Newsletter

Week 10 Term 3 2025

Kia ora,  Talofa Lava,  Kia orana,  Malo ni,  Marhaba,  Fakalofa atu,  Bula,  Mingalaba, Namaste, Nyob zoo, Vanakkam,  Mga Pagbati

Principal’s Message

Kia ora

We are almost there to the end of another very busy term.

It seems a long time ago now but we’ve had Te Kiwa Nui, Cook Island Language Week, a visit from ERO, a Pepeha Trip, Move’n Groove, Futsal and now Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. So many very tired students and staff looking forward to a a two week break.

Forms have gone out for all Year 5-6 students for our camp. We aim for all of our students to attend so please return the forms and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Katrina Day

CARE Values

Board of Trustees

Thanks to all those who participated in the recent Board elections, it was great to see how many people took the time to cast a vote. Our five elected parent representatives are:

Dorothy Tapusoa

Uputaua Ioapo-Peniata

Rob Egan

Shawnray Tuakeu-Rota

Leilani Daymond

In addition our staff representative continues to be:

Bridget Gerondis

We will also now appoint a Board secretary and have the option to

co-opt further members.

What’s happening?

Weekly Events:

Tuesday: Kapa Haka 11:00, Sailing, Boxing

Wednesday:

Thursday: Garden to Table

Friday: Languages

Upcoming Events:

Term 3

Week 10: End of Term 3 Friday 19 @ 3pm

Term 4 

Week 1: Monday 6 October start of Term 4 @ 9am

               Fijian Language Week

Week 5: Year 5 and 6 Camp

Celebrations

Gallery

Recently our Year 3-5 girls had the opportunity to participate in a girls only Futsal tournament. They all had a lot of fun, improved their football skills and represented Cannons Creek with pride.

 Achievement Data

We have recently compiled our mid-year achievement data. This is our first year assessing against the newly revised New Zealand curriculum.

Overall writing is our area of lowest achievement seeing 47% of our students achieving at expectation. It is not uncommon for writing to be lower than reading but at less than 50% it is of particular concern, also boys at 43% are not achieving as well as girls at 51%. There is also a difference in achievement across ethnic groups, 50% for Māori, 43% for Pasifika and Other. This may largely be accounted for by the fact that more of our Māori students have English as a first language.

This data helps us to identify both individual students and groups in need of support and being aware of the difference between ethnic groups. Teachers can look at ways to target their teaching to those most in need and the Board can support by resourcing materials and staff.

Some easy ways to support maths learning at home include card games,  reading recipes and letter box numbers, measuring or just counting. Counting forwards, counting backwards, skip counting in 10’s, in 2’s, in 5’s and counting objects around the home.

Garden to Table

In Kowhai, the students learned how to plant seeds correctly; then planted sugar pea seeds. These will be watered, nurtured by Kowhai and checked on until the seeds germinate. We continue to add our fruit skins to our compost piles, cutting them small, so that the earthworms can do their job! Kowhai also collect our ‘compost’ bins from each classroom to add to our compost piles.
Pipi students weeded the u-shaped veggie bed, turned the soil to aerate it and then dug trenches to plant our sprouted potatoes. They learned the correct method of sprouting and planting potatoes.Another group did the composting; cutting up fruit.
Whai: Students weeded the leek bed and then moved compost from one of our heaps into the leek bed, to add rich soil for planting our carrot seeds. We planted these directly into the bed as carrots do not enjoy transplanting. They also learned about companion planting. Another group also planted beetroot and corn seeds to be nurtured in the geodesic dome. These seeds will form the basis of
our ‘3 sisters’ planting method.
There are a number of students from Kapowai and Tuna, who help in
the garden during morning tea on a Thursday: so far they’ve planted
spinach, spring onions, sown radish seeds and also planted pea seeds.
Kawakawa class helped us this week, by planting sugar pea seeds.
It was the Titahi Bay Horticultural society’s annual flower show over the past weekend, held at Pataka.

I, Mrs de Villiers, am a long-standing member of this society. We entered our compost: giving us a 1st prize in the school category and also ‘Best exhibit’.
Our lovely show of miniature daffodils gave us another 1st and Junior best in show.
Our multi-headed daffodils got us a 1st place as well.
Our big, yellow trumpet daffodil got us a 2nd place.
We received 2x Bunnings vouchers for all our entries 😉

Can you help? We are looking for any adult help on Thursdays, (no gardening knowledge needed) from 9:15 – 11 am or till 12:00 if you’d like to join us for a snack. This can be a once off, or regularly on Thursdays (during the school term). Contact me for enquiries: gdevilliers@cannonscreek.school.nz
Garden to Table teacher@ Cannons Creek School. Mrs Ginelle de Villiers