Balmoral School Newsletter - 18 October 2024
Upcoming Events
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Turanga (Year 7) Camp
01 Apr 2025 - 04 Apr 2025 |
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Year 1 Ballot Closes at 1pm
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM |
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Polyfest Trip
All day |
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School Tour - Domestic Only (Not International)
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Recurring event |
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Year 2 Western Springs Trip
All day |
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Market Day
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM |
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Primary assembly - Whānau Mahira
9:10 AM - 9:45 AM |
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End of Term 1
All day |
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Term 2 starts
All day |
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Whakatau
9:15 AM - 10:00 AM |
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HPV1 Year 8 Girls and Boys Immunisaton
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM |
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School Tour - Domestic Only (Not International)
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Recurring event |
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School Tour - Domestic Only (Not International)
9:30 AM - 10:30 AM |
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Te Tumuaki / Principal
Kia ora e te whānau
Welcome back to Term 4. Term 4 in schools is always jam-packed with the writing of tamariki's reports, setting of 2025 budgets, classes for next year, enrolment of children for 2025, movement and appointment of staff, reviews of annual plans, development of a new annual plan, having PD on structured literacy and mathematics as well as the normal end of year school events.
I hope you will all be able to attend some of the events we have planned in the coming months.
Ngā mihi Malcolm
School Closed for MoE Training Day Friday 25 October
The School will close on Friday, October 25th, for a Ministry Training Day.
Our teachers will work on our school's literacy programme to ensure that we are prepared for the new curriculum, which will be mandated in 2025.
Philosophy for Children
Recently, researchers at King’s College London asked 2,000 adults how they felt about their ability to focus. Almost half of them (49%) said they thought their attention span was shorter than it used to be. Nearly as many (47%) agreed that thinking hard about things seems to be fading away. "The Guardian" . The challenge for modern schooling is how do we ensure our next generation can be able to think deeply when they are adults.
P4C is essential to our thinking, oral language, and literacy programme at Balmoral. I want to acknowledge the parents and staff who attended the P4C evening at the end of last term. Joe put a lot of effort into preparing a slideshow and activities. I am sure they all came away with an idea of how a highly structured Philosophy session works and a greater understanding of Bravery.
Extensive research has shown that schools who teach P4C have shown an improvement in:
- critical and logical reasoning
- reading comprehension
- mathematical skills
- self-esteem, listening and language skills
- use of more expressive language
- emotional intelligence and creative thinking
- interpersonal relationships
- confidence, persistence, motivation, curiosity, commitment and concentration,
- engagement and participation
Before the evening, we sought feedback from previous pupils at our school on how they believed P4C had helped them.
“Philosophy for children was one of my favourite parts of being at Balmoral Primary. It taught me to think more creatively about problems connecting different concepts and gave me the confidence to share my opinions. In a social media age of increasing misinformation it was particularly useful in teaching me to be more critical of arguments seeing things less in black and white. I’ve found myself continuing to leverage and build on these skills throughout my high school and now university life.” A, 18 years old (Balmoral School student 2010-2016)
"P4C has taught me to think critically about information when in class at high school. It also helps me fill in the gaps by asking the right questions. It has also helped me to be able to understand other people’s opinions and points of view" (P, Year 9 MAGs)
P4C has been really beneficial for my years at high school and having an overall understanding of how to create a considered opinion. Throughout high school you are constantly writing essays on many different topics, this means coming up with deep and conveying arguments about an idea in the text or picture. P4C has helped me develop these ideas because since attending Balmoral I have been practicing this deep thinking and have been taught that there are always more sides to the story. I have been commended by many of my teachers that my ideas are really well thought out and I have been able to explain many different reasons or understandings of that idea. I think P4C is really beneficial because it helps children create a more balanced and thought provoking outlook on life." (M, Year 11 EGGS)
Philosophy at Balmoral taught me how to argue a point of view while keeping in mind what others have to say. It taught me to be respectful and honest and see things from other people’s perspectives. It enabled me to speak up for my opinions and I was able to explore and reason many ideas through a better understanding of other’s beliefs. It has helped me with my confidence and general life skills which had made me a better leader at high school and a better student through my contributions" (J. Year 10 MAGS)
Your School Donation is Wanted and Needed
The school donation is required to keep our school running. Without this income and support from parents in our community, we would have to curtail many activities for our pupils. Support your child, your neighbour's child, your child's classmates and our school by making this contribution to your community.
If you want further information about our school finances and the necessity of your school donation, please read this in-depth article; link below.
This article, written by Amara Shah, not only explains school finances in easily understandable terms but also compares the funding we receive to that of other neighbouring schools. It also demonstrates a fantastic investigative journalistic piece from a twelve-year-old.
Read Paying the Price of Education by Amara Shah here!
Artz Festival
Recently we held our annual Artz Festival.
The staff have completed a review of both the Artz Festival Week and the Exhibition evening. We are now offering parents the opportunity to provide feedback.
Please click here https://forms.gle/qaZghxXC5p4jwXDw8.
School Hats
This term, all children are expected to wear school sun hats. Any child without a hat must sit in the shade at school during break times.
Hats are available for purchase from the school office or The Warehouse for $20.
Lost Property
We've got more than 20 nice intermediate school fleeces in the office without any names. Because they're not labelled, tamariki often don't pick them up from the lost and found.
Since each fleece costs $47.60, that's a lot of money going to waste!
We ask all parents to please put their child's name on their clothes. A simple marker usually does the trick—it helps the pupils recognise their own clothes!
Happy Diwali (Hindu Festival of Lights) "May the lights of Diwali bring you peace and joy."
On Friday, November 1st, we will celebrate Diwali, a significant festival for our Indian community. To acknowledge this, we have arranged some special activities for the students during lunch, including henna art, music, and colouring.
Primary School News
Whānau Mahira
Term 3 saw a focus on the Visual and Performing Arts in Hub 10. The children enthusiastically participated in the annual school Arts Festival. Our artwork took us on a journey through hundreds of years in Auckland. The pathway of our Inquiry this year began with early Māori life on Maungawhau through to the European settlers arrival in Tāmaki Makaurau.
During this term the children also worked hard on their dance telling the story of Mataoho, the giant, who lived on Maungawhau. They had already composed the music in Term 2 with Sarah, the music teacher. Now it was time to tell the story using dance. The children did an amazing job as they performed the dance for the Primary School and the community. On the click of the claves, the dance began and the children were in performance mode. Transitions were seamless and those not dancing remained silent and respectful of the other dancers. The hard work in developing their movements had been worth it. Group work had been challenging for some children who found it hard to let go of an idea when they really wanted it to be in the dance, but others did not. Some children had to rise above their disappointment. On performance day they gelled and worked together like there had never been a problem. Leaders emerged naturally during the practices, some of them surprising the teachers. In their writing the children wrote about it being fun, hard work and scary. All were proud of what they had achieved.
Intermediate School News
AIMS Competition
Last term our AIMS teams headed off to Tauranga to take part in the massive AIMS games competition. You can read about their week in the reports below. Thank you to all the parents who coached, managed and supported the teams, and Beth, Dan and Amanda for all their work both before and during the tournament.
Football Report
Day Of Arrival
On Sunday once we got to school, we took some photos, put everybodies bag in the vans. Afterwards we left for the 3 hour drive to Opal Springs, we took one brief stop at a bakery before heading back on the road. We got to Opal springs, left our bags there, and drove off to the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony had so much traffic and 300+ schools. We got into the crowded stadium and sat down in our seats. AIMS is such a big tournament even Christopher Luxon, the mayor of Tauranga, many famous athletes and well known people came. Afterwards, we went back to opal springs to have some downtime, then eat dinner, finally ending the day with unpacking and sleeping.
The Games
Every day the team would wake up between 6-8 depending on what time the first game would be. The first day we had a slight sleep in because our game started at 10 ish, we woke up, put on our gear, made breakfast and packed lunch for the day. The car ride to the venue was an hour away every single day. Once we got there we explored the place a bit and had some food they sold before we went to our first game. We had a smooth start, starting with a 7-0 win against Whenuakite, in between every game we had about 1-2 hours of resting and hanging around. In our second game we won again, 12-0 against Chanel Intermediate.
Mall and final group stages games
Every other day was basically the same, then we went to the mall, got some snacks from countdown and looked around the Bayfair mall. Our third game was a 3-0 win against Whangaparaoa and another 3-1 win against Otumoetai.
Final pool games
After our 3-1 win against Otumoetai, it only got harder. The next and last game of the day we played St Kents, it was a 0-0 game until the last couple minutes where we scored a tight goal to win the match. The hardest day was the next, we played St Heliers first and beat them easily 4-0. Our next game was definitely the most important and hardest, we played Northcote for places 1-8. It started normally until they got a goal just before half-time and two of our defenders had to come off. They got another good goal in the second half and another goal in the last minute meaning we lost 3-0 and had no chance to come first.
Downfall
The next day we were playing for places 9-13, our first game was against Mt Maunganui where they got a lucky quick first goal off a free kick deflection, their second goal was another lucky goal from a goalkeeper mistake, we thought we had no chance. They had even another goal from far out, but by half time we were playing much better, a goal from a freekick and another goal but unfortunately on our last play the whistle was blown to end the game 3-2. That was the saddest game after losing our chance to come first we also lost our chance to come 9th. Our next game was against Takapuna where they started off so well and passed the ball around really well and we just had no chance against them and that game also ended in a 3-1 loss to end the day.
Last Results
We played Somerville for our last game for places 15-16, all we were playing for was a one place difference so we all played out of our preferred positions and had fun. We managed to win the game 2-1 and take 15th place.
By Melbourne
Netball Report
From Sunday to Friday was the Aims sports Tournament. It was a six day sports tournament (but our team went for netball). We had about two games everyday apart from Friday, so that’s eleven games overall. We won six games and lost the rest. We placed 75th out of 160 schools, it was a really fun experience and I wish we could go again.
By Indie
Basketball Report
The AIMS Balmoral Basketball team took the AIMS international stage with a record of 2 wins and 7 losses. Our Tournament had been tough, marked by struggles and missed opportunities. Frustration lingering after each game, we all continued to show up, trying to find our rhythm. As we prepared for the next match, the weight of our past losses hung over the team, leaving us uncertain about turning things around. But ending with a 2 game win streak meant our week ended with a sense of happiness.
By Angus and Sunil
Community News
