Balmoral School Newsletter - 23 February 2024

Principal

Tēnā koutou i tēnei ahiahi

Welcome to our first school newsletter. This newsletter is an essential way for us to disseminate information immediately relevant to you and your child/ren. Please take the time to read it. This school newsletter will be sent to your inbox on the Friday of each odd week (Week  3,5,7,9) every term. 

Over the last week we have had several events at school to build a close connection with our community. Last week we had a Meet the Teacher and a PTA meeting. This week, we have had a Board Meeting, Primary swimming sports, and a parent netball meeting. Thanks to all our parents who have taken the opportunity to make the, events. 

Soon all caregivers will receive an email from the PTA through your child's class teacher to arrange an email communication tree. The PTA will email you periodically through this avenue about school events and requests for help. The PTA will also ask for one parent to put their hand up to be the class coordinator and email disseminator. Watch out for this email soon. 

Nāku noa
Malcolm

Restorative Practices and School Behaviour

Before school started, our staff spent one day developing our restorative practices in our school. Restorative Practice focuses on building and maintaining positive relationships and developing school staff best-practice tools and techniques to restore those relationships when things go wrong. This process is about problem-solving with children, being respectful, working collaboratively and ultimately, the person who harmed others taking responsibility. Embedding social-emotional learning practices in our curriculum can help students strengthen their conflict-resolution toolkits by developing self-awareness, communication and self-management skills.

Restorative is about acknowledging conflict but providing children the opportunity and skills to solve these events. The key thought is "I am going to hold myself accountable for the harm I have done and do what I need to do to correct the harm." It is a system that has high expectations of behaviour. 

The Restorative Process is not a punitive system of behaviour management. After years of research, the evidence is that punishment does not change school behaviour. More than likely, it causes resentment towards schooling. 

Adults must shift away from a behaviour management system of judgement to one where being curious about a child's actions comes to the fore.  Adults can then be better able to help children learn the appropriate behaviour. We will need your support as we work to grow our tamariki further.  Over the year, we will keep you updated about our progress. 

The restorative process links closely with our curriculum approach, including learning through play, philosophy for children, mathematics, and inquiry. This curriculum relies on "notice, recognise, and respond" of actively observing students, acknowledging their strengths and challenges, and appropriately addressing their needs to foster effective learning."

Clarification of Terms. From time to time, we hear the word bullying in our community. Here is a definition we will be using in our school. Please speak to your child about these terms and use them at home.

Bullying

Someone said or did something that hurts. They didn't mean to... That's an accident!

Some said or did something that hurts. They meant to... That's unkind!

Someone said or did something that hurts. They keep on doing it on purpose (even when asked to stop..) That's bullying!

Our New School Mural

It all started with the Eco-warrior's competition, I did a drawing of a bird spreading its wings in the air with a couple of native animals behind it. After colouring my drawing I gave it to Emily, the Eco-warriors teacher, and she gave it to Resene.

Resene is a company that you may not have heard of, or maybe even seen! If you haven't, Resene is a huge paint company. It sells every colour you can think of, which is a lot of colours!

One day, Emily told me that people would be voting for the mural, surprisingly I didn't know that I had won out of all the schools that had entered. If I wanted to win, I needed everyone I knew to vote for the competition. When the day came, I hoped for the best, I hoped that I would be in the top ten out of fifteen drawings. As I opened the website I saw... Balmoral school! We had won! 

A couple of days later, Caylin and I started griding up the boards for the mural. It seemed like it took the longest out of all the steps. A VERY long time later, we FINALLY started to paint the background, but we couldn't do all of this ourselves, we needed people. 

Over the duration of painting the mural, more and more students came to help us finish. I'd like to give a big thank you to the helpers and other student painters, Emily (the Teacher), Resene, and Lucy the Artist. We couldn't have gotten here without you. 
By Bella Dussan Ardern.

Class Photos 2024 - see below 

School Property Update

We are currently working with the Ministry of Education and contractors on delivering two projects at school.

The MoE is extending the canopy outside Hubs 12, 13 and 14 on the bottom level of the Primary Block. This is to provide more shelter from the sun and rain for the classes. We are also trying to coordinate the repair of the school netball courts from damage from last year's January storm.

The extension to the pool apron and building of the sports shed is currently with Council for consent. 

Safety at the School Gate

We have recently received feedback from a number of parents regarding road safety practices at our school's drop-off zone, and we believe it's crucial to address this matter together.

Parents have observed several children, particularly those in Years 1 to 4, crossing the road without using the designated pedestrian crossing. Some were accompanied by parents, while others were not. This behaviour poses a risk to their safety and sends concerning messages to our young learners about road safety etiquette.

1. Safety First: It's important to emphasise that ignoring the pedestrian crossing and crossing at an intersection, as observed, is inherently dangerous. Our designated crossing points are designed to ensure the safety of pedestrians, especially our children.

2. Modelling Responsible Behavior: Additionally, our actions as parents greatly influence our children's understanding and adoption of road safety practices. When we prioritise following the rules of the road, we instil in them the importance of respecting these guidelines for their safety and the safety of others.

We all play a vital role in shaping the future road users of our community. By modelling good road-sense behaviour and making responsible decisions on the road, we not only keep our children safe but also contribute to fostering a culture of safety and respect.

Let's work together to ensure our children learn good behaviour by witnessing it firsthand. Thank you for your cooperation and commitment to the safety of our school community.

Netsafe Webinar for Families (Keeping Your Child Safe Online)

We have booked a webinar with Netsafe on the 27th February from 7.30-8.30pm. 

The webinar will be hosted on Microsoft Teams. You will not need to create an account to access, but it may ask for a name to access the webinar as a guest. 

Link to the teams call to join the webinar: http://tinyurl.com/366x4mfe 

The Netsafe's Education Advisor will talk about the risks, challenges and opportunities of digitaltechnology, and the practical ways we can help young people to be safe online. There will be plenty of time to answer your questions.

They will be covering topics that affect all students from year 0 to year 8. 

Please make sure you RSVP using the Google form https://forms.gle/ixLYoRhtP1hoW8XV9

Message from Auckland Regional Dental Service (ARDS)

The Auckland Regional Dental Service (ARDS) is a Te Whatu Ora-operated service, which provides FREE dental care to children across greater Auckland. In order to prevent any eligible children missing out on receiving free dental care, ARDS is cross-checking their own records with school rolls.
For our children’s better oral health and wellbeing, our school roll will be shared with the service as required. To find out more information about ARDS, please visit ards.co.nz or call 0800 TALK TEETH (0800 825 583).

Balmoral Itinerant Music Programme 2024

The Balmoral Music Department wishes you all a fantastic start to 2024 and hopes everyone has had a lovely summer break

For those of you who are looking for musical instrument lessons for your children, we wanted to let you know that it is possible to get one-to-one or group instrument lessons during school hours.

Our itinerant music teachers offer piano, guitar, ukulele, bass guitar and drum lessons

You can find information and contacts for our music teachers on our website here: Balmoral Itinerant Music Teachers

As they are all private contractors, you will need to contact them directly to arrange lessons

For students returning for lessons this year, please note that due to inflation, the lesson fees have gone up. Our prices have remained consistent for many years, and a price rise was inevitable with the current cost of living. We apologise for any issues this may cause

If you have any general music queries, please do not hesitate to contact either Alex (Year 5-8) or Sarah (Year 0-4)

Primary School News

News from whanau Hiringa 

Inquiry- Taonga and Collage 

Inquiry has gotten off to a great start in Hub Tawhai, our prompt of “How are we connected?” has already sparked some incredible ideas and discussions between the ākonga. To show what we have in common already, the learners made a banner for our hub incorporating a collage of representative drawings. The themes within this consisted of our hobbies and interests, words of aspiration for the year, our whakapapa and last names, and of course, our favorite kai.

The result of everyone’s effort and focus on our banner is a very colourful and personal display.

Our next focus will be on sharing a taonga or treasure within our classes, to explore the other ways we may be connected. This could be by sharing similar stories or having connections to people and places. Ākonga have been asked to share a photo or sentimental item that has been passed down or a memorable story within our whānau. We can’t wait to see what the students have brought in!

Mitey in whanau Hiringa - Balmoral Vaules

To kick start our year of Mitey learning what better way to begin than looking at how we use the ‘Balmoral Way’ and display the school values in our learning. The students worked together to brainstorm examples of what the Balmoral values look and sound like in and out of the classroom. As these values contribute to everyone's wellbeing here at school this has been a fantastic starting point for a year of Mitey mental health learning ahead. 

Year 5/6 Swimming Sports

Take your marks, set….. Swimming sports kicked off with a bang for 2024. The sun was shining and the support crew were cheering. Year 5 and 6 students had a fantastic day competing in swimming sports and the support was out the gate. About 50 students across Hiringa competed in 4 different events for swimming sports. It was great to see students pushing themselves out of their comfort zones and giving the event a good go. Students demonstrated great resilience and support for each other.

All students competed really well, notably Sienna Collins, Hilary Tagg, Harry Standon and Taj Singh, who won multiple races across the day.

Well done to everyone who was competing and thank you to everyone who was a part of the event.

Intermediate School News

News from Hub 1

So far this term our Inquiry has focused on what and who made us who we are. The first thing we did was make a list of 40 words that described us. After that we had our photograph taken, then traced the outline. When we were happy with this, we started to write our words onto the outline, thinking about the best place to put each word. Once we were happy with this we went over the lines in black pen and then we were done. This form of artwork is called micrography. Below are a couple of examples of our artwork from Naysa and Caitlin.

By Gemma and Christina

Futsal in Spain

Isaac from Hub 1 has created this awesome poster about his time playing Futsal at the World Futsal Cup last year in Spain. Congratulations Isaac, what an amazing experience!

Year 7 & 8 Orienteering 

If your child is interested in getting involved with orienteering this year please click on the this website  https://schoolsorienteering.co.nz/

Sports Leagues

FlippaBall Term 4 2023

Congratulations to our teams who played off for first place in their finals of the Term 4 Season.

They came away with these outstanding results:

Balmoral School Hapuka - 1st Blue Duck Grade

Hapuka continued their strong unbeaten season to win 6 - nil in the final. The team has been playing together for many terms and their skills and teamwork showed every game this season. They are well deserving of the gold!

Balmoral School Narwhals - 2nd Pukeko Grade

The Narwhals also had a strong unbeaten season. They too have been playing together for many terms and played a great final game with a nailbiter finish. The opposition came through in the end and won by 1 goal. What a finish!

FlippaBall Term 1 2024

The Term 1 season started on 11th February with Balmoral Hapuka Y5/6 and Narwhals Y5 going head to head in the same grade in the first game of the season.. It was an intense game with some strong attacking and goal shooting skills and excellent defense on both sides. The final score was 2-2. This score reflects the strength of players we have at Balmoral.

The Year 4/5 Trevally started strong with a great first game. With half the team new to FlippaBall they did well to come away with a narrow loss.

Waterpolo - Intermediate

We are beginning to organise Intermediate Waterpolo for Terms 2 & 3. If your child is interested in playing, please go to the school website to register your interest. Further information can be found by clicking the Register Here button.

https://www.balmoral.school.nz/waterpolo-yr78

Netball 2024

Further information about signing up for Balmoral School Netball for Years 3-8 will be communicated to parents next week via email. 

Auckland Netball are running some "Give it a Go" games which I would recommend anyone who hasn't played before to go along to. This is a great way of getting on the court and giving netball a try before committing to playing for the season.

Community News

Auckland Transport

As you know, rubbish trucks visit our school and neighbouring areas daily to collect trash and recycling. While these routine pickups are necessary, they can also pose safety risks to children walking to and from school that we must be mindful of.

Drivers may not see a small child who walks behind or too close to these large vehicles with limited visibility. To help keep our students safe, I strongly encourage you to go over a few key tips with your children:

• Walk on the walkways only, not on the road. If there is no walkway, walk as far from the road/traffic as possible.
• Cross streets at pedestrian crossings or intersections.  Look both ways before crossing.
• When a vehicle is backing up, such as a rubbish truck, stay far back until it has completed the manoeuvre.  Never walk behind it.
• If possible wear bright or reflective clothing so you are visible.
• Remove headphones so you can hear traffic and vehicles around you.
• Obey traffic signs/signals.
• Walk, don't run.  Rushing can lead to accidents.

Please discuss these safety tips with your child and remind them to be alert and aware when walking, especially around large trucks or vehicles.  Doing our part to follow good safety habits can help prevent accidents.  Thank you for your cooperation and attention to this important issue.  Let me know if you have any other concerns.

Regards,

Travelwise Team - Edward

Auckland Transport

Travelwise@at.govt.z | www.at.govt.nz

Rainbow Rangatahi

Rainbow Rangatahi was established in 2022 and meets fortnightly on a Saturday at Gribblehurst Community Centre from 3.30 - 5.30pm. While we've had a wide range of youth and their whānau participate in the group, those aged 10 - 13 seem to especially benefit from being in a supportive environment. 

For many, this is the start of their identity journey. Rainbow Rangatahi provides a safe space to explore this - many find it's the first group they've been fully accepted without judgement. 

The group is a platform for open discussions, camaraderie, and understanding for both youth and their whānau.

• When: Every second Saturday beginning Feb 3.
• Time: 3.30 - 5.30
• Location: Gribblehurst Community Hub. 
• Facebook
• Cost: Koha 

We are running a gumboot design competition in collaboration with Number 1 Shoes and Hannahs, with the winning design being used as our limited edition gumboot for this year's Gumboot Friday campaign. For a budding designer or artist they will get to see their creation come to life and for sale at stores around New Zealand - raising funds for free counselling sessions through Gumboot Friday.

Please see details and entry form at the link below.

https://www.iamhope.org.nz/gumbootdesigncomp

You might like to do this as an activity in class or let the tamariki know and they can do it at home.

Nga mihi nui,

Michaiah Simmons

021 2244665

Events, Marketing and Partnerships Manager - I Am Hope / Gumboot Friday