Kia ora e te whānau,

It is great to welcome Spring, although it is hard to believe we only have 2 weeks left in Term 3!

A reminder to vote in our BoT election.  Voting closes next week.  I really appreciate the work of our current Board in overseeing health and safety and financial practices;  asking good questions about how we support wellbeing for our kaiako and tamariki and most importantly enquiring into teaching and learning in our kura. 

Over the last 2 weeks we have had lots of Book Week activities and of course our Readathon.  Last week's Special Person Day was a real treat - so wonderful to see so many attending that day, when we also celebrated 10 years as a Garden to Table school.  Our Year 5/6s have been learning about animation and last week the Y5s headed to see the Lego movie and Y6s went down to Weta Workshop to extend their knowledge and skills.  This week our juniors ran their cross country and today we had a group of Year 5/6s at BBC learning about leadership.  It was so lovely to see past students who are now SHINEing on the Student Council at College.

Behind the scenes, there is lots of work going on organise and sort our resources as we settle into new classrooms and workspaces.  We have really appreciated the work of Irene Palmer and her admin team in sourcing and purchasing storage solutions and items such as our new bag cubbies and Jimmy for tackling a growing list of jobs. We appreciate Jess our librarian and her team of teachers who have set up our new teacher workspace and Chantal Palmer who has sorted and organised our bookroom.  Alesha has also been working hard to make our Multi Purpose Room look beautiful.  He waka eke noa!

In property news we are planning for our new basketball/netball turf outside of Te Pā Harakeke and Rooms 18/19.  If all goes well this should be started in December.  We are also planning for the Sanctuary and Rooms 4 and 5 to be painted before the end of the year.  Next step is to design the upgrade to our bike track.  We will then begin planning storage, garden areas, our chicken house and how to enhance all of our areas.  We also have all of the fundraising bricks that our PTA sold and we will be looking to use these in a creative and attractive way.  If anyone has seen any examples of bricks with whānau names on used creatively in other schools please let me know!

We also welcome 2 new kaiāwhina to our growing team.  Natalie Pollard who is returning to the team and Ange Sly who will join the team in Term 4.  We really appreciate the work of our Kaiāwhina in supporting inclusion, regulation and learning in the classroom. Kei runga noa atu koutou!

Helen 

Billie Hopkins was elected as the President of the Northland Fire Brigades Sub Association at the end of August. She serves as the leader of the local association, representing volunteer firefighters and liaising between the brigades and the broader Fire and Emergency New Zealand organization. She started as Junior Vice President then moved to Vice President before becoming President. Billie has served with the Ruakākā Volunteer Fire Brigade for almost 10 years.

Last Friday, to support the learning we have been doing around Stop Motion, Music and Film Making, some of our Year 6 tamariki embarked on an incredible trip to Weta Workshop – Unleashed in Auckland. It was a day of pure creativity and fun! We were all captivated by the magic behind the movies, exploring the imaginative world of special effects. We also got to experience a hands-on workshop where the students became special effects artists themselves, mastering the art of creating realistic-looking fake wounds. There were lots of impressive and gruesome results! After a morning of movie magic, we headed over to The Grounds in Waitakere for some much-needed relaxation. We enjoyed a delicious meal, followed by a well-deserved ice cream treat and some time to burn off energy on the playground. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. A huge thanks to everyone involved in making this trip such a success, to parents for organising to drop off and pick up students at a different time to normal, Whaea Helen for supporting the Senior kaiako in their vision for this experience, all Senior kaiako for their hard work in organising the trip, Whaea Jess for her fundraising efforts, Ray White for their significant financial contribution, Kelly and Amy in the office for always supporting us and keeping all administrative jobs ticked off so our days like this can run smoothly and most importantly to all the students for their fantastic SHINEiness, representing our kura in an exemplary way and for making this trip such a memorable one!

If your child received a Show Day cup last year, please return these to the office by Friday 12th September.

If you have any of our SHINE tokens at home could you please return them to the office. We are getting very low on them here at kura.

The PTA will be offering their Tea Towel fundraiser for the remainder of the year, so if you missed out on purchasing one, please fill out an order form from the office. The cost is $20 per tea towel plus from $8 delivery.

Alexis Westlake has spots available for music lessons. Please contact Alexis on 0273419535 or email jawestlake3@gmail.com. 

Kia Ora! My name is Dennaye and I am the Public Health Nurse for Ruakākā School.

I work with children over 3years to 12years of age; However, our wider team includes the Youth Specialty Nurses and Specialty Ear Nurses.

If you have health concerns for tamariki of any age, please feel free to contact me and we can put you in touch with the right team to support you.

Mahi we do within schools includes:

 

While these are some of the things we do, it is not a definitive list.

Contact me at Dennaye.channings@northlanddhb.org.nz or ask the school staff to make a referral about any health concerns you may have for your tamariki. 

 

 

+64 21 199 0115 | dennaye.channings@northlanddhb.org.nz

16-24 Commerce St Whangarei

Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora

Ruakākā School hoodies and tees, Whānau t-shirts and Te Whānau Harakeke hoodies and tees can be ordered online here. These are not being done as a fundraiser and are being sold at the lowest possible price for you all.
Happy shopping.
Any questions, please get in touch with Emma, info@designbyem.co.nz  

Please make sure your tamariki has a change of clothes in their bag every day. We only have a small amount of clothes in the office in case of emergencies, so we may need to call you to bring in some clothes for your child. 

We are really fortunate that Helen from Lifewalk will be supporting our kura as a Wellbeing Mentor. She will be available for 4 hours each week to meet with any students who are needing extra support in a low key way to chill or chat. All conversations/sessions will have parent permission prior and no religious aspects will be part of the sessions.  If you would like your tamaiti to be able to talk with Helen please contact the office so that we can set that up.