Principal’s Update
Kia ora Waitetuna Whaanau,
nau mai ano—welcome back. The students were excited to be back and settled in well to the first week of term 2. The staff have a very exciting term of Science planned. We have a huge investigation around Rockets and the Science behind these. We also have some amazing plans around our Environmental Education including our eco-sourcing of seeds/seedlings, our involvement with Karioi project and discussing Pirongia Maunga sister project too. Some exciting experiences have been planned for our Senior and Junior room to do some mahi together down at Totara Grove—our bush school. You will see an additional Green House being built this term as our eco-sourcing space gets extended. Thanks to Raglan Food Company for this funding.
Executive function — I was doing some reading in the holidays about Executive functions—
‘Executive functions’ is an umbrella term for a set of cognitive skills that enable people to make decisions, solve problems and manage their own thinking and behaviour in order to achieve future goals and succeed in everyday life. The three core executive functions are response inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility. The higher order executive functions are task initiation, planning/prioritising, organisation, time management and goal setting. Executive functions enable people to be self-regulating, controlling their thoughts and actions in order to succeed in everyday life. Supporting our children with these skills is an ongoing project and all children develop these at different rates. People are not born with executive functions, rather they develop slowly over time, from birth up until the late teens, or mid to late twenties. The good news is that executive functions develop slowly over time and can be strengthened through training and supportive environments. The better developed our executive functions are, the better we can complete tasks and manage our thinking and behaviour. When executive functions are weak, people become stressed and anxious. These need to be scaffolded for students to develop these. Executive functions have been likened to the CEO of the brain, the conductor of an orchestra, or an air traffic controller. To be able to change behaviour, we need to draw upon executive functions to identify what the problem is, plan how to make a change, put the plan into action and evaluate its success. You will all see the need to provide support for our children to acquire these. Aaron Gott — Musiq Hub offers music lessons at Waitetuna School. His contact details—aaron.amy@musiqhub.co.nz—you are still able to put your child’s name down for music lessons. There are some spaces available. Please email Aaron on the email address above. They come to school and students have their lesson in school time. Covid numbers—we have been Covid free for three weeks, thankfully. Have a wonderful weekend.
Ngaa mihi Amanda
All The Happenings
Dates so far—Term 2
Thursday—week 2—2.15pm assembly
ASB Getwise financial literacy—12th May
Pink shirt Day—Thursday 19th May
Junior Football tournament—20th May
Queen’s birthday—Monday 6th June
Matariki—public holiday—25th June
Ki-o-rahi—Year 7 and 8’s—Friday 1st July
Science Roadshow—Thursday 7th July—TBC
PTA News
PTA NEWS—the PTA had a meeting last night and our students and staff are very grateful for their funding approval of $40 per student for Education Outside the Classroom and supporting us with additional Structured Literacy resources.
We are so very grateful for your support.
Te Reo Maaori phrases of the week - Ka rawe! Awesome
Thanks a million
Thank you to Yvonne Wilkinson and Alister and the Vincent family for donating books to our school. We really appreciate this!
And thank you to the Valentin’s for keeping our seedlings and gardens watered in the holidays.
Waitetuna Way
Well done to Jamie Moss and Kaia Powell for Showing respect by actively listening to others.