Balmoral School Newsletter - 1 September 2023
Principal
Tēnā koutou i tēnei ahiahi
In a rapidly changing and stressful world, helping our children learn effectively while reducing their stress is crucial for their overall well-being and success. Dr. Deans, a Neuroscientist, in this TED Talk (2022) sheds light on how stress impacts learning and brain health, offering valuable insights that parents can use to support their children's educational journey.
High-stress levels, especially when prolonged, can hinder learning ability. Cortisol, a hormone released during stress, plays a vital role in our body's functions. However, chronic stress can elevate cortisol levels, negatively affecting both physical and mental health, including impaired thinking and memory formation.
Dr. Deans emphasizes the importance of creating long-term memories for effective learning. Learning involves changing brain cells through a process called neuroplasticity. Short-term memories, formed rapidly, need to be transformed into long-term memories for lasting retention. But here's the catch: high cortisol levels compete with growth factors essential for memory formation. Cortisol "takes up parking spots," leaving little room for growth factors to facilitate learning.
Dr. Deans highlights three key strategies parents can encourage in their children:
1. Exercise: Regular physical activity, even a single intense session, can enhance brain function. Exercise helps convert short-term memories into long-term ones and reduces cortisol levels. Activities like walking to school, dancing, cycling, or any physical movement can make a difference.
2. Sleep: Prioritize sleep! Adequate sleep, around 8 hours a night, lowers cortisol by 50% and aids in memory conversion. Sleep is crucial for long-term memory formation and overall brain health.
3. Mindfulness: Encourage mindfulness practices like yoga or moments of stillness, even boredom. Mindfulness lowers cortisol levels, promoting better stress management and improved learning. It allows the brain to rest and reset, offering a break from the constant stimulation of technology.
By incorporating these strategies into your child's routines, parents can create an environment that supports effective learning and reduces stress.
Dr. Deans' talk underscores the importance of caring for our brain health and its significant impact on our ability to learn and thrive.
As parents, we have the opportunity to instil healthy habits that will serve our children well throughout their lives. So, let's encourage exercise by walking or riding to school, prioritize sleep, and promote mindfulness, knowing that these simple steps can make a profound difference in our children's ability to learn at school, manage stress, and lead fulfilling lives.
Ka pai te rā whakatā (Have a good weekend)
Nāku noa
Malcolm
Balmoral Music @ Bandquest
Last Thursday, I enjoyed attending Bandquest at AGGS alongside some of our musicians, parents, whanau and staff. After many years of COVID restrictions, it is great to be able to provide and participate in these performance events again.
Watching the ākonga in Tiwaiwaka, M#VAST and Black Lightening rock the stage was a privilege and a joy! There have been a lot of rehearsals and practice to get the performances to the high standard expected by Alex and our Music Department. The tamariki were also very supportive of each other, and the Balmoral Team spirit was evident. The musicians had a great time, and I look forward to seeing many more rock (and punk) stars performing at our school. You will be able to read about the night from the musicians own views in this term's issue of Kawepurongo.
Congratulations to all, in particular, to Tommy Humphries for winning Best Guitarist and Blake Spalding for Best Vocals.
Sport @ Balmoral Primary and Intermediate
Recently, we have reviewed our school operations in sport. We wanted to streamline our school organisation and create direct lines of accountability. We were also aware that many parents in our school were confused about sports since our school is very complex as we have both a primary and intermediate school on-site.
Classroom teachers have the responsibility for organising participation in Eden Albert Principals Sports. These are one-off sports days between the local schools, of which there are about 12 different days of sports.
The Intermediate School teachers organise participation in the Intermediate School Sport Days. This competition has about 28 different days of sport across all Central Auckland Intermediate Schools.
We have separated from this our sports league activities. These sports operate like a sports club, and the children often play several games in a season. Currently, we have teams in Netball, Flippa Ball, Waterpolo and Basketball. This sports club concept is organised through our school by Meredith.
Eden-Albert Competition Netball League
I want to acknowledge the success of our Year 5 & 6 teams in the Eden-Albert Competition. There were 57 teams across the Eden-Albert schools, 3 Year-5 Grades and 3 Year-6 Grades, with 18 finalist places.
All our league teams were placed in the competition. It shows the dedication and hard work of all the coaches/managers and players throughout the league season to come away with the following:
Y5 Purple Grade C - 3rd Place
Y5 Blue Grade B - 3rd Place
Y6 Waiporoporo Grade C - 3rd Place
Y6 Kahurangi Grade B - 2nd Place
Auckland Netball Windmill Year 7-8 Competition Results
Congratulations to Balmoral Y7 Blue team who came 2nd in their section.
Congratulations to Balmoral Y7 Red team who came 2nd in their section.
School Safety Plans
Over the last two weeks, we have had both a Fire Drill and a Lockdown Practice. Both these drills went well and the children followed instructions quickly and quietly.
You can help us by talking to your child about these drills and reinforcing that they have to follow the teacher's direction quickly and quietly.
Dogs at School (Health and Safety)
As a school, we encourage parents to bring their dogs onto school grounds. Therefore, it is essential that parents who walk their dogs to school behave responsibly and ensure that their dog is on a lead and under the control of their owner at all times; they cannot be left outside whilst you pop into the classroom.
If your dog is one that barks a lot, is young or jumps up at people, do not bring them onto our school grounds. Also, please keep dogs away from areas where there is a lot of noise and movement such as directly outside classrooms at 3 p.m.
Dogs are to be on a lead at all times in our school, even outside of school hours. Dogs are not allowed to run free in our school.
The Board of Trustees would not like to have to ban all dogs at all times from our school grounds.
If we are all considerate and behave as responsible dog owners, we can ensure that dogs can continue to frequent our school grounds.
Scholastic Book Fair
The book fair has arrived!
and is open for browsing from today.
It is in the Reading Lounge and is open from 8.30 am till 4, and also Tuesday evening for the Art Exhibition. Eftpos or credit is preferred, cash is ok.
It should not be confused with the regular Scholastic Book Club orders. Those books still arrive at school and are delivered directly to the classrooms. There is some overlap with the books
Art Exhibition Tuesday 5 pm -7 pm
Our evening of Art from our students. This is a great opportunity to come and see your child’s art from ART WEEK.
Also have a bite to eat and catch up with the Balmoral School community.
Diversity Week
This week we have been celebrating the wonderful, diverse people we have in our school. This morning we had two assemblies showcasing a variety of heritages at our school. Our school values diversity and we continue to strive to enable all to flourish.
I am sure the ākonga and whanau present had a wonderful time. This week has been student led and I thank these tamariki, Natalya, Dipika and Samaira for their efforts. You can read more about Diversity Week in the Intermediate section of the newsletter.
Term 4 Dates
Monday 9 October – Wednesday 20 December
School Closed:
Labour Day - Monday 23 October
Teacher-only day - Tuesday 24th October (School Closed)
Teacher-only day - Monday 13th November (School Closed)
Primary School News
Whānau Koru
Children use many ‘languages’ to discover, invent, imagine and make meaning of the world around them. Many represent their thinking and learning daily through painting, drawing and collage. The school’s annual Art Festival allows us to encourage all tamariki to experiment and work on a piece of art over several days. This year both Koru hubs went deeper into Matariki learning as a source of inspiration. The process is the important part-talking,researching, planning, sketching, cutting, pattern making, printing and painting. The creative joy is palpable in the hubs during this process. Ask your child about their piece of art and they will be able to tell you a story.
Thank you to all our wonderful parents who were able to help during this week. We hope to see everyone at the exhibition in Week 9.
Eden Albert Netball Competition
Written collaboratively by Antonia Yarrow, Nina Kayes, Sarah Mansoor, Beth MacDonald, Beauden Thomas, and Louis Riddell
On Thursday 17 August, an eager bunch of players went on a bus to Windmill Road Courts to play at the Eden Albert Netball Competition. There were some problems - the bus had a flat tire which meant we had to make two trips on a smaller bus) but overall we had a blast. The ground was soaking but the sun was happy. All five teams tried their best and felt proud that they were able to go.
Year 6 Blue - 2nd Place
Year 6 Purple - 3rd Place
Year 5 Blue - 3rd Place
Year 5 Purple - 3rd Place
Balmoral Boys - 8th Place
Some thoughts from the team:
It felt great to get our first win. Really exciting moment! It was a great experience.
I felt disappointed when we lost but we kept on trying. I learnt that everyone was good as a team. I felt happy when the Year 6 Blue team made it to the final.
We felt proud to be a Balmoral Player because we had a lot of support from the other Balmoral teams. Not all schools had that.
I felt proud when we got 3rd place and we had great teamwork. I learnt that you don’t have to win every match.
The best part was finding out that I am passionate about playing defence. I was proud that I could defend against a really good player.
Eden Albert Rugby
On Tuesday the 8th of August Balmoral competed in the Eden Albert Rugby and Ripper Rugby tournament. We were able to enter three teams into the tournament, an under 40kg Rugby team, a girls Rippa Rugby team and we combined with two other schools to make a Barbarians under 50kg Rugby team. It was a fantastic day of sport with four seasons in one day. All students played hard and showed improvement throughout the day. Thank you to all the parents who came to help out and show support and well done to all the players who trained hard for the event.
Results
Boys under 40kg came 3rd
Boys under 50kg came 2nd
Girls Rippa came 10th
Intermediate School News
Diversity Days
The Diversity Days are when people celebrate their cultures and the diversity of everyone around them. We have a shared lunch, where people can get a chance to try new cultural foods and share what they eat at home. We also have performances for people to dance, sing, and share their culture. There are lunchtime activities as well, such as: henna, origami, hairstyling, flower garlands, and learning greetings in other languages. These are just some of the many ways to celebrate the variety of cultures in the world. This is what we have been celebrating this week at school. We hope everyone enjoyed them.
By Natalya and Samaira
CZ Boys Basketball
On Monday the 28th of August the boys Central Zone Basketball team went to the North Shore Event Center to compete against 16 other schools. We were looking forward to the day after a successful couple of terms in our weekly basketball league. We competed hard throughout the tournament finishing 1st in our pool. During pool play, we had a win which might have been the highlight of the day. We won against St. Pauls in a game where we managed to come back and win in the last seconds after being down by 10 points with only 8 minutes to go. Jasper managed to shoot 2 massive 3s and all the boys played some hard defence to help with the comeback.
After pool play, we managed to get another win which put us into the semi-finals. We then were up against a very tall and skilled Remuera Intermediate and went down to them. We ended up finishing 4th place out of 16 teams. We had a great day and showed a massive improvement from last year.
Well done to all the boys who competed and a shout out to Bhavana for organising the whole tournament!
Cross Country
This term has seen everyone compete in our school cross country, followed by groups going to the Central and Inter-Zone competitions. It was impressive to see the hard work put in by many children which led to some huge improvements in both fitness and time. Thank you to Joe for all the organisation of this year's event.
Jasper has written the following piece about the Central Zone competition:
Hi my name is Jasper and I am one of the year 8 students who participated in the Central Zone cross country in Remuera. We had 3 competitors who finished in the top ten including Ayda Lewis, Ruby O’Hara, and myself. The Year 8 girls team performed fantastically well finishing in 2nd place. Every single person tried their absolute best over the 3km (Year 7) and 3.5km (Year 8) course. The mud was so tough, people even lost their shoes! From my personal experience, it was both mentally and physically challenging, especially on the 3rd and final lap, knowing you were so close, but yet so far.
Lauren then took our three competitors to Inter-Zones at Pukekohe Showgrounds, where they all did exceptionally well over a tricky course. Ruby finished 35th, Ayda 25th, and Jasper an astounding 13th in their fields. Congratulations to all of them.
Sports Leagues
Flippa-Ball/Mini-Polo Term 4, 2023
Balmoral School will again be entering teams into the Atlantis Flippa-Ball League starting Term 4.
Flippa-Ball is open to all children Years 4-6. We will look at entering a Mini-Polo team for Years 5-6 if there is enough interest.
Games are held primarily at Diocesan School pool and some games in Term 4 will be played at Epsom Girls Grammar School pool.
Games are played on Sunday for 7 weeks with the first game being held on Sunday 15th October 2023. There will be no game at Labour weekend.
The plan is for trials for teams to be held in the school pool Term 4, Week 1.
Each team will have one practice per week before school in the school pool.
Once the sign-ups are open with Atlantis, I will update the school website and the sign-up form will go live.
Meredith Hughes
Sports League Co-Ordinator
Community News
Epsom Library Events
Auckland Orienteers
Spring Night Street events begin (and SummerNav not far away!)
Upcoming events
Thursday 7th September Blockhouse Bay – 90A Donavan St. SOUP awaiting you on your return.
Thursday 14th September Cox’s Bay Reserve – Kingsley St (entering from West End Rd, registration from the campervan behind the club rooms). SOUP awaiting you on your return
Thursday 21st September Epsom – from the Scout den, Griffin Ave Reserve ROGAINE 90 minutes or 2 hours. SAUSAGES awaiting you on your return.
This final event will be a little different – There will be a few more controls marked on your map, and it will be run as a 90-minute or 2 hour rogaine with time penalties if you are late. (You, of course can come back earlier if you wish). You are encouraged to run as a pair or small group. We will have a BBQ, busy cooking sausages, onions and corn cobs for you when you return and a nice warm scout den with a fire roaring so you can stay around and have a chat about where you went.
PLEASE PRE-ENTER FOR THESE EVENTS VIA THE LINKS IN THE EVENT LISTING ON THE AOC WEBPAGE
- Pre entry is open right up to when you arrive, but so we can print the enough maps, please enter by midday on the day of the event. Full details on the website.
- All events will be using MapRun6 so make sure you have the app for this loaded on your phone – and bring a good light source!!
