Celebrating a term of arts

Our two-day long celebration of creativity and achievement is well underway. The school hall is full of the arts. The visual arts display is stunning and it makes the perfect setting for the 48 hour continuous school assembly that is taking place.

When the children arrived at school on day one of this term we made sure that they all understood that Term 3 was all about creativity. Since then our teachers have done a stunning job of drawing out and nurturing the artistic abilities in all of our students.

The orchestra, singing, dancing, poetry, speeches, puppet shows, instrumental acts, cultural performances, kapa haka, and joke telling are a perfect end to the term and the best possible form of assessment and celebration of this significant part of our Waimairi School curriculum.

Thanks to all of the staff and parents for your creative support this term and to Chris Jenkins for her leadership in this area.

Gallery of pictures here.

What a lot of rubbish

Today the whole school hit the streets for our Rubbish-a-thon. The PTA’s major fundraiser for Term 3 was more than a fundraiser.

It was a brilliant learning opportunity for all of our children. Being part of a community means taking responsibility for that community. The New Zealand Curriculum ranks 'participating and contributing' very highly (is is one of the key competencies which we are required to develop in our children) Follow this Ministry of Education link to see how our rubbish learning experience is all about our new curriculum

The whole school spread out to cover our ‘home zone’ and give it a big spring clean. We returned with over ten bins of rubbish, and got lots of thanks from our neighbours along the way.

View a gallery of pictures here

The art of public speaking

You thought I was joking when I said the winners would receive a trip to Sydney didn't you? These are the place-getters and highly commended speakers (missing two)

While we love innovating and developing new learning experiences for our students it is still very important to keep and honour many 'Waimairi traditions'. The annual senior speech competition is a great Waimairi tradition. Today we heard the finalists from our Year 5 and 6 classes. The children delivered polished, humourous, entertaining and informative speeches.

Well done to all of the orators who gave their very best this morning. We now look forward to following the progress of our winners at the regional competitions over the next few weeks.