Middleton Grange Primary School Update

Hectic but FUN! That’s how I would describe the past few weeks. The pace becomes particularly frenetic in term 4 of each year. So far we have had Year 6 Camp, whole school athletics day, Year 0-2 supermarket visits … and coming up we’ve got a whole raft of other activities and deadlines.

Amongst everything going on I have been undertaking interviews with parents of non-new entrant children who have been accepted for 2006. You may well remember when your child/children was/were accepted into Middleton Grange. This is an important time for all new children and their families so it would be great if you could pray for those new to the school that their transition to school will be a great one and that families will quickly feel part of the Middleton Grange community. It’s important to remember that coming into a school can often not be easy and it requires all of us to help “ease” new people into Middleton Grange.

It was great to see so many parents at our recent special assembly in which we presented a large number of certificates to celebrate our successes with Australian English, Mathematics and Spelling competitions. We certainly have many gifted and talented pupils in the Primary School. We will also be celebrating gifts in our end of year assembly this year, the theme being “Celebrating Achievement”. This will be held on Tuesday, 13th December at 1.00 pm in the Sports Centre. God has certainly blessed us in so many ways including having motivated and focussed children with a wide variety of gifts and talents they are willing to apply at school. We look forward to seeing you at this end of year celebration.

Finally, thanks to all who were involved in our Fiesta. Special thanks to Steve Bensberg and the P.T.B.A. “organising and hard graft” team. It’s a great community event and fundraiser.

Class Designations for 2006

Over the next week or two I will be interviewing all the parents of children Yrs 2-6 newly enrolled for 2006. This is a big undertaking but a very valuable one. It gives me the opportunity to get to know a little about the children and also their parents. It is also a step along the path to making up class lists for 2006.

Each year we do invite parent input as to your child’s needs and your thoughts and ideas re placement. We are particularly interested in information about your child which you think it is important for us to know. This may relate to friendships or social needs, academic or learning needs etc.

HOWEVER, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE A PARTICULAR TEACHER for your child based on PARENTAL INPUT. WE USE A WIDE RANGE OF INFORMATION TO DETERMINE THE BEST PLACEMENT FOR YOUR CHILD.

Please forward any information/thoughts to John Stackhouse, Head of Primary School, by Monday 14 November … either by note or e-mail john@middleton.school.nz.

Please let us know if … your child is not returning to Middleton Grange in 2006. It will assist us greatly in the enrolment process if you contact Mr Stackhouse to let him know if you will be withdrawing children from the Primary School at the end of this year. Please contact him as soon as possible.

Year Six Camp 2005 - Hanmer

WHAT A WEEK! Hanmer Springs is a great venue for a camp! Fresh air, forests and mountains … and of course the hot pools. Sixty Year 6 pupils, three staff and numerous parents shared a great week in the great outdoors.

A mixed bag of weather did not stop the group from doing nearly all their activities and having a great time. Walking, rock climbing, walking, bush skills, walking, hot pools, walking, small town study, walking, climbing mountains, walking, eating, walking and many other activities gave four very full days! And did I mention the walking! A very tired group of pupils, staff and parents returned to Christchurch on the Friday to a long weekend of recovery.

Many thanks to all the parents we had—what a fabulous bunch!

KIDSWORK

Dear Diary,

Today is 18th October 2005. It has been a long tedious, hard day at camp. Got to Hanmer, unpacked and got used to our surroundings. We went on the giant walk up Conical Hill. Me and some mates had a game of rugby and soccer but a dumb thing is we can’t play spotlight tonight. Tomorrow we are going swimming and going on a night walk. It’ll be cool. I’m tired. My feet are acheing and I don’t know which way is up and which way’s down! It’s a lot of fun, happy faces all round, and the weather held up for today. It looks to me like it’s going to rain.

By Aidan Rm 15

Dear Diary,

Today is Wednesday. It’s been a smashing! day at camp. (Wow!) It’s been a great day today. We did a whole log of activities. I started with rock climbing. I got about a metre away from the very top. When you look down it’s so high. The next thing we did was Mission Impossible, that was really cool. After that we did tents and knots. The knots were hard and the tent was hard too, but we got it down eventually. Oh we did hobo stoves too (YUMMY), first aid, that was really fun, and compasses were good too.

By Jessica R15

Dear Diary,

Today is Thursday, 20th October 2005.    It’s been a wet and gloomy day at camp. This is what happened—”What”? We have to go on a 4 hour or 6-7 hour tramp today. “OH NO”. Everyone groaned. We had to climb Mt. Isobel. We started at 9 am—3.15 pm. The hardest part of the tramp was climbing up, but the going down was very easy because you’re not climbing steep stone or rocks. We came down from Mt. Isobel a different way. We went down on the Waterfall Track which took 2 1/2 hours (WOW). It was amazing when the rain held off till we came down on the Waterfall Track. Today was a great experience and a challenge!!

By Joshua R15

Run, Jump, Throw …

A fabulous day … warm, sunny and not too much wind … greeted us as we spent the day running, jumping and throwing.

The whole school Years 0-6 was involved in the Primary

School athletics and it was also great to see so many parents along to support their children and others in a variety of events.

We had high jump, long jump, ball throw, discus, shotput, sprints, long distance, relay, tug of war, obstacle course... makes you breathless just listing them all.

Wonderful to see the excellent behaviour and attitudes of the children during the day. I was       particularly thrilled to see great evidence of children encouraging others to do well, and celebrating their achievements… even if they were a close rival in an event.

It is always nice to see so many parents staying to share lunch and also spectating at the Year 0-2 athletics in the afternoon.

Special thanks to all Primary School staff and parents helpers! Also, great work Mr Pomare in your organization of the Year 3-6 athletics and organization of the Zone Athletics team!

P.S. Staff celebrated another victory in the relay! The pupils were the only opposition … what happened to the parents?    Have the parents finally admitted the staff are too good for them?

Congratulations to all those who represented the school in Zone Athletics last Friday. Well done!

SHARP Breakfast Club and After-school Programmes have space for your children and are taking enrolments now.

The After-school Programmes run from 3 pm until 5.30 pm. The Year 1-6 children are picked up from school in vans or cars and the Year 7-10 children make their own way to their programmes. Our 5 programmes are age based, with four of the programmes based at Spreydon Baptist Church and one from a class room at West Spreydon School. The   children have afternoon tea, do homework and can choose from a variety of activities each afternoon. They also go on the occasional trip. The cost per afternoon is between $8.50 and $9.50 per child.

WINZ/Oscar subsidies are available to families that qualify for all our programmes.

Contact Denali on Ph 3384163 ext #830.

NEW STYX MILL PRESCHOOL & NURSERY

Opening 21st November 2005

Limited spaces are available in this exceptional new preschool offering separate areas for Nursery,          Preschool and Prep school, unique gym facility, child focused programmes, drama classes, hair dressing   service, exceptional transition to school programme

and qualified experienced teachers. Phone us today for   further information or to secure a space in our beautiful facilities.

Phone 323-7838 or

E-mail styxmillpreschool@xtra.co.nz

School Uniform

10% CASHBACK

Just a reminder that you are able to purchase a range of our school uniform        garments from our local Postie+ store and as we are registered on their SchoolTex Rewards Programme, every time a SchoolTex garment is purchased and the sale is nominated to our school we receive a 10% CASHBACK. This can help enormously with our fundraising projects.

KARATE CLASSES:

Children 6—12 years. Classes also available for teenagers and adults.

Contact Robin for more information Ph 342-8086.