Talofa Lava, 
We're back with another edition of our newsletter to keep you informed about all the wonderful things happening in our school.

 

Teacher Only Days
We had a big couple of days of learning alongside our Te Pae Here Community of Learning colleagues and our Rototuna Primary School colleagues. We heard Dr Michael Johnson speak about the changes to the way literacy is to be taught in New Zealand Schools.  Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative and  leads the workstream on education. All schools in New Zealand are required to implement a structured literacy approach to reading by 2025. Rototuna Primary School is in an advantaged position having already participated in structured literacy professional development. 

Honorable Erica Stanford, the Minister of Education, visited our Teacher Only Day and shared with us the future education spend and the priority focus areas for education going forward. 

We then spent a day sharing ways of teaching with our colleagues that can strengthen our literacy and numeracy programmes. We also reviewed our one hour a day programmes in reading, writing and maths to ensure that we are meeting the government change in legislation. This mandated requirement means that 3 hours of each school day needs to be dedicated to the teaching of reading, writing and maths. This doesn't leave much time to teach other subject areas, so we are exploring ways to integrate learning areas.  

Understanding Anxiety
We have had Mel Churton (Registered Psychologist for the Ministry of Education) facilitate a recent staff meeting for our Rototuna Primary team focused on 'Understanding Anxiety'. We learnt the difference between anxiety and worry or apprehension and she gave us ways to support students with their worries, to acknowledge their feelings, to help them find their brave and grow their resilience and problem solving skills.  Mel shared some books that may be great to have on the bookshelf at home and school:

                                                      

Mel finished her session with this lovely quote!

Farewell to Miss Karen Blunden
At the end of this week we farewell Karen Blunden, teacher of Room 33. Karen has been a valued member of our Rototuna Primary School team and we will miss her but wish her well as she returns to family in the South Island. We are grateful to have Miss Claire Donaldson teaching Room 33 until the end of the term. We welcome back Miss Charlotte Donald to our kura at the beginning of Term 3. Miss Donald will teach Room 33 until the end of the school year. 
 
Manuia lou aso,
Have a good day!

Kylie 

 At Rototuna Primary we promote healthy food options and water only in drink bottles. We are noticing that lunchboxes have an increasing amount of biscuits, cakes, juices and packaged food. Below are some ideas for healthy finger food items.

Our student leaders attended the National Young Leader's Day at Claudelands last week. They were fully engaged and enjoyed listening to a range of inspirational speakers. Many thanks to Susan Arnold for organising this event for our student leaders and to Anna Parkinson, Steph Parkinson and Stacey Lawrene as our valuable support crew. 

A few words from Sophia (a student leader) about the day:
On the 29 of May 2024, the school leaders attended NYLD young leaders day. Six inspirational people shared their life story and their achievements. As well as positive messages to help us build confidence and become better leaders, the speakers shared quotes and messages to help us on our journey to being a leader. We loved listening, taking notes and learning new dance moves. We think they have already given us huge ideas and definitely inspired us to believe in ourselves, never give up and keep on going when times get tough.

Below are our manaaki stars for the last two weeks.

Week 4: Thank you to the following students for showing manaaki and spreading their kindness! 

Anira R6, Hirat R5, Paige R13, Nate Robinson R23, Ethan R36, Ray R35, Lylah R2, Saavi R39, Raegan R12, Jay Smith-Baillie R11, Irie R16, Violet R32, Alexa Room 40/41, Sree 40/41, Waimarie Rm34, Maiya Rm 10, Elena Rm 31, Kaizer Rm 9, Harfateh Rm 8, Zackson Rm 19, Aaliyah Room 30, Justin R24, Ivania R18, Sonny R15, Dylan R17, Anu R38, Paridhi Rm 7

Week 5: Thank you to the following students for 'playing their A-game' and being noticed and celebrated for their manaaki (kindness) this week: Maggie Su R33, Ricoh R23, Gurnoor R10, Lucas R15, Kaizer-Lee R12, Aiden R6, Mahi R35, Minuthi R16, Amerah R20, Panav R18, Mayson R17, Salman Rm 19, Gurniwaz Rm 8, Mila R36, Dev R7, Satkaar R5, Jordan R13, Vanya R9, Jackie R14, Sienna 40/41, Cindy 40/41

Students are enjoying the Puna of Manaaki lessons each morning in classrooms  from 9.05-9.15am. Here is our manaaki focus for this week and next week:

Our friendly dental staff will be visiting Rototuna Primary School to see children who have not yet been seen for their annual dental assessment ONLY. Children who have consent on file will be called from class. If you wish to attend your child’s appointment please visit the mobile unit on site or call 0800 825 583 to advise. (School sign-in process maybe required) If we do not have consent on file we will send a dental form home for you to fill in and return to school. Children without consent will NOT be seen. Once we have seen your child we will send home information, this may include whether your child is complete for the year or if they require a follow up appointment at our fixed clinic for treatment.

Ngā mihi
Fairfield Dental Clinic Team
Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand

Congratulations to the following Players of the Day:
Waris - Hockey Green
Yash - Hockey Orange
Joanna - Hockey Purple
Aanya - Hockey Silver
Riley - Netball Diamonds
Divitha - Netball Pulse
Laine - Netball Tactix