they had planted seedlings last year, and also painting over some graffiti on the fence there. They are trying to encourage the people who live nearby to take good care of the area. We believe this is wonderful community service and great education about the importance of taking care of our environment.
Easter Dates: Please note that school closes for Easter on Thursday 24 March and re-opens on Wednesday 30 March.
All the very best for the best of weekends. I hope you can enjoy some special time with your special children and that you enjoy the lingering summer. We are all feeling ever so proud of the Blackcaps following their victory over India yesterday morning in the international T20 Cricket tournament in India. Like many of you, I imagine, we were a bit surprised at the win. We are of course, incredibly proud of former Papatoetoe Central School student Ish Sodhi, who continues to add depth to the Blackcaps with his stunning right-arm leg spin bowling.
Kindest regards, Nga mihi nui,
Marilyn Gwilliam
General Notices
Welcome to our new students; Edward Lu, Ornella & La Mora Johna, Jean Sheppard, Ghazal, Anya Chand,Raamis & Adil Raza
Assembly Day: Monday, 21 March: Room 23 will lead our assembly. As always you are most welcome to attend but please make sure that you are seated by 1.15pm.
Newsletter – Receiving Electronically: From the beginning of term 2 our Thursday fortnightly Newsletter will now be sent to parents/caregivers electronically. If you have an email address you will receive an electronic copy.
If you have a new email address or need to update your email address please fill in the form below.
Please note that all our newsletters are on our website: www.pcs.school.nz
New or updated email address return slip
My new / updated email address is:
(please print clearly) …………….………………………………………………..………………………………
Student’s name and room number……………………………………………………………………………
Parent/caregiver’s name this email belongs to…………………………………………………………….
I wish to get a hardcopy YES NO (Please circle one)
Term 1 Events
Monday, 21 March – Race Relations Day – Traditional Dress Day
Monday, 21 March – BoT Meeting at 5.30pm Oval room
Tuesday, 22 March – Cricket / Playball Field Day
Friday, 25 March – Good Friday (School Closed)
Monday, 28 March – Easter Monday (School Closed)
Tuesday, 29 March – Easter Tuesday (School Closed)
Thursday, 31 March – Year 6 Camp fundraising Mufti Day
Friday, 8 April – Year 2 Howick Historical Village Trip
Monday, 11 April – School Photos
Friday, 15 April – Last Day of Term
Monday, 2 May – First Day of term 2 – back to sch