Hi all, and an extra special welcome to our new families who have joined our wonderful Nukumea community in the last two weeks. Nathan officially started last week in Kikorangi and this week we have had Isobel and Charlotte start in Kakariki.
This newsletter, I am focusing on the value of Whakapuāwai. This is essentially about the process of growth. To us here at Nukumea, this means that all learners are individuals and will flourish in unique ways. Our learners are excited about their learning and able to make a positive impact on the future. To help facilitate this, our teachers are planning for multiple means of engaging with the learning in class and multiple ways of our students being able to express their understanding. You can see this very easily when walking around school and the different materials and methods that students are using in their learning.
Whakapuāwai also means that different students will have a different learning focus than others who may be in their class. Socially, emotionally and academically we all have different focus points at different times. While all our learners access the whole curriculum, you may have one student whose main focus this week is on social situations or emotional vocabulary, while their friend beside them is really targeting their academic needs at that time. Students within a class will also have different goals for their reading, writing and maths - just because we are a similar age to someone else does not necessarily mean we are all operating at the exact same point in our learning. Teachers have been setting academic goals with each student individually and we will be sharing these goals and how your child is progressing through Hero.
We are really excited to share with you, the playground design which is going to be built and installed. We worked with 3 different companies and in the end PlayCo (https://www.playco.co.nz/) gave us the playground that we felt best reflected both our school vision and what our wonderful students said that they wanted in a playground. We can't wait to see this underway!
We have been focusing on gratitude in class recently, which helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives, rather than focusing on what we don’t have or what we want. When we practise being grateful, we start to scan the world to look for positives–this only takes 21 days!
Practicing gratitude every day increases our levels of energy, helps us to feel happier and more focused, determined and optimistic. It even helps us have a better sleep, lowers levels of anxiety and depression and we are less likely to get sick. So many benefits–let’s all try to be grateful for the things and people in our lives every day!
Attached here are two activities designed to help families practice gratitude at home.
Whilst the Matariki public holiday falls in the school holidays, we will be celebrating Matariki in the last week of this school term. More information will be shared as the time approaches, but please put the evening of Thursday June 29th in your calendar.
Teachers, some parent volunteers and especially our children will be working hard this term preparing a show to be performed on the night. We will also have a shared picnic meal together to celebrate the occasion.
Finally, a reminder that there are plenty of germs around as the seasons change and the temperatures cool down. If your child is sick with sneezes, coughs, fever, runny nose etc. then please give them the time to get well. Whilst we are a tight knit community here at Nukumea, everyone appreciates a bit of sense around not spreading our germs on to others.
I have had to have days not at school lately because of my family sharing cold germs; so I genuinely mean it when I say that I hope everyone has a warm, healthy week ahead!