Newsletter

Week 5 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

Our students recently performed at Te Rauparaha Arena as part of the Te Kiwa Nui festival. It was our first year participating and our students were stunning, thanks to their own hard work, and of course that of the tutors!

They performed a set which showcased a waiata from each of the languages we teach here at Cannons Creek, representing these cultures with great harmonies. Thanks to the incredible dedication of staff, they looked fabulous in newly designed costumes.

This week is our Korero Mai, Korero Atu parent-teacher interviews, we aim to meet with every parent to share students learning. School finishes at 1.30pm. If you can not make it on Tuesday please arrange an alternative time with your child’s classroom teacher.

Last week nominations closed for our school Board, and we have 7 candidates so you will be receiving further information about the election process. It is awesome to have such clear parent engagement in our school, thank you.

Katrina Day

CARE Values

Attendance

Recently there have been some nasty bugs going around so there has been a marked drop in attendance. Congratulations to those who have stayed healthy and kept up regular attendance. To win the weekly award of “Cressie” the tuna, students need to have had perfect attendance for the previous week.                   

Every Day Matters! 

What’s happening?

Term 3

Weekly Events:

Tuesday: Kapa Haka 11:00, Sailing

Wednesday: Te Kiwa Nui performance group 2:00-3:00

Thursday: Garden to Table

Friday: Languages

Upcoming Events:

Term 3

Week 5: Tuesday 12 August: School finishes at 1.30pm

Korero Mai, Korero Atu Parent -Teacher Interviews 2pm to 7pm

Week 6: Wednesday 13 August: Move n Groove Year 3-4 sports trip

Week 7: Tuesday 26 ERO visit

Week 8:

Celebrations

Gallery

Some shots from behind the scenes as our Te Kiwa Nui group prepare for their performances.

 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 reading achievement sees 54% of our students achieving at expectation. However there is variation across specific groups: Māori 57%, Pasifika 50%, Other 52%. Girls 59% and Boys 48%.

This data helps us to identify both individual students and groups in need of support and being aware of the gap between girls and boys in reading achievement The Board are looking to resource the purchase of graphic novels and other texts that may be more engaging for students.

Garden to Table

Various gardening groups: We have a garden tool group, a boot & glove group, a weeding group, a composting group, a harvest group & then a group that goes to the kitchen to prepare our meal. Each student moves groups each time, so that they all get a turn learning the various gardening & kitchen skills.

The students in Whai have started Compost in a jar:  little experiment to show the students what composting is all about. They learned about nitrogen and carbon and how to layer their compost jars.

In Pipi, the students learned about bulbs and which bulbs are edible. Pipi has been given the task of taking garlic and propagating it to form roots, then leaves and finally getting the little bulbs to form plants. Soon we will be planting these garlic bulbs in our school garden.

In Kowhai, the students are learning about the critters that help in our garden; earthworms and their uses. The students cut up large pieces of fruit to make it easier for earthworms to digest the food to make compost. They also weeded the u-shaped garden and found a few potato gems as we dug up the weeds! What fun to dig deep to find potatoes. Our harvest was 3kg.

Our Thursday schedule:

We garden or learn about gardening tasks for about 20 minutes, then go into the garden to do the practical work, in groups, until morning tea. Most students are so keen, they’d rather garden than go to play! By 11 am, they wash up, tidy the gardening equipment and go back to class for morning tea. After morning tea, we do revision of our lesson from that day’s gardening and then we go to the hall to share the food Miss Linda & her team have prepared.

I am very excited to get the last of our Winter veggies in the ground.

Volunteers: I am looking for any help on Thursday, (no gardening knowledge needed) from 9:15am to 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