Structured Literacy lesson in progress in Paemoana with Miss Mickleson.

Kia ora e te whānau

When I turned five and started school, on my first day I was given a book to take home. Could I read? No. Did I know any letters or sounds? Probably a few, but not necessarily words. So why was I given a book and how was I expected to read it? Some strategies that were possibly given to me - look at the pictures, remember what that word was, have a guess. This is something that has been happening in New Zealand schools for years. I can say that I have also used these strategies in my teaching over the years. It’s not to say that these strategies didn’t work for some, and there are some children who find reading easy and become bookworms. But what about those children who find it hard? Do they know what sound each letter makes? Are they able to decode words?

Over the last 2 years, all of our teachers and myself have been on the Structured Literacy journey. We have been looking into how the brain actually works and how you learn to read. Through evolution, humans naturally learn to walk and talk, but reading needs to be taught. Have a read of the Science of Reading if you’re interested in learning more.

Explicit teaching of reading is happening throughout Omihi, from Year 1-8. Structured Literacy is about learning the sounds of the letters and being able to decode words. We have interventions in place for those children further up the school where we need to help with some gaps and each teacher is including structured literacy in their daily programme. There are so many rules and explicit teaching for spelling and reading that we are teaching. You may know how to spell a word, but do you know why it’s spelt that way? For example the c/k sound. Do you know when you should use a c or a k….I did, but didn’t know why. The rule is ‘c is for a, o, u - k is for the other two’.

We are not throwing the baby out with the bath water. We have some great strategies and learning experiences for reading and writing already in place, but we are reflecting, challenging our own practice, learning, and looking at what changes we can make to improve our student’s achievement, confidence and attitude in literacy.

We are so lucky to have Penny, who has been on this journey for 3 years, plus she is trained in MSL (Multi-sensory Structured Language), as well as Sally and Georgie who have been lucky enough to have Structured Literacy training so early in their career. We have a staff with a growth mindset who are always looking for new ways and research into how we can help our tamariki, and a BOT who are supportive in helping us purchase the resources and professional learning we need. This is one of our initiatives in our Strategic plan for the next three years.

If you would like to find out more, or come in and see a lesson in action, please let me know. We would love to show you.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Omihi school strategic plan
After consultation and a lot of hard work throughout this year, we are so excited to share with you our Strategic Plan for the next 3 years. It is attached to the bottom of this newsletter. If you are interested in seeing the road map and annual plan that come out of this, please email me and I will share with you. These will also all be up on our school website next year.

Character strengths
Stan, Year 4 - Three of my character strengths are love, zest and humour. Love helps me to be kind to others, zest helps me to try new things and give everything a go, and humour helps me to make my friends laugh.

School photos
Thanks to Claire for taking these gorgeous photos for us. I will send you a link by the end of the week where you can purchase these online and they will be sent directly to you.

Prize giving cups: 
Please have a look for any cups at home from prize giving last year and ensure these are returned to school.

Lunches online
This week it is Sushi. Please use this link to place an order.

Working bee
A big thank you to the parents who came in to help with the planting in our new outdoor learning spaces. We appreciate your help and support.

Report comments 
You can expect to see report comments for writing, reading and PE at the end of this week on Hero. 

Transition programme
As part of our transition programme, over the next few weeks the children that are moving from Paemoana to Awaawa next year will have some time in Awaawa and will join in with lessons with Miss Smith. If you would like to talk to Georgie or Penny about this, please get in touch with them. The Year 5’s will also have some time in Tūpari in the morning sessions in the last couple of weeks of term. Please get in touch with the teachers if you would like to find out more.

Prize giving update
We will keep in touch with you regarding prize giving. We don’t want to make the decision too early, but we are hoping we are able to hold it outside, have parents socially distanced and in masks, and restrict families to two family members each so we can keep it under 100 people. There will be no whānau picnic afterwards. Please bear with us and know that we are doing everything we can to follow guidelines from the Ministry, as well as try and include parents in these special events.

Community Notices

Scargill-Motunau Playgroup AGM 10am Thursday 25th November at Playgroup. Apologies & enquiries to Lisa Chapman 021 223 8029.

Kat, myself, Liz and Nicholas - Springboard Trust Strategic Leadership for Rural Teaching Principals 2021

Kia ora e te whānau

This year I have been part of the Springboard Trust Strategic Leadership for Rural Teaching Principals programme. It has by far been the best professional learning I have been a part of. What I have loved, is how it has given me the chance to reflect on and grow my own leadership, share my learning with our staff and help to grow their leadership capabilities, and also the opportunities to connect with our staff, BOT, students and community about our vision and strategic plan.

I am grateful to Nicholas and Kat who were our facilitators of the course and my Impact Coach, Liz Smith, who is the Manager of People and Engagement at Waimakariri District Council and who is also a board member at Leithfield School. Nicholas, Kat and Liz questioned me, enabled me to look deeper into my practice and into us as a school, and helped us to think strategically and set direction for our school.

At our board meeting next week we are finalising the Strategic Plan, so I look forward to sharing this with you in our next newsletter. Our next steps will be finding out how you would like us to report our progress and how you can be involved in our next 3 years. We are really proud of this plan, and grateful to have had everyone involved in the process through a parent and community survey, parent evening, talking to our students, and working groups with our BOT and staff.

Ngā mihi nui
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
Principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Character Strengths - Rowan (Year 6)
My top character strengths are humour, creativity, perseverance and forgiveness. Humour helps me to get along with my friends and having a fun time at school. It helps me with keeping a positive mindset towards jokes and inside the classroom. When we do art with Mrs Croft, creativity helps me have more ideas and what to paint. When I’m running in the cross country or triathlon, perseverance helps me to know I’m going to be all right and to do my best while running. Forgiveness helps me to let go of grudges.

Swimming Pool
Thanks to Tamar, Emma and Pip who are going to be looking after the testing of the pool. We are aiming to have the pool open after Show Weekend.

Teacher Only Day
School will be closed on Thursday 11th November for a teachers only day.

2022 Year 5-8 Camp
Our camp in 2022 will be in Hanmer Springs. We will have confirmed dates by the end of the year and will ask for parent helpers early next year.

Prize Giving Cups
Can you please send back the 2020 Prize Giving Cups.

School Docs Policy
This term we are reviewing the following policies:
* Harassment
* Māori educational success
Please take time to read through and review our school policies and procedures. These can all be accessed by clicking here and entering the following case-sensitive login details: Username: omihi. Password: glenmark

Mufti Day
A reminder that this Friday is mufti day. Please send along a gold coin donation to help us raise money for Guide Dogs. This was one of the areas that our student leaders chose to raise money for.

Working bee
Thanks to those parents who are able to come to the working bee next Monday. Once the outdoor learning space is completed, we will look at having a working bee in a weekend to get the final few jobs completed.

Drink bottles
A reminder for children to bring their own drink bottle to school as we don’t have our drinking fountain available during level 2.

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou

The sandpit is one of Paemoana’s favourite places to play!

We had such a lovely finish to our term 3 with our ‘Positive Education Week’. It was great to learn some more ways to practice mindfulness, celebrate our character strengths and learn more about the 5 fingers of kindness. There is so much happening at the moment with Covid 19, so it is lovely to see our tamariki learning how to focus on their own wellbeing and learning how to strengthen their own physical, emotional and social wellness.

I was in and out of school with the building works going on these holidays, but Delilah and I still managed to have some lovely playdates with her friends. George, Delilah and I had a few days in Akaroa last week, which was nice to recharge. I hope that you managed to have some family time, and we are looking forward to having our tamariki back and hearing their holiday stories.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Welcome
Welcome to Joella Haglund (Miss Jo) who will be a student teacher in Paemoana for the next 5 weeks. Welcome to Stanley who is starting his school visits this week in Paemoana.

Principal Award Winners
Congratulations to our recent Principal Award winners….Billy and Lily! They will enjoy a trip to Fossil Point later this term for a hot chocolate.

Classes for 2022
We have confirmed our classes for 2022. We are very excited to have our three wonderful teachers back again and continue with our very small class sizes each morning. In the afternoons the classes will be in two groups - Year 0-4 (Mrs Vincent/Miss Smith) and Year 5-8 (Miss Mickleson).

Paemoana - Year 0-2, Mrs Vincent (8 children)
Awaawa - Year 3-5, Miss Smith (12 children)
Tūpari - Year 6-8, Miss Mickleson (12 children)

Tipu Maiā Kāhui Ako (Community of Learners)
In 2022 we are really excited to be fully invested in our kāhui, with the 13 schools to learn alongside - Greta Valley, Hanmer Springs, Waipara, Waikari, Rotherham, Waiau, Amuri Area School, Akaroa Area School, Oxford Area School, Cheviot Area School, Hurunui Area School, Rangiora New Life.

Congratulations to Penny, who is now one of the Across School Leads for our Kāhui. She will be working alongside two other teachers from Amuri Area School on a Friday and for two afternoons a week. Sally and Georgie are our Within School Leads. They will have some release time throughout the term to work on their focus area for our school. Sally - Positive Education and Georgie - Cultural Responsiveness. I am also continuing as a Support Principal to the Kāhui.

Character Strengths
Character Strengths is a big focus for us as part of our Positive Education Curriculum. Everybody has character strengths and we help our students to identify them and utilise them. Students and staff complete the VIA Character Strength Survey online to find out where their strengths lie. Each newsletter we are going to showcase one of our students or staff, what their character strengths are, and how they help them. Leni, Year 8 - ‘My top character strengths are love, love of learning and forgiveness. It’s good to be able to forgive, as you can make lots of friends if you are able to forgive. I love to learn new things, you can go so much further in life if you are able to love learning. It’s good to show love to others. We are all different and we need to love everyone for who they are.’

Working bee
School was a hive of activity during the holidays. The solar panels look AMAZING! We are just waiting for Contact Energy to come and do the last part of work so we can start utilising them. We now have a new roof on the office block and toilets, and the outdoor learning area is looking great. The landscaping and learning area should be finished mid term. We are hoping to have a working bee mid term to help spread some mulch and do some of the planting. If you are available on Monday 8th November during the day, please let me know. Or if that day doesn’t suit and you could do some work the weekend before, let me know.

Swimming Pool
In order to have our swimming pool up and running we need it to be tested twice daily. In larger schools this would be the role of a caretaker. We are looking for someone, or a couple of people who are happy to pop in before and after school to test the pool. Thalia very kindly did this for us last summer, but with her new bubba on the way we need someone to train up to take over. Please contact me if you are interested.

Sun hats
Omihi sun hats must be worn every day in term 4.

Dental Van
A reminder the dental van will be at school this Wednesday and Thursday.

Report comments
The health comment will be sent home later this week via Hero.

School photos - Tuesday 19th October
These will be taking place tomorrow at 9am. Please ensure children are in correct uniform. We will be in touch when they are ready for you to order.

Masks on buses
We have been advised by the Ministry of Education that children 12 years and older are now required to wear face coverings on buses. So children on our school bus and the technology bus 12 years and older now need to be wearing a mask. These need to be provided by families. Children under 12 years are not required, but are encouraged to wear a mask, so we will leave that up to your discretion.

Road safety
After school the pick up area is getting increasingly busy. This term we are going to trial the first bus to leave from the school driveway. So the bus children will go out the side gate. The second bus will leave at the front of the school as normal.

• If you are parking on the school side of the road, please don't park in front of the gate, ensure there is enough space for children to be able to see the road clearly.

• If you are parking in the hall carpark, children need to be crossed over by an adult, they can not cross themselves.

Community Notices

The Hurunui Theatre Group production of "Spamalot" is postponed until April/May next year due to a number of factors resulting from the COVID lockdown. Tickets already purchased are refundable at the outlet purchased, or transferable to the new dates when set. Thank you.

The North Canterbury Basketball's Girls Got Game Programme is a collaboration with Basketball New Zealand and Sport Canterbury's Tū Manawa Fund. It aims to engage young girls in basketball and encourage them to continue being active and enjoy basketball with their friends. Run by the best female coaches and Wildcats in NC, its major advantage over mixed programmes is its focus on girls.

Current Girls Got Game Programs Available:

Girls Got Game Weekly Skills Session - Register here

Run on Wednesday evenings for 8 weeks in term 4 (October 25th to December 13th), in parallel with our hoops and stars programme.

Like holiday camps, this is run with Wildcats and other top players and coaches in the region to get the best out of our young girls.

Girls Got Game Camp

North Canterbury Basketball provides holiday camps run by Canterbury Wildcats and the best players/coaches in the region during terms 1, 2, 3 and 4 Holidays. NC girls will experience basketball based fun where they will learn and develop their skills with the opportunity to play plenty of games and take part in fun competitions under the eyes of the best female players and coaches in the region. All days will include skills sessions, games 3X3 and 5V5, all coached by local Rams, Wildcats and other NCBA senior coaches and players.

Girls Got Game Camp - Next camp dates to Be Announced by November 30th 

For questions please email committee@northcanterbury.basketball

Tēna Koutou

Year 6-8 Speech winners for 2021.

This week Year 5-8 are heading off to Wainui for school camp. Miss Mickleson is leading the camp, and with Miss Smith’s help they have done a wonderful job of organising it. So much thought, time and planning goes into a school camp, so I would like to thank Sally and Georgie for this.

Camp is about building relationships, trust, resilience and stepping outside your comfort zone. It is a chance for our tamariki to push themselves and try new things. It can be nerve wracking being away from their family and we know some children feel a bit anxious about this, but it is so wonderful to see them challenge themselves and thrive in the activities. They always come away feeling so proud….and tired!

A big thanks to Aaron, Nathan, Jane and Carl for coming with us. We look forward to sharing photos with you of our three days.

Ngā mihi

Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Principal Award Winners
Congratulations to our latest Principal Award winners - Acacia Stevens-Pugh and Macy Finlayson. They will be heading to Fossil Point for a hot chocolate at the start of term 4.

Omihi School Online Auction
We would love your support with our auction now that our other fundraisers have had to be cancelled. You can go to the Omihi School Facebook page and the album is pinned to the top of the page, or click on this link. The auction finishes on Friday 24th September at 8pm. Please share it on Facebook for us and get your bids in. We also have a Fisher and Paykel cooktop on Trade me that was donated to us.

3 Way Learning Conferences
These were postponed during lockdown and we are struggling to find set days to book them in, plus we know parents are busy. So instead of booking in set days, we are going to leave it as an optional 3WLC and let you organise a time with your child’s teacher if you would like to catch up about your child's progress. If we are still in level 2, you will need to sign in and use the Covid scanner. Report comments will all be coming out in term 4.

Character Strengths
Character Strengths is a big focus for us as part of our Positive Education Curriculum. Everybody has character strengths and we help our students to identify them and utilise them. Students and staff complete the VIA Character Strength Survey online to find out where their strengths lie. Each newsletter we are going to showcase one of our students or staff, what their character strengths are, and how they help them. Macy, Year 6 - My top character strengths are kindness, love and teamwork. These help me to make friends and to engage in conversations with others.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori
We loved celebrating te reo last week. Our tamariki are definitely getting more confident when using te reo, as are our staff. We are challenging ourselves to continue to learn new kupu (words) and phrases. Ask your tamariki what they can say to you in te reo….

Speech Competition
We were so proud of all of our tamariki last week. Each and every one of them stood up and either performed a poem or presented a speech. It was so lovely to see their progress from last year. It blew me away seeing the confidence in some of our children who previously have been very shy when presenting speeches. In our Year 6-8 competition we would like to congratulate Jeremy for coming 1st, Daisy 2nd, Macy and Acacia 3rd equal.

Upcoming work at school
Today we were really grateful to have Pone Taite (Kaumatua) and Melanie Taite-Pitama (Tuahiwi Education Team Member) bless our new multipurpose space for us. The name gifted to our building is Kahiwi (mountain). It goes perfectly with our other buildings - Paemoana (sea), Awaawa (valley), Tūpari (mountain cliff). These capture our local environment. It was a wonderful learning experience for our tamariki to be a part of this.

The furniture has been delayed due to Covid, but hopefully that should start arriving early next term, so we can start using Kahiwi. We are excited to move our library in there, plus start using it for assemblies, music, break out spaces, groups of students working with adults, BOT meetings and much more! It truly will be an asset to our kura.

In the October holidays there are also a few other jobs happening - a new roof going on the office and the children’s toilet block, a new master key system being installed in all of the school buildings and gates, stage two of our playground and outdoor learning space will be started…..and thanks to a very kind member of our community and the money we raised from our virtual walk - we are having solar panels installed on the classroom roof! This is another step towards our sustainability goal and we are excited with the learning that will be able to surround this as well. We look forward to when everything is completed and we can invite you all in for our official opening in term 4.

Dates for 2022
Start date: Thursday 3rd February. Finish date: Wednesday 14th December

Pet Day
Thanks to Kurt who is going to take over Agri Sports from Leighton next year. We are still looking for someone to organise pet day. It doesn’t have to be a farmer. It would be great to have someone that could work with Julie this year, and then do it on their own next year. Please let me know if you are interested.

Swimming Pool
We are looking for someone to help us run the pool. In order to keep the pool going, it needs to be tested each day, including throughout the holidays. We could set up a roster if we can’t just get one person to do it. If you are interested, please let me know. There is training available if you haven’t looked after swimming pools before.

Sushi
Thanks to Dave.E for picking this up for us on Wednesday this week.

Upcoming Dates:
Term 3:
Camp (Year 5-8) - 22-24 September
Positive Education Week - week 10 (celebrating 5 fingers of kindness, resilience, character strengths and mindfulness)
Term 4:
Dental van - 20/21 October
School photos - Thursday 21st October
Student teacher Joella Haglund joins Paemoana - start of term 4
Labour Day - Monday 25th October
Athletics (Year 1-3) at Waikari School - Tuesday 26th October
Agri Sports/Pet Day - Wednesday 3rd November
Athletics (Year 4-8) - at Waipara School - Thursday 4th November
Assembly (Year 0-4) - Friday 5th November, 2pm
Teacher only day - Thursday 11th November
Assembly (Year 5-8) - Friday 26th November, 2pm
Grandparents Day - Tuesday 30th November
Kapahaka Festival (Year 4-8) - Thursday 2nd December

Community Notices

The Hurunui Theatre Group production of "Spamalot" is on hold and will be rescheduled to to a date that suits all parties and conditions. Tickets already purchased will be transferable to any of the new dates, or refundable, with online bookings to be re-selected.

Amberley Tennis Club have a registered Professional for coaching and are the furthest club North offering team entry into the North Canterbury Tennis competitions. Subject to grants, heavily subsidised coaching to children has been available for some years now which has led to a revival in the sport locally, with some great players coming through. Hopefully we can do this again this 2021-2022 year. Social hit and registration: Please come along for a hit and a catch up Saturday 25th September and we can put you into a team or sort out coaching for the season. Juniors from 10am and Adults from 1pm.

We request that everyone complies with the government’s contact tracing policy and signs in on the day. We will limit the attendance to 100 persons for the outdoor event and will be following the L2 protocols as required. Please bring your masks for any spectators/parents.

Competition players: We are looking for numbers this year to make up some short teams in all the grades. We are particularly interested if there’s any A graders out there wanting to play some great competition tennis and put Amberley on the map again this year. We are always looking for the more mature players (35YO) for President competition grade 1 & 2 (doubles only) players to make up the teams even if you only wish to play casually. It often helps. 

Simon Bennetto 03 314-8338,

Kate Dodd 021-509-955  

Kylie Chapman 021-816-564

Vegan Expo Christchurch
Haere-Roa (UCSA, 90 Ilam Rd)
10am – 4pm
Sunday, November 7, 2020

Enjoy great vegan food, watch top veggie chefs display their cooking secrets, learn about plant-based living and enjoy celebrating cruelty-free, pro-planet lives with Christchurch’s vegetarian and vegan community. Whether you are vegetarian or not, you will love the variety of foods and entertainment on offer, which includes a special kid’s zone, bouncy castle and activities.

Eftpos and plenty of free parking will be available.

Kids free (12 and under), adults $5 if bought online now (veganexpo.co.nz/christchurch) or $6 on the door.  

More info: veganexpo.org.nz/christchurch
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veganexpochristchurch
Instagram: www.instagram.com/veganexpochristchurch 

Please note: The Expo will only go ahead if we are in Covid-19 alert level 1. If the event has to be cancelled, refunds will be issued to anyone who has purchased tickets.