Hebron Happenings

Newsletter No.18 Friday 22nd June 2012 Dear Parents The Board-Parent meeting on Wednesday night was a wonderful opportunity to showcase the great things happening in our school and to signal upcoming activities and improvements. Those present heard about:

• Keeping Ourselves Safe programme to be taught in Term 3 • Improved classroom, sports and IT resourcing • Application to become an integrated ‘special character’ school with hugely reduced costs • Focussed and multi-media marketing of the school • Launch of a new website with more facilities • Enhanced Board-community communication and workgroups • Site redevelopment and building of gymnasium/hall • Improved identification of student career pathways and secondary subject alignment • Pre-enrolment of students from July to assist forward planning • Development of one, five and ten year strategic plans

Further meetings will be planned by the School Board so that our parent community fully understands the direction the school is going and can assist with ideas and input.

Convalescing Mrs Hatch is now out of hospital and convalescing at home. She will not return to school before the end of the term and it is our hope and prayer that she is able to return for Term 3. In the meantime, we are very thankful in having Mrs Chris Bjorklund (right) take up her position and carry on from where Mrs Hatch left off. Please remember to hold up Mrs Hatch in prayer during these times. (Room 6 reports will be issued next week but no parent-teacher interviews are planned)

Mastermind Finals The Primary Mastermind Finals took place on Tuesday and there were lots of brain machinations happening as small minds were searching for answers to questions like:

• What did Alexander bell invent? • How do you spell Tuesday? • Who married Prince William last year? • Where does Hairy McClairy live?

• Name a brother of Joseph in the bible? • What can’t monkeys do very well? • What are skunks immune to? • Which continent is Tanzania in?

Placegetters for the three divisions were:

Junior Primary Left to right; Timothy Hidalgo (2nd)

Chris Conway (1st) Aaron Harrison (3rd) Senior Primary Left to right; Emily Squirrell (3rd),

Peter Luo (1st), Giles Paton Simpson (3rd) Intermediate Left to right; Sarah Scott (3rd),

Justin Low (1st), Yong Shan Zhao (3rd)

A Star of Persia On Tuesday Mrs Huston and some lead characters visited Liberty Christian Church, where we will hold our musical “Star of Persia” on 31st August and 1 September. It has a wonderful auditorium, spacious enough to bring all your friends and family along, with a stage big enough to hold the children performing. We have come to the point where we urgently need adult co-ordinators to help in all the facets of musical production, including prop making, painting, sewing, backstage supervision, and a host of other activities. If you can help at all, please contact Mrs Scott or Mrs Huston! This Monday afternoon, rehearsal will be concentrating on the King and his court. Rehearsal is from 3.30pm till 5.00pm. Could the following students please attend: Michael Nuysink, Jonathan Sellar, Nathan Sellar, Logan Griffiths, Sam Griffiths, Joel Collecutt, Rebecca Cummins, Thelma Magengezha, Nikhil Chauhan, Eli Gillies, Peter Biondic, Oliver Butler, Brendon Matthews, Lafi Aso, James Boyd and Luda Lin. Geography Quiz Maatangi Whenua is the Year 11 geography quiz entered by teams from all over NZ. Hebron's team of Siniki Muli, Brooklyn Wilson and Sang Jin Park came near the middle out of 23 teams from central Auckland. Each team is made up of the 3 top geography students from their schools, so this shows Hebron students can compete with the best! They say the quiz was fun but some rounds were quite hard. The photo shows Siniki, Brooklyn and Sang Jin making geographic features out of play dough at Maatangi Whenua. Life Education Trust Our school is receiving a visit from the Life Education Trust Mobile Classroom next week. Our New Entrant to Year 8 classes will visit the classroom twice during the week with Rooms 11 & 12 visiting three times. Life Education is a health based education resource teaching children the wonders of their bodies and what good substances are needed for a healthy lifestyle and the need to make good choices in life. The aim of this year’s visit is to provide children from 5 – 13 years with an awareness and understanding of differences within each other and the need to make good choices in inter-personal relationships. By using positive, dynamic messages in a non-judgemental way, the Life Education Trust aims to encourage children to recognise that everyone has a unique personality; the Life Education Trust resource builds awareness in children of this uniqueness and guides them towards responsible, respectful attitudes towards themselves, others and their environment. The Life Education Trust offset as much of their cost as possible through grants, sponsorship, and fundraising, however , they still need to place a small charge to students to enable for them to still meet the needs of the community they serve. As parents / caregivers, you are invited to the Life Education Trust mobile classroom to meet the educator and find out about more of this resource and the programmes your children have been involved in. A special session for parents has been arranged on Wednesday 2:30 to 3:00pm. The mobile classroom, located in the main school carpark, is air conditioned and preschoolers are welcome.

Upcoming Events

Fundraising

Parent-teacher Interviews We would like EVERY family to attend our Parent-Teacher Interviews next week as we expect you want to talk face-to-face with your child(ren)’s teacher(s) about his/her/their progress and achievements. The teachers would like to talk to YOU too and share their assessments, suggestions, etc to ensure your child(ren) reaches his/her/their full potential. So please make EVERY effort to attend these interviews. Booking interviews with your child’s teacher: Parent-Teacher Interviews take place next week on two afternoons and evenings. They are: Primary Tuesday 26th June 2:30pm to 9:00pm Secondary Thursday 28th June 3:00pm to 9:00pm To book your interview with a PRIMARY teacher…

1. Go to: www.schoolinterviews.co.nz 2. Type in our school Primary Interview code which is: 6W5TE 3. You can then tick your preferred times with your teacher(s).

To book your interviews with the SECONDARY teachers…

4. Go to: www.schoolinterviews.co.nz 5. Type in our school secondary Interview code which is: 9WHZ6 6. You can then tick your preferred times with your child(ren)’s teachers. Important: Allow at least

5mins between interview slots. Project Achieve – Next Friday Next Friday Project Achieve Day will take place. Since 2008, we have run a very exciting initiative for senior (Y11-13) secondary students called “Project Achieve”. This project aims to increase student achievement and motivate students to take responsibility for their own learning. In a practical sense, it works in the following way: students who complete all work set in class, assignments, assessments and all set homework are rewarded with a day off school. Those students who have not completed all the requirements of every teacher will be required to attend catch up workshops in the subjects where work is still outstanding. We have seen a very positive response to Project Achieve among the students. For some, this has been enough incentive to ensure they take the responsibility to keep up-to-date with their work. We have seen students, who have previously needed teachers to chase them up for outstanding work, now chasing teachers to see if they have any work still outstanding! Last Day of Term next Week

• Next Friday is the last day of Term 2. School will finish at the normal time • Children can wear mufti for the princely sum of $2, the money going to the New Life Foundation

orphanage in Tanzania. Sports Results Sport Level Opponent Result Netball Primary Y3 & Y4 ? Lost 2-8

Intermediate Waikowhai B Won 4-2 Kowhai G Won 9-2

Secondary Diocesan Won 20-9 Futsal Primary Y4/5 ? Lost 3-9

Intermediate ? Won Basketball Intermediate Avondale Won 30-14

We hope to raise around $3,000 by preselling movie tickets. All we need is 100 families to buy (or sell) 5 or more tickets. Please read through the order form (attached) and send your orders along to school next week. A special hamper of goodies is offered to the class which sells the most tickets.

Geoff Matthews Principal