Newsletter - Week 7 Term 4

Nga mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa (warm greetings to you all)

Our end of year is approaching quickly - and what a different situation we are experiencing to so many other school wind ups ... last year even felt normal compared to 2021.

Thankfully the senior school camps scheduled for last week were able to go ahead so very smoothly. These were fantastic experiences for all - our real appreciation is extended to the students, parents helps and staff who were all part of the fun.

It is so disappointing not to be able to have our community prize-giving and breakup as we do every other year. For those of you who not been part of one, it is wonderful. We have well in excess of one thousand people in attendance at our school celebrating the achievements of our students in an evening prize-giving. But unfortunately it is not to be in our current circumstances.

Our Year 6 social will go ahead but also without parents in attendance. Again a sad situation, but one that the ways of dealing with this pandemic has brought about.

Many thanks to our parents are adhering to our request for mask wearing and keeping out of the school grounds unless absolutely necessary. Your cooperation is truly appreciated.

This is our final newsletter for the year. To the many families who have their youngest, or only child, due to leave us on Thursday 16th December, thank you for your contribution to our school. There are too many names to list as our school has grown ... but please know that you will be missed!

To all the students who are departing Greenmeadows School, we wish you all the very best for the years that lie ahead in education.

Remember your days at GMS with pride, celebration and acknowledgement of all the amazing friends, teachers and staff you have encountered along the way.

Have a very safe and happy holiday.

Ka kite anō,

Mark Johnson

Principal

The school structure for 2022 will look like this:-

Principal: Mark Johnson

Deputy Principal: Darren Holloway (nb. Mr Holloway will be Acting Principal from Weeks 4 to 10 in Term 1 while Mr J is on leave)

Assistant Principals: Allyson Ross, Ali de Lange

Tōtara syndicate classrooms:

Room 7: Year 5 Leah Haronga

Room 12: Year 6 Paula Kinsey (Term 1), then Marty Gibbs (Terms 2 to 4)

Room 13a - Year 6 Chris Sullivan

Room 13b - Year 6 Jess Gates

Room 15a - Year 5 Jane Carter

Room 15b - Year 5 Dan Ball

* Nb. Mr Gibbs has been awarded a sabbatical for Term 1

Pohutukawa syndicate classrooms

Room 8 – Ceirwyn Ware Year 4

Room 9 – Shona Millner Year 3

Room 10 – Jane McCosh Year 3

Room 11 – Monique Cowie Year 3 and 4

Room 14a – Sarah Groenveld Year 3

Room 14b – Toni Smith Year 4

Kōwhai syndicate classrooms

Room 1a – New Entrants/Year 1 Shari Mackay

Room 1b – New Entrants/Year 1 Anna Murphy

Room 2a – Year 1/2 Leah Hambleton

Room 2b – Year 2 Mahia Isherwood

Room 3a – Year 2 Andy Mackay

Room 3b – Year 2 Helen Harvey

Room 6 - Year 1 Cassie Vella

Room 5 – (from the start of Term 2) Paula Kinsey New Entrants

CRT Release: Jane Lee

Junior school release: Sharon Young, Nicole Johnson, Michelle Brown

Teacher Aides: Lynne Canty, Linda Cunningham, Leanne Duncan, Hayley Jury, Carol Mardon, Kirsten Martin, Corey Waterreus, Vanessa Wells

Office managers: Sara Anderson, Carolyn Thorburn

Librarian: Kim Cook

Sports Coordinator: Nicki Sunley

Caretaker: Martin Hicks

Cleaners: Debbie Johnson-Neill, Heather Kennedy

Gardener: Louise Nicholson

Canteen: Kim Batt

The prize-giving will still be be held on Tuesday 14 December with a start time of 12.00pm, rather than the usual time in the evening.

Parents will not be able to attend but the prize-giving will be live streamed via the school's Facebook page.

End of year reports will be sent home on the afternoon of Tuesday 14th December. Our teachers have put an incredible amount of time and care into the preparation of these reports. We hope these will give you a clear summary of how each child has progressed over the 2021 year.

Also on Tuesday 14th December, the children will be given a stationery list for next year. Stationery packs are available at Hawkes Bay Office Products in Wakefield Street, Onekawa. If your child's stationery list gets mislaid or doesn't find its way home, there are copies of these on the school website www.gms.school.nz

During the afternoon of Tuesday 14th December all the children will get the opportunity to meet their new teacher for the 2022 year and visit their new classroom. We do this to give them a chance to settle in and get used to who their teacher will be.

The role of the parent is critical on this day, as well as leading up to this time. This is especially so if the classroom that the child ends up in, may not be the one they have imagined that they want. For some students it can be a stressful time at the thought of leaving one classroom/teacher, especially after an unsettling COVID interrupted year.

For the remainder of the year the canteen will open on Thursdays and Fridays only ... no longer operating on Wednesdays.

The last day for 2021 will be Friday the 10th of December.

School photos were taken on Tuesday the 9th November. Photolife has emailed the keycodes out directly to the parents. Their email will have instructions how to order your school photos online. Keep an eye on your inbox!

If you need to pick up your child during the school day, please call the office and let the office staff know you are here and at which gate you are waiting. Carolyn or Sara will ring through to the classroom and have your child sent out to meet you. The office staff will sign your child out on your behalf. If you do need to come into the office to collect your child from the sickbay or for some other reason, please make sure you are wearing a mask and have scanned in.

This is a letter written by our road patrollers for the GMS parents.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Recently we have noticed that people have not been using the school crossing. It is really important to use the school crossing because it keeps us all safe, avoids traffic congestion, and means our road patrollers are not wasting their time.

Last week there was nearly an accident when a young child turned and went to go back across the road to her parent and a car driving along Osier Road had to slam on its brakes.

Children jump out between cars. On March 23rd 2021, a five year old girl was hit and killed by a car outside Pigeon Mountain School in Auckland. We would hate for anything like this to happen here at Greenmeadows School. On average, every week in New Zealand, 20 pedestrians are injured seriously and a minimum of one dies. Most of these are preventable.

Please, we all need to take a little bit of time to use the crossing to keep us all safe!

It won’t take you that much longer and it really isn’t that far to walk!

Would you rather spend a couple of weeks in hospital or a couple of minutes at the crossing?

When you do not use the crossing you're blocking up traffic and creating blind spots. This can cause serious problems and lead to potentially fatal outcomes.

Road patrollers spend hours training to be wardens. They give up their mornings and afternoons to help out and make sure that all our children get to school safely. If you continue to cross the road in the wrong places, they will feel like they are wasting their time. Again, it is not that far to walk, so please use the crossing.

In conclusion, please don't let your children get out of the car and run across the busy road. Please don’t stop in the middle of the road to let your child get out, or get in, this causes a traffic hazard.

Instead, park and use the crossings provided so we can all get to school safely.

Thank you

Yours sincerely

GMS Road Patrollers.

Summer Reading Programme

Have you heard of the ‘summer reading slide’? This is when children’s reading and literacy levels can stall over the extended summer holiday period as they don’t tend to read the same as they would during the school term. Basically they get out of practise!

This year we would like to open the invitation to participate to all interested students in our holiday reading programme. Students will come to the library and choose a selection of books to take home to read for pleasure over the summer break. Please note that there are limited spaces available.

Interested students will be given a permission slip on Friday 3rd December. We will be accepting responses on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th December. To be able to participate in the programme your child must have returned all their currently issued books and completed and returned the parental permission slip.

Library News

The library is now closed for 2021. All library books must be returned to school by Friday 3rd December, so please start searching at home for these books. Thanks

We need back all school readers (numbered junior books and school journals) that are out in ‘Greenmeadowsland’ … please check for any that may be at home: bedrooms, wardrobes and school bags. Each book we don’t get returned costs us at least $10 - we would rather spend our money buying new books than replacing lost ones we have already purchased.

The PTA are currently fundraising for the new children's playgrounds so are organising our annual Christmas raffle. Our top prize will be a Weber BBQ kindly donated by Turfreys. New World Greenmeadows have also donated a generous amount of goodies towards the Christmas hampers.

If you are able to donate towards any of our 10 prizes could you please ask your child to pass it onto their teacher.

Please keep selling your tickets, ALL tickets sold or unsold need to be return by the 10th December.

Another lockdown and Level 2 restrictions meant changes to the Digi Awards events in 2021. Nevertheless, our GMS learners have enjoyed outstanding success again in this Napier-wide event.

We had an amazing 71 children who made it into the finals! Whilst they were unable to attend the usual ceremony at the Municpal Theatre, we will be recognising all of our finalists next week in syndicate assemblies when they will receive their certificates.

Today at assembly we were able to recognise the achievements of the children listed below who placed in the top 3 with their respective entries. These children have earned some prize money, and if they won their category there are also trophies! We congratulate all of these children and thank their teachers and parents for supporting them with their digital work.

Animation:

• 3rd place Y1/2 Aryan Ghodke - I Can't Find My Mum
• 2nd place Y5/6 Brylee Jones, Zilin Zhao, Connie Zeng & Alice Ratcliffe - The Chinese Nightmare
  
• 3rd place Y5/6 Charlotte Meyer-Tucker, Isla Wilson-Cochrane, Pippa Wells & Alizay Kaukau - Hazardous Helicopter

Graphic Design:

• 1st place Y1/2 Charley Cannington - Recycle
• 2nd place Y1/2 Aryan Ghodke - Keep Trying
• 3rd place Y1/2 Yi Ke Hu - Wear A Helmet
• 2nd place Y3/4 Isabel Seerden - Beach, Sun & Sea
• 3rd place Y3/4 Sophia Zeng - Wear A Mask
• 1st place Y5/6 Kaia Hohaia-Hall - Hidden Feelings

Photography:

• 2nd place Y1/2 Maddie Ball - Bee Business

Short Film:

• 1st place Y1/2 Wilbur Johnson, Niane' Kriek, Nate Townshend & Alyssa Rüssi - We Love To Tākaro
• 2nd place Y1/2 Parker Dymond, Oliver Jones, Kenzie Haynes & Draven Kireka - Pond Monster
• 3rd place Y1/2 Henry Ward, Aryan Ghodke, Isabella Lindstrom & Emmerson Steyn - Counting To Ten In Te Reo
• 3rd place Y3/4 Taylor Vibert, Kaylen Van Aardt, Ruby Hall & Kaylee Tatu - The Fly Squad

Coding Animation:

• 2nd place Y1/2 Aryan Ghodke - Looking After Your Pet
• 1st place Y1/2 Isabelle Ball - Animal Escape
• 3rd place Y3/4 Kayden Nesbit & Noah Roper - Football
• 1st place Y3/4 Jacob Fox & Tyson Beams - Mindcraft Madness

If that wasn't enough, we've also had two GMS learners take out the top awards in their age categories. More money and another trophy for these children!

Supreme Winners:

• Y1/2 Aryan Ghodke
• Y5/6 Kaia Hohaia-Hall

• Week 8 - Thursday 9th Dec - Year 6 Social 6-8pm
• Week 9 - Tuesday 14 December - Prize giving 12.00pm - live streamed
• Week 9 - Thursday 16 December Last day for 2021 - School finishes at 12.00pm

• 2022
• Week 1 - Wednesday 2nd Feb 2022 First Day of Term 1
• Week 2 - 7th Feb Waitangi Day observed - school closed
• Week 2 - 9th Feb Canteen re-opens

Email: admin@gms.school.nz
Website: http://www.gms.school.nz/
Location: Greenmeadows School 45 Osier Road, Greenmeadows, Napier, New Zealand
Phone: +64 06-844 7024
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmsnapier