From the Principal

All of our children will meet their teacher for 2021 in two upcoming class afternoon visits. These are scheduled for Wednesday 2nd December and Thursday 10th of December. Students will have a chance to connect with their new classmates and see their new rooms. We have some very excited students moving into next year.

The process has come a long way since my time as a Pigeon Mountain parent- class lists for the coming year used to be posted up in the reception windows a week or so before the start of the new academic year. We feel that it is now more supportive for students and families to make the transition process more personal and to allow children to know who their new teachers and classmates are well in advance. It also gives teachers a great opportunity to meet the students and spend some time looking ahead to the next year together.

Our class placement process is a long one. This year (for the first time) we have sought feedback from children to gather some names of classmates they would like to be placed with. We also gather a lot of data from teachers and then create draft lists. These lists go back to teams to see what the combinations look like. We then tweak and rework the lists until we have our final class placements. We think about children who work well together and those who don’t. We think about who children named as desired classmates. We think about having a range of abilities for literacy and numeracy. We look at those who are introverted and those who are extroverted, the list of considerations goes on.

No doubt there will be children who may not have their best friend in their class. This happens! But, we would never place students or form new classroom groups to leave them without peers with whom they have worked well with during 2020. Our teachers are wonderful observers and judges of the relationships in their rooms, and we tap into this expertise and the voice of the children themselves when making up class lists..

We encourage you to be positive about the class placements with your children, they take their cue from you. If they don’t have their best friend in their class, reassure them! Tell them that everything will be ok and that they will have an opportunity to make many new friends in their new class. Tell them they will still get to play and hang out with their friends. Our children test our reaction to news to gauge how they should react, we need to be the reassurance they need. So be positive, reassure them and show them that you are confident that they will have a good year.

Other than administrative errors- children from the wrong year group appearing on a different class list etc, our class lists are final. If we have made an error of this nature, please let us know!

Any request for change will be met with a “Let’s have a chat 6 weeks into next term.”

If you are desperately unhappy about the class placement do make a time to talk with any member of our Senior Leadership Team.

 

Dates for your diary

1 December – Digital Citizenship Evening 6.30pm

2 December – Christmas Mufti day – wear mufti and bring a can for the Howick Salvation Army

3 December – Helpers afternoon tea 2pm

4  December – Junior Prizegiving 9.30am

7  December – School Reports go home

9  December – All comers Christmas Choir 6.30pm

11 December – Senior Prizegiving at BBI 1pm

11 December – Last day for EZ Lunch

12 December – PTA Ice skating Fundraiser 4.45pm

14 December – Year 6 leavers disco 6pm

15 December – School finishes at 3pm

3 February 2021 – First day of school for 2021

BOT News

Next meeting 10 December 7pm

School Donation

The Board of Trustees have set the school donation for 2021, at $230.00 per student. This remains unchanged from this year.  Donation tax credits are also available from Inland Revenue. Please keep your donation receipts if you are wanting to make a claim from 31st March 2021.

There are several options to pay –

* Online when purchasing student stationery from OfficeMax – www.myschool.co.nz

* Online through your Kindo account – www.kindo.co.nz

* Direct credit a/c 02 0168 0210765 00 (please use student name as a reference)

* At the school office by eft-pos or cash

Student Stationery

Stationery is now available from the schools supplier, Officemax.  Stationery is sold in closed packs, so itemised lists are not available from the school.  These packs can be ordered online at www.myschool.co.nz for delivery to your home/work.  Please leave the student I.D field blank and remember that the school donation may be paid at the same time.

Please note that all OfficeMax retail stores closed this year so stationery orders must be made online.

School uniform

John Russell Schoolwear (9 Moore Street, Howick) is open throughout the summer holidays for purchasing new uniform.  They will be opening on Sundays (10th January until 31st January) from 10am to 3pm. Purchases can also be made online at www.johnrussellmenswear.co.nz. 

The second hand uniform shop will be open in the school office on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th January 2021 from 9am to 3pm.  Used uniforms (no hats or socks please) in good condition can also be brought in for selling on your behalf.

OFFICE HOURS JANUARY 2021

The school office will be open prior to school starting from Wednesday 27th January 9am to 3pm (closed Monday 1st February for Auckland Anniversary).  The uniform shop will be running on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th January for selling new and secondhand uniforms plus receiving good condition uniforms to sell.

PTA News

Ice skating fundraiser Saturday 12th December 4.45pm to 6.15pm, tickets can be purchased at the schools online shop, Kindo.

Welcome to

Alyssa Hayter

Sports News

School Athletics Day

Event	Age	1st	2nd	3rd
400m	9 & under girls	Allyra Hinson	Nina Schwenke	Harriet Mitchell
400m	9 & under boys	Kayden Woods	Jack Hermans	Ghazi Rizvi
800m	10 & over girls	Danaca Stralen	Natalie Wei	Ella Hayter
800m	10 & under boys	Oscar Lam	Ben Ellis	Rory Gillion
60m	5yr girls	Iris Xu	Vivian Guo	Lily Mulder
60m	5yr boys	Harjas Arora	Blake Cheng	Romeo Garcia
60m	6yr girls	Alina Wang	Avery Hu	Abigail Cheng
60m	6yr boys	Cortez Tonkin	Jimmy Wang	Matthew Song
60m	7yr girls	Tilly Patten	Katy Wang	Valini Fangupo
60m	7yr boys	Keanu Wilson	Jiho Park	Charles Zhang
80m	8yr girls	Lucy Chisnall	Jia Qi Xie	Aoife Chen
80m	8yr boys	Felipe Silva Correa De Melo	Finn Seccombe	Yaathavan Paramatharan
80m	9yr girls	Skye Wilson	Bernadette Lavemai	Allyra Hinson
80m	9yr boys	Jack Hermans	Kayden Wood	Rico Wang
80m	10yr girls	Danaca Stralen	Nicole Chen	Ella Hayter
80m	10yr boys	Remi Meyer	Paul Gao	Liam Wallace
80m	11yr girls	Debbie Mao	Stevie Bradshaw	TJ Africa
80m	11 boys	Noah Pegler	Stanley Ou Yang	Oscar Lam
Softball Throw	8yr girls	Ella Clarke	Yichen Liang	Alisa Yong
Softball Throw	8 yr boys	Johnathan Bao	Felipe Silva Correa De Melo	Lucas Wong
Softball Throw	9yr girls	Nina Schwenke	Sahar Hasan	Zoe He
Softball Throw	9yr boys	Josh Setefano	Jack Hermans	Pedro Stefanello
Softball Throw	10yr girls	Gladness Saumani	Clarissa Kleinhans	Heidi Lee
Softball Throw	10yr boys	Yuvraj Jangra	Keli Davis	Diego Manu
Softball Throw	11yr girls	Fa’asulu Nua	Debbie Mao	Rebecca Klein
Softball Throw	11yr boys	Arav Doshi	Noah Pegler	Benjamin Berrington
High Jump	9yr girls	Bernadette Lavemai/Allyra Hinson	Hailey Rose
High Jump	9yr boys	Kayden Wood	Josh Setefano	Pedro Stefanello
High Jump	10yr girls	Danaca Stralen	Sofia Huxley	Anja Hermans
High Jump	10yr boys	Thomas Qu	Rohan Prasad	Yuvraj Jangra/Jacob Thompson
High Jump	11yr girls	TJ Africa
High Jump	11yr boys	Ben Ellis	Oscar Lam	Karl Meindl

 

HPPA Interschool Athletics

Congratulations to the following students who were placed at this event

Boys 9 years and under relay – 3rd

100m Championship 11 year girls – Debbie Mao 2nd 

100m Championship 9 year girls – Skye Wilson 1st 

 70m Championship 9 year girls – Skye Wilson 1st

70m Championship 9 year girls – Bernadette Lavemai 2nd 

70m Championship 9 year boys- Jack Hermans 3rd 

60m Championship 8 year boys – Felipe Silva Correa De Melo 3rd

70m Age Group Sprints 8 year boys – Yaatharan Paramatharan 2nd

70m Age group Sprints 9 year boys – Rico Wang 3rd 

70m Age Group Sprints 11 year boys – Oscar Lam 2nd 

70m Age Group Sprints 11 year boys  – Ben Ellis 3rd 

100m Age Group Sprints 9 year boys – Rico Wang 1st 

 100m Age Group Sprints 11 year boys – Ben Ellis 3rd 

100m Age Group Sprints 8 year girls – Aoife Chen 3rd

High Jump 9 year boys – Kayden Wood 1st 

Softball Throw 8 year girls – Ella Clark 3rd

 

Community Notices

• Howick School of Music – Saturday mornings at Pakuranga Intermediate, individual or group tuition available, more details at www.hsm.co.nz
• Edu-Kingdom College Dannemora – school holiday programmes for Year 1-6 students, more details at ekc.business.site