Jarad's Jargon

Keep those easter egg raffles coming in.  At the moment we almost have enough for one placing, though the other baskets are still empty.  These need to be in by 11th April so the baskets can be made up and put on display for the last week of term.  Tickets will be sent out next week.

Can you please keep the school front gate closed when you come to school.  It is a busy road and we always have young students new to the school and Hastings road can get very busy at times.

Please note that the pool will be closed from next Monday onwards.  This means we will not be testing or chlorinating the pool after the weekend.

Head lice is once again doing the rounds at school.  I know that this can often be an expensive and frustrating time for all families at the school.  If you know your child has had head lice can you please be vigilant and check their hair on a regular basis.  If you see signs, please treat your child's hair.  I appreciate that this can be a time consuming and expensive process, but if nothing is done then the problem on your child's head becomes a problem for everyone else they come in close contact with.  Don't forget that you need to retreat your child's hair after seven days of first treatment.

Jarad's Jargon

Big thanks to those parents who attended our Meet 'n Greet last night.  This term has been a busy one for events and meetings at the school, with our parent interviews, swimming sports (both at school and at Opunake), athletics and as well as class trips.  I cannot emphasise the impact your involvement in these events helps positively influence student motivation and achievement in school.  This is not only important with attending events, but also with conversations happening at home about what they are learning at school.  Students who have that support from home often transfer that enthusiasm into the classroom.

A reminder to everyone that there are two teacher only days coming up early in term 2, 12th and 13th of May.  We are going to Auckland with Auroa and Opunake to look at other high performing schools so, as a staff, we are kept informed of current "best practices" in the classrooms.  School will be closed for these dates.

Due to changes with bus pick-ups, the times the bus will leave Kapuni are 8:40am and 3:40pm.  Can you please ensure you are there at least five minutes before this time.  We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Have a great weekend everyone,
MrC

We won the battle, but lost the war!!!  Well done parents for beating the staff in our swimming relay...again...this year.  Big thanks to Ethan who managed to capture this moment where greased lightning on the left managed to hold out the students by a whisker!

Time capsule snippet from Room 4's blog

This was a great day, some really neat stuff put in this capsule!

Check out Room 4's blog to check out other cool stuff happening in the classroom!

Jarad's Jargon

It's amazing what you can pack into a shortened week sometimes.  Even though we have only had four days at school we have managed to send a group of students to the triathlon in Opunake, where our students are getting faster and faster, and also sent another group to a WOMAD performance on Thursday.  I have been told that this was an incredible experience!  On top of that, our school swimming sports is today.  Big thanks to Michelle McLeod who has been meticulous in keeping our pool and our pool area spotless.  We (especially MrC!) very much appreciate the time and effort that this requires.

Next Thursday we will be holding a meet'n greet at school.  This is an opportunity for parents to meet the staff, if you haven't already, and have a sausage sizzle (BYO salads) in the sun.  The pool will be open and we will organise tennis/cricket games on the night.  The BBQ will start cooking at 5:30pm.  All welcome,

Have a great weekend,

MrC

WOMAD performers getting our students moving and dancing on Thursday

School Swimming Sports

Good luck to everyone who is competing!!!

Jarad's Jargon

I'd like to start with congratulating our Matapu School Councillors for 2014.  Well done Ethan McLeod, Maia Rupapera-Maeke, Nikita MacDonald and Matthew Picard.  The standard of applications was, once again, very high and we look forward to the activities that the 2014 Councillors have planned for this year.

Next Friday is our school swimming sports.  We plan to start the swimming events at 12pm this year, which is a little earlier than previous years.  We encourage students to dress in their house colours and I would also like to remind parents to bring their togs for the parent/staff/student relay.  The teachers will be after some payback after losing our undefeated record last year!

Reminder to parents that we are a water only school and if drinks are sent to school with students they need to be water.

Have a great weekend,

MrC

The weather turned it on for us on Thursday at the athletics at Kaponga.  We all had a great day and all the students ran extremely hard in their races.  Big thanks to the parent support we had on the day!

Jarad's Jargon

This week has been action packed with various activities! On Monday the senior school went to Puke Ariki as part of our Water unit for this term. On Wednesday we sent our first triathlon team to compete in the triathlon event held in Opunake. They all competed ferociously and were excellent representatives of our school. We have also had parent interviews this week. If you missed out on your time, or couldn't make this particular date, I strongly encourage you to make contact with your child's classroom teacher over the next few weeks to discuss how your child is working and getting along at school. Often it is very empowering for a student to hear their teacher and parent/caregiver discuss their attitude, behaviour etc and can have an impact on their education. There are still a number of accounts outstanding from last year. If you have outstanding accounts can you please make contact with the school and organise payment, whether it be automatic payments or another method. It is important to ensure your account is settled each year so it doesn't continue to grow from year to year. We will be making contact with those who have outstanding accounts and who haven't organised payments by the end of April. Have a great weekend everyone, MrC