Upcoming Events
- RAMs Training-1st April 2022
- IEM -14th April 2022 (school not open for instruction)
- School Holidays– 15th April-1st May
- IEM-2nd May 2022 (school not open for instruction)
- Queen’s Birthday– 6th June (school closed)
- Matariki– 24th June (school closed)
Messages From Anita
In these uncertain times it is great to see our tamariki and rangatahi enjoying the opportunities that are available at Ao Tawhiti. This newsletter is a celebration of those activities and opportunities and I am always grateful to the staff, whānau and community who make this possible. We are halfway through our first term for 2022 and it has been a great few weeks – even in the face of Omicron. The students have worked hard and the result of that mahi is evidenced in the celebrations of learning captured in this newsletter. Thank you to Beth, our new student administrator, for putting the newsletter together, replacing Jonelle who did a great job previously. Well done to all our tamariki and rangatahi for the valuable contribution they make to our kura.
Anita
Messages from Senior Leaders
RAMs Training
We really appreciate parent involvement in education outside the classroom and the richer range of experiences our ākonga enjoy as a result. We offer RAMs training sessions for whānau who are keen to get more involved in trips with students. Dates and times for Term 1 sessions are as follows: – Friday 25th Feb – 8:30am – Wednesday 9th March – 2:30pm – Friday 1st April – 8:30am. There will be more sessions next term. Sessions last no more than half an hour and cover the basics of what’s involved when volunteering on trips. Please email me to let me know if you’re planning to attend: megan.taylor@aotawhiti.school.nz
Megan Taylor
Community Day at Margaret Mahy Playground
On the first Friday Home Base of term one, Richard’s community and the Year Seven and Eight students went to Margaret Mahy playground. This was an opportunity for students to get to know each other and to explore our city. Our school is purposely placed in the middle of Christchurch so we can use the wider city as our classroom. We want our students to feel comfortable accessing the resources available around our building and Margaret Mahy is a fabulous place to visit. Well done to all the students on this trip as they epitomised our core values of whanaungatanga (community) and whakaute (respect).
Anita
News / Notices
From the SCT
Kia ora koutou. PCT’s Beginning Teachers Meeting, Monday 3:15 on Level 4, 30 minutes. Please let me know if you are unable to make this time. New Staff at AT. I am planning that we will meet at the same time and place as above in a week’s time (Monday, 28th 3:15pm on Level 4) for a brief discussion and planning for our future sessions together. Please let me know if you are unable to attend.
Libby Boyd
We Need Fabulous People Like You to Build Our Learning Kete for Our Ākonga across the school
We need people like you to help make the learning of our tamariki a reality. We are looking for people to contribute to our Community Resources Bank, with a passion area, a skill, a place of employment or an opportunity that they would like to share with our learners.
If this sounds like you, here is a link to add yourself to our resources kete so our ākonga and LAs can touch base with you and connect like-minded individuals. This isn’t just for experts. If you have an area of interest and you would like the opportunity to share it with a young person, or a group of young people in an; interview, a workshop, a series of workshops, or even a business opportunity, we want to hear from you.
Thank you for taking the time to link our student community with the opportunities our whānau and the wider community can provide to build new learning.
Melva Gill
University level Philosophy at Ao Tawhiti
Our 78Philosophy students have started their university course, Phil110 – Science: Good, Bad, Bogus. Over half the class have officially enrolled at University and are now working on university level assignments. The course is taught at school and is a fantastic opportunity for students to take their academic study to the next level. We’re looking forward to seeing the first lot of essays come through.
Brent Silby
Check out the Year 1-6 Community Newsletter!!
Kia ora e te whānau!
Down on Floor 1 in Year 1-6 we get up to all sorts of engaging, awesome, fun learning in and out of the building throughout the week. Every second Friday at 5pm parents are sent a link to the 1-6 Community Newsletter. It contains everything you need to know as a Y1-6 parent in our community. It is where you’ll find all of our permission forms, information on upcoming events, places to sign yourself up to help out, Nature Play information, access to our online learning platforms and more. It is a great idea to set a reminder in your calendar to spend 5-10 minutes reading through it at some point over the weekend – especially to do things like filling in the forms and signing up for parent help requests for the weeks ahead. The link to the site is here below. You have have access to it all through the week if you need to check back on something. LA’s put a lot of time and effort into creating this high level of communication for families so we appreciate all of you for checking it on a regular basis!
Bonnie & Gina
Tākaro Hapori
The Tākaro Hapori has started the year well. Officially, we have 115 students keen to explore learning with and through games. From the start, we have reinforced that our Hapori is about Innovating, creating or entrepreneurships in the gaming space. For the first two weeks, we have had six different LA led learning experiences to embed and reinforce the learning culture we are striving for. These have included, an introduction to ESports, Game Development, Dungeons and Dragons, Digital Design, Tabletop games and Online Strategies Games. Our next steps moving forward involve students gravitating to their current area of interest and pursuing their own learning pathway. This may be an LA supported focus such as becoming a Dungeon Master, Coding and creating new games, Organising an ESports Tournament for others, or students may have their own projects related to games and gaming which meet the brief of innovating, creating or entrepreneurships. As an aside, we surveyed our group about their gaming and screen time. This was mainly done out of curiosity and to see if it informed what we might include during our Hapori time. Below are some of the results.
In House Sports
This week we have started in-house school sports. This term we are playing basketball and futsal every week at homebase time on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays until the end of term.
Megan Gould
Other Notices
