A perfect day for running!

What a great effort from all our students!  I'm so impressed with your great efforts today.

I was also really impressed with our past students who were there and others from High School who cheered all the students on, ran the races, and ran with students to encourage them.  You were great role models :)

A big thanks to all the parents who were able to join us and support the children.

I have posted some photos on Flikr so you can check them out.  Hopefully I caught everyone at least once.  If you have other photos you would like to add please send them to school and we can add them to the album.

Rock the Country

Our latest ERO report

A big thanks to all the staff, BOT, and parents of our great school.  We have received a very positive report from ERO.  Some of the things they noted included the great support our teacher aides provide, and the high level of involvement our parents and community.  Thanks for being such a fantastic part of our learning team.

  

Click here to read the article from the newspaper (or click the image).

Click here to read the full ERO report.

Westland Junior Basketball

WESTLAND BASKETBALL (JNR)-NEWSLETTER

Welcome to the 2015 season - Registration night this Friday, 1^st May – at Westland High School Gym – 3.30pm  Teams will be split into age groups – 8yrs-10yrs  and 11yrs-14yrs  Come along & register.

Contact:  Angela Keenan (755 7914) or email steveange.keenan@actrix.co.nz

ICT Kids conference

Awhono School have organised an ICT kids conference for students in year 5-8.  This will be happening at Shantytown on 11 - 12 June. The cost per child is $103.50

The conference is a chance for students to learn about the digital / computing world
This year's workshops include; building your own PC, photography, programming,  and story telling with minecraft and more!

Registrations open Monday - Let Ms McLellan know if you are keen :)

Click here to find out more

What is Awesome about the West Coast?

Our learning challenge is to research, design, test, refine, and build a kinetic sculpture, powered by the rain.  This sculpture needs to show one of the great things about the West Coast, or tell a story about the West Coast.

To help us research what makes the West Coast special could you please fill out our survey below.

It would be great if you can share the link with friends or family who have been to the Coast so we can get as many answers as possible.  We will be closing the survey at the end of April.

Thanks from the Hoiho Class :)

Click here to go to the survey 

Fun Jump Throw!

What an awesome day!  A big thanks to Lisa for doing all the organizing for us.  A huge thanks also goes out to all the parents who stuck out through the heat to run the events.

Here are a few photos from the day.  More have been added to flickr - click here to see them.

The power of believing you can improve.

Teacher Professional Development

One of the speakers at the pd that our teachers attended on Wednesday was Carol Dweck.  She had some very powerful ideas (backed up by years of research) about the affect of the way we think about our intelligence on our ability to learn.  A fixed mindset limits our ability to face the challenge of learning for fear we might be seen as 'dumb''.  A growth mindset encourages us to persist despite obstacles.

Small changes in the way we speak to learners can have a big impact on their willingness to keep trying when learning gets tough.  

Carol encouraged us to celebrate the struggle of learning and not ease of achievement.  

Swimming Sports video

The Hoiho class have been practicing adding punctuation to their sentences to add effect and help make the meaning clear.  Here is our video using awesome punctuation about the swimming sports at Ross School.

(Sorry about the sound quality - next time we will use a better mic!)

Welcome Back

What a hot start to the year!  It is great to have all the kids back and hearing of great summer adventures! They have been yachting, climbing, swimming around islands, visiting family, breaking arms, going to the beach, jumping on ponies, reading stories, riding bikes, go-karting, bouncing on castles.... well, the list is pretty much endless! Sounds like it has been a fantastic holiday.


We have a exciting year ahead of us with lots of learning, fun and challenges. Our big goal is to improve student achievement in writing and the summer adventures will help give the students great ideas to write about.
Make sure to bring your togs everyday so we can make great use of our pool (which was 29 degrees today!) and your sun hats.
Hope everyone has a wonderful year.