Dates For The Calendar

15 October – PTA meeting 7:30 in staffroom – all welcome

16^th October – St Gerards Day – liturgy in the hall

18^th October – Maths Buddy Information Evening 7:30 Room 2

20^th October, Sunday – Choir performing at fundraising concert 2:30 Dunstan High School

22^nd October – Tuesday Camp Wow Night – bring your Fish n Chips 6:30

28^th Labour Day

29^th Teachers Only Day

30^th School Photos - family photos 8am

31^st School Athletics – starts 9:30am – helpers please.

3^rd November – School Fair

4^th November – All Souls Liturgy 2pm

6^th November – Central Otago Athletics – Molyneux Park

13^th November – The Big Picture – film about dyslexia

19^th November – Maori Community Consultation Meeting

21^st /22^nd November – LIFE Education – Harold “Friends”

27^th November – Touch Tournament – hosted at St Gerards, coaches/managers required

2 December – Singing Eisteddfod - class presentations

5 December Eisteddfod assembly

12 December 6pm Final Mass

16 December – Final assembly, prize giving and picnic lunch

17 December – whole school water day

Term Four Week One

Welcome back everyone to what looks like a very full term.

Congratulations to all of you who ran in the Round the Clock Race - fantastic effort.  Special congratulations to those of you in the team placing second to a team of 11 year 8 students from The Terrace.  Next year should be all yours!

Sunhats: a reminder that sunhats are a required uniform item this term. No hat = no play outside, under the verandahs only.

Choir: At the end of last term Mrs Russell gave out notices regarding 2 opportunities for performance.  Please be sure that you have these returned to her or to one of the choir leaders before Thursday. The first performance is planned for this Sunday 20th at Dunstan High School - a concert to raise funds for a student who has been selected for the National Youth Choir. Looking at the list of performers this will be a very entertaining afternoon. 2:30 - 4:30pm.  All welcome.

Kapahaka: Ms Tamati has asked all of you to make a poi, and practise catching it so that we can add this plus a haka to our latest waiata.  If you have younger brothers or sisters, or know of a younger group member it would be fantastic if you could make an extra one and help them practise too. Ms Tamati said there is a good clip on you-tube with clear instructions.  Our next session with Ms Tamati is not until 11th November, so four weeks to practise  and look pretty efficient.

Maths Buddy: information evening for parents this Thursday 7:30 in Room 2.  Craig McBride from Maths Buddy will give an overview of the programme and explain how this site can give parents regular reports about progress. There will also be an opportunity for parents to use the programme and see how its lessons and practice activities are structured.  Several people in room 4 have been registered all year and have regularly used the activities to improve their knowledge and skills.  We are hoping to get parent feedback as to whether this programme would be worthwhile for all students in the school. 

The “Dyslexia” film  - The Big Picture will be screened on Wednesday 13^th November at school. This is well worth looking at – please let others know.

School Photos: will be taken on Wednesday 30th October.  Family photos from 8am.  We have been lucky enough to have Ray Dustow to do these again this year - he was last year's photographer.  We are hoping that he will also take sports team photos. 

Thursday Night Touch: permission slips went home today and need to be returned to me by Thursday. Please work hard to get someone to referee & manage a team.  Unfortunately Rhian Ward works on a Thursday, so he is unavailable this term.  We have enough names for 2 teams - a great opportunity to get some ball handling in before the Catholic Schools Tournament later this term.

Athletic Sports: will be held on Thursday 31st October. starting at 9:30am.  We have enough people to lead events but do need assistants.  I would be most appreciative of having names of people willing to help. Athletic skills will be practised each afternoon for the next two weeks.  Please have your school t-shirt and black shorts to change into, so that you can make the most of these sessions.

Friday Crafts Help: for the next three Fridays Room 4 will be working on items to sell at the fair. Thank you for the pieces of material, Selena and for the offer of sewing machines, Kath.  It would be great to have more fabric offcuts and some hands-on help for the sewing (machine & hand). Does anyone have cotton thread?  I'll pop in to Spotlight to purchase extras that we will need. This Friday we'll make a start at 1:30.

Wheatbags & felt Christmas decorations.

Homework

•    Read and record reading in log

•    Spelling - take care to tool and check against the typed word each night

•    Tables practice sheet - monthly table test on Friday.  Lots of people are now regularly in the 90's - keep this up.  There is also great tables practice on Maths Buddy

Probability - Maths Buddy - our free trial ends on Friday 25th.  Well done to those people who have made the most of using this site.

Support our Fair - Recycled fashion & Wearable Arts

Choose from the following themes:

• Popstar Outfit
• Ideal School Uniform
• Flag
• Hat

Age Group Categories:

• Under 10 - no help
• Under 17 - no help
• child with adult help

Rules:

• 100% of the garment must be from a recycled source - this could be from old clothes/sheets/blankets OR be really creative and use a common household item and turn it into a wearable art.  NOTE: you can use new cotton or thread.
• Provide a list of the materials you made your item from.
• You can work alone, in a team, or an adult can help you.
• You can make more than 1 thing.
• You must register by 18th October, (the first Friday in term 4), by completing the registration form that you took home.  I have spare copies.
• Details of the parade and judging times on Sunday 3 November will be given once registrations are in.

HAVE A GO - YOU ARE A VERY CREATIVE CLASS.

Term Four Thursday Night Touch

Steve Potter is once again organising the popular Thursday night touch.  There are 2 grades Years 5 & 6 and Years 7 & 8.  I have taken names today and will send a notice home at the beginning of next term.  Unfortunately this information came to hand after the last newsletter went out this term.

Entries close Wednesday 23rd October with first grading games starting on Thursday 24th at 5:30pm - Pioneer Park.  Each team needs to have a contact person who will be responsible for the team's behaviour, referee and responsibilities.  A referee's name must be included on the team entry. Basic rule books are available to referees if required.

Rules:

• correct footwear must be worn
• all players must be in team colours
• application must be filled out in full - this includes a contact person & referee for each team entered.

A large number of people have put their names down to play, which means that we will be able to enter several teams as long as we have managers & referees.  Please think about whether you are able to help in this way, or perhaps know of a DHS student who would be happy to be a referee.  Rules are no referee = no entry.

Dunstan High School Music - Friday

Rooms 3 & 4 are lucky enough to have a last minute opportunity to be the audience for the Dunstan High School Senior Music presentations at Dunstan High School  on Friday beginning at 1:30pm. These will be outside if the weather is fine.

Please make sure that your child has a jacket, as the weather forecast is for showers.  As we are representing the school we need to wear full summer uniform. No tracksuits or sports uniform tomorrow please. Dresses are easy for swimming.

We will leave school to walk at 1:10 and will need 2 or 3 parents to accompany us (thank you Lisa Reilly).  Please let me know if you are able to do this.

Week 9 Term 3

What a great day we have had today, Mercy Day Liturgy, painting, swimming and the hockey tournament was fantastic - thank you Mrs Flannery.  It was awesome to see so much encouragement and also to see Room 4 step up as leaders for the junior house teams until the Room 6 leaders arrived from swimming.  Well done to you all - a wonderful way to celebrate Mercy Day

A busy last week for us.

Camp Surveys: if anyone still has theirs at home could you please return these as soon as possible so that groups can work on graphing the findings ready to report to you at our Wow night early next term.  It would be great to have this work completed this week, although there is just so much going on.

Round The Clock Race - Friday  night.  Team notices went home today.  Please meet Mrs Williams at 4:45pm at the Linger & Die.  You are representing the school, so full school sports uniform including tracksuit needs to be worn.  Be sure that you have sturdy runners.  The race is to the number 6 on the clock and back.  Please have sports uniform and runners at school each day this week as Mrs Williams will take a lunch time practice if there is time.  For those of us not running - we need to be there to cheer our teams on! 

Float: we are at the stage of painting our bugs - they are looking super and will add small detail to the amazing float put together by the junior staff and a committed group of parents. We deserve to win, so if you are purchasing any of the 'special tickets' - 5 for $20 available now - please give the vote part to Mrs Williams - this saves trying to get to the right bucket on the day before voting closes.

Everyone got their free ride ticket today which I see is valid for Saturday only. If you are not going to be at the park perhaps someone else could use this.  On this flyer there is also the opportunity to win a $100 Paper Plus book voucher for the school. If you are not going to be at the park, I am happy to take yours to put into the draw - the more that go in the more chances we have at winning.

Eisteddfod Speeches: were of a very high standard.  Well done everyone.  The Eisteddfod assembly is at 1:30 on Thursday in the hall. Those representing Room 4 are: Celia, Joshua, Reuben, Molly, Brieanna, Adrianna with Padraig being the reserve.

A huge Thank You to all the parents who have helped Room 4 this term - Ski Camp fundraisers, parents who organised the food  for the camp, parents who skied with the kids, winter sports team coaches and a special thank you to the parents who have provided transport to and from the pool.  Without you all we would not have been able to achieve so much.

Homework

• Reading
• Maths Buddy - Statistics

Have a great holiday.  We start the term with athletics training for the sports which are on Thursday 31st October - the Central Otago event on Wednesday 6th November.  Please have your sports uniform at school every day for the first 2 weeks of term 4.

Tuesday House Hockey

On Tuesday as part of Mercy Day we will be having a house hockey tournament to conclude our hockey lessons we have had this term.

Children are to wear house colours, but gear appropriate for playing hockey. Each house will have a senior and a junior team and will play a round robin of games.
If children have hockey sticks, shin pads or mouth guards please bring these.

We will be leaving school at 12.15ish and having hockey games then a picnic lunch in the park. We will return to school at 2.30pm. Please feel free to join us.

Please no lunch orders or pie warmers.