Seek The Truth
Archive for May, 2009
Ice Hockey
On Wednesday and Thursday the Middle and Senior School played Ice Hockey.
Two men came and coached us on various skills of Ice Hockey. These men were from Korea and Hungary.
Ice Hockey is the fastest game in the world. To Play Ice hockey you need Ice Skates which have a blade at the bottom to skate on the ice and a Hockey Stick. You also need protective gear to keep you safe.
Special mention to Zachary Vince from Room 11 for being a Superstar on the day showing us his skills he already knows as he plays for the Flames Under 13 Ice Hockey Team.
By Frances and Grace, Room 11
Matipo in the News: Drop-in Center
From The Aucklander, 21st May 2009
Check it all out at school A West Auckland school has set up a centre geared to giving parents good advice, as Debrin Foxcroft discovers.Need a lawyer? Check.
Need a Justice of the Peace?
Check.
Need a public health nurse?
Check.
Need a budget specialist or tough love expert? Check and check.
These services for parents are now on offer at a local primary school. The way that Matipo Primary School sees it, the future role of the school is to be a community centre.
In the empty dental clinic, principal Wayne Bainbridge has created a drop-in parent centre, one of the first for a primary school in West Auckland.
“The idea is that parents will have a wrap-around drop-in centre,” he says. “It seems like such a simple idea, I am surprised that no government or local authority has provided it in the past.”
From June 9, parents of Matipo students will be able to take their children to school and be able to have access to a JP, tough love behaviour advice, a budget service, nurse and
lawyer. The free services will be available once a month.
“Schools are the centre of the community,” says Mr Bainbridge. “So here is a real service for parents, an opportunity to tackle issues before they become major problems.”
The idea has been percolating for a while. It has taken time to coordinate schedules.
“These specialists are people with knowledge who all live [in] and are involved in the local community,” he says. “And they have volunteered their time.”
Mr Bainbridge is realistic about the possible responses from parents in the first few months of the service.
“It may not be that popular straight away, but once parents realise that the centre is up and running and there for them, I think it will be good, he says.
“Knowledge is power for parents.” Carol Ngawati, chairwoman of Waitakere Education Sector Trust, says more and more schools around the country are looking seriously at the
value of wrap-around services.
“This is about looking at the whole child and that includes the family,” she says. “Schools are once again becoming the hub of communities. It’s the way it used to be way back in the day.”
Teachers can spend so much time trying to help children with what’s going on in their lives outside school that it distracts from their education. A drop-in centre like this one offers families information and help that they need, letting teachers get back to the job of teaching.
Mr Bainbridge agrees. “The core purpose of a school is the kids. This service for parents is being set up with the ultimate hope to put in early interventions to help kids and families. It ultimately helps their education.”
Book Donation
Cara Torrance and Kuljit Kaur of MacMillan Publishers recently presented the school with around $2500 worth of reading resources.
This was in recognition of Jon Webster and Phillip Simpson trialling a new reading resource from MacMillan and also because both Jon and Phillip are authors of children’s books published by MacMillan.
Phillip has had about ten books published and Jon has about four in the pipeline.
Thank you Cara, Kuljit, MacMillan, Jon and Phillip.
Film Crew
The Police Education team are making a film about how the Police Education Service works in schools and were recently filming with Miss Oto and Room 4.
Miss Oto put on her best film star looks and Constable Ricky Cash got a special new haircut for the occasion. We can’t wait to see the finished film!
Sausage Sizzle
On Friday 15 May 2009 the school councillors had a sausage sizzle. We did this to raise money for our Sponsored World Vision child Rifat. We had 200 sausages to sell. We told the New Entrant and Junior Classes they could come earlier. We got the New Entrant children to come first and then we got the Junior classes to follow on and buy their sausages. We cooked some more sausages to be ready for the Middle and Senior Syndicates. Lots of children bought sausages from us and at the end we only had a few left over. At the end of our Sausage Sizzle we made a total of $154.
They have two more fundraisers planned, helping at the Blue Light Disco, and running a Wheels Day in Term 3.
Swimming Champs
This week Russell Young and Jo Ramsay took a small team of swimmers to Westwave for the Te Atatu Zonal Championship Swimming event. With the smallest team we finished a fantastic 2nd overall (a mere 2 points behind the winners Tirimoana). Each one of our 8 swimmers made an enormous impact on the competition and results. We qualified in the majority of heats for finals and overall;
Jackie Young was 1st in every one of the Yr 5 girls races!
Aimee Halstead was 1st Yr 6 girls breaststroke, & 1st Yr 6 girls medley, Stella Mackrell was 2nd Yr 6 girls breaststroke,
Branyn Bellany was 3rd Yr 6 boys freestyle,
Alex Gilbert was 2nd Yr 6 boys breaststroke and 3rd Yr 6 boys backstroke, 3rd Yr 6 boys backstroke & 3rd Yr 6 boys medley.
Our team finished 3rd in the Grand Relay in which all our team swum! Congratulations to the team, we were very proud of you all! Thank you too to Russell Young for coaching & mentoring the team.
Football Friday
Today is Football Friday and we were encouraged to wear a jersey of our favourite Football Teams.
The Storyteller
On Wednesday the Gardener Story teller came to Matipo School. He chose people from each class to be in his stories and to act out their parts. The first story was a Pirate Story called The Pirate Ring. He also did a couple of stories from Roald Dahls Revolting Rhymes.
