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newsletter 23 2 august 2011 red poem written by danielle thomas year 2

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2 august 2011 kia ora koutou welcome back to the new term after a lovely long break i hope everyone feels well rested thank you to those families who took the time to respond to our survey about the national standards reporting and the student learning conferences as a staff we have also evaluated this aspect of reporting to you and combined with your feedback we will make changes to try to improve the experience to explain the purpose of these conferences further it is important to understand that we must by law report to parents about national standards this is the formal part of your child s achievement while this is important our learning philosophy at golden sands school is about empowering our children to be involved and eventually lead their own learning many of you expressed joy at hearing your children talk about their learning if children are able to develop a love of learning they will continue this throughout their lives and this will serve them well as adults this conference served both of the purposes described above please remember that if you need to speak with a teacher privately you are most welcome to make a separate appointment over the next 12 months we will be hosting community learning sessions to help you gain an understanding of the functions and purposes of assessment currently used in nz schools your feedback is below i have copied comments that either reflect trends or present an alternative view for us all to think about thank you for your contributions 1 were the national standards graphs easy to understand yes 100 did you get clear explanations from the teacher yes 100 the written report was designed to complement the discussion you had with our teachers please give us feedback on what worked or didn t work for you the written report was useful in the discussion and also great to be able to take it home helpful to have hints of what to do at home to help i liked how it was so positively framed there wasn t screeds of writing but it still managed to get a lot of information across i liked how it fitted into the proud structure as had already been done earlier in the year i found the specific ideas for helping her very useful the written report was easy to understand and it was good to see where our son is in relation to where he should be the discussion was just reading the report to us i didn t find this so great maybe the parents could read report then the discussions could follow this and we could bring up any concerns the achievements matched what the teacher had been feeding back all term the next steps were very specific and clear which i loved having the report there to go through with the teacher was really effective it meant there were no surprises which can sometimes happen when reading a report at home we are working towards children leading their own learning this means that we want them to be able to talk about what they are learning why they are learning it and how they are going about it how did you find this part of conference it was good to hear in their own words how they are getting on and what they are doing made me feel like they are actually understanding what they are learning great to see the children so proud of their work and keen to show what they had learnt loved it the kids could explain clearly and was good to see what they do esp as it is so different from our schooldays i think it was a good tool with lots of openings opportunities to encourage her and give her direction to discuss she obviously felt chuffed that she was a part of the discussion and it made her sit up and pay a bit more attention too 2 3 4.

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it was good to hear our son talk about something but we were having to say come on hurry along so we could get back to what the teacher had to say so even though it was important it wasn t as important as what the teacher needs to discuss i liked it although there wasn t enough time to enable this i would have liked not just a presentation by the child on their work but real input from the child what they thought of their strengths areas of weakness etc although i appreciate time does not allow for this amazed in the change in both my children in the fact that they both confidently contributed and explained their learning whereas in the past they have said nothing when prompted was amazed sometimes you are surprised by what your child is capable of would love to have this as part of all the parent teacher evenings other comments 15 minutes is definitely a better timeframe than 10mins it is always good to sit down with the teacher for a chat about our child it is obvious to see the teachers enjoyment of her job and our sons enjoyment within his class with the children being present there are some things that can t be discussed in front of them it s great to have that opportunity to hear the children talk about their learning but perhaps somehow also to have a chance to talk about my children s learning without them present i felt a bit weird having so many other people hanging about in the learning space in the middle i felt like our interview wasn t private thank you to all the teachers at golden sands school they are all doing a fantastic job and so committed to their students learning having my daughter s progress discussed in such an encouraging and positive way made us all feel a lot better about her development than we previously have done having specific things to target and help her make me feel more involved and help me to know what i can do to help her i think the report structure was excellent 5 we had 100 attendance at our learning conferences well done what a supportive community zone consultation we have considered all zone submissions and will present these to the ministry of education this week the ministry will make a decision on 1 september 2011 if you are on our emailing list we will email you with the decision as soon as we have it information will also be posted into our newsletter welcome to montana tia and charlize who started in sheppard 1 this week and cian who has started in sheppard 4 i know that everyone will be looking out for our new students and will help them to learn the golden sands way welcome also to jeanne mears who has been appointed as a teacher aide for term 3 we have been lucky to appoint someone with such a strong educational and special needs background for this position our children are very fortunate to have jeanne working with them this term thank you to jo mcinnes who has donated the family bbq to our school as we have been borrowing sally and steve s each week we are very appreciative angus bbq will cook up many treats for us in the future footwear please ensure that your child has plain black footwear as part of their uniform we have noticed that there are a lot of sneakers/trainers/sport shoes that are not black being worn parents will be contacted should incorrect footwear or any other part of the uniform become regularity community volunteers we are lucky enough to have some kind people who will be working on tidying and cleaning the school in weekends they will be working on keeping our windows clean and the gardens tidy.

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community consultation this term our focus is on mathematics we would like to hold a community meeting to share an understanding of the current maths curriculum and numeracy project many of you will have noticed that children are using different strategies to the ones we learnt at school please answer the survey to tell us when you would like this meeting and what you would like us to cover copy and paste this link into your browser http www.surveymonkey.com/s/5wb7hsl school photos class and portrait photographs will be taken on monday 22nd august we have sent home the prepaid class and portrait envelopes to be completed and they need to be returned by friday 19 th august with the money for the photo uniform replacements if you are a new family to the school our shorts and skorts have been made with faulty fabric and we have arranged to replace them for everyone on thursday 11 august nz teamwear will be here at school between 2.30-5.30pm to exchange these items nz teamwear will take back your old ones regardless of how long you have had them and replace them with new ones you will not be able to keep your old uniforms as they have to be returned to the supplier they will also have extra ones here should you wish to purchase more they will take cash cheque or manual credit card larger polo shirts are now in the shop and larger tights are coming in also i have asked the supplier to give us a non-wool sample of socks so that we can see whether they might be another option for us new enrolments do you know anyone who intends on enrolling their child in the next 12 months if so please encourage them to enrol as soon as possible as this allows me to plan staffing and resources for their arrival a number of people have been inquiring as to when we would like to know about new 5 year olds starting we would love to know a year in advance so please come to the office i hope everyone has a relaxing break organised keep safe and enjoy your holiday school helpers do we have anyone else that can help with the shelving of books in the library and general tidiness we have two great mums who are currently doing a fantastic job however they need more help if you can help please let the office know school grounds a reminder to families to ensure that children do not play in the school grounds unsupervised while our grounds are well used and quite visible around the buildings are not please ensure that your children are safe by having an adult on site with them charities there are two charities we would like to support in the next coming weeks they are daffodil day for the cancer society and the foodbank if you would like to donate a can of food or some other non-perishable ingredients for the tauranga foodbank please send them to school we will be collecting for this over the next two weeks have a great week everyone naku noa na melanie taylor melanie taylor principal 2011 term dates term 2 2 may ­ 15 july term 3 1 august ­ 7 october term 4 25 october ­ 14 december term calendar 11 aug 2:30 ­ 5:30 replacement of uniforms 22 aug school photos

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sports news netball this weeks game 10 am court 7 golden sands dune jumpers v fairhaven mystics court 8 golden sands ferns v paengaroa dolphins it is really important to be at the courts half an hour before the game the girls who are there on time are spending a lot of time standing around as it is not in the teams best interest to warm up or talk about the game until all the team members are there we meet at 9:30am on the far warm up court if you are running late can you please let any of the managers know lisa adkins angela werder or sally stuart community notices gymnastic academy the gymnastic academy with national level coach papamoa primary school cost $80 per term for more information or to book a place call marie farrell on 572.0724 or email marie@gymnasticacademy.co.nz missing scooter yesterday someone mistakenly took the wrong scooter home ­ and left their similar looking scooter at school it was a black scooter with red wheels could you please return it to the office so that we can swap it back with the correct one thank you.

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