Newsletter Term 1 Week 4

He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa - Warm greetings to all!

Thank you for joining us at our picnic evening last week. Teachers enjoyed being able to meet informally with parents in such a relaxed and fun event.

School Fair

Sunday 24th March 2019

11am - 2pm

Our fair is fast approaching and we need you to sign up to help out. Please leave your details via the sign up form or get in touch with Sue Campbell (sue@ridgway.school.nz). There's a role for everyone, no matter what your talents are.

Children are working on the school fair as part of this term's class learning and definitely need your support. Do ask your son or daughter about how they will be Participating and Contributing. Student involvement in the fair is real life learning - which we know is the best kind.

Please also set aside time on the day to come down and enjoy the fair activities yourself. It's always a great time to catch up with other locals and enjoy lunch from one of the parent run food stalls. Look out for the silent auction, we've got some great items up for sale.

The following message is from the fair committee with details about how to get involved and what they need now.

What we need

Volunteers to help run the stalls on the day
Children's toys, clothing and books to sell at the fair
Storage space to store donations until the day of the fair
Cakes and food to feed people at the fair
Sponsorship to cover costs
Gazebos for stalls

If you can help with any of these things, please sign up here Google form for Ridgway Fair or email sue@ridgway.school.nz.

When to drop of your donations

If you have any donations, please drop them off in the coming weeks at 135 Mornington Road. (the white house across the road from the school)

Please knock and check if we are home first, so we can open the garage for you. Please do not leave anything if we are not home.

Nothing after 8.30pm at night please.

4-8 March - Children's Clothing
11 - 15 March. Children's toys and books
Fri, 22 March - Jars of Fun (drop these off at the office.)

Cakes can be dropped off on the day of the fair.

And last but not least, tell all your friends and family and bring them along to the fair. It will be an awesome day.

Student Led Conferences

Please book a conference time online via the links that have been sent to you already. Please note that for Year 4 - 8 students that while the total conference time is 15 minutes, start times are at 5 minute intervals. In the first 10 minutes of the conference time your child will be showing you their work and explaining where they are achieving. You can read more about how these conferences will operate in my "Student Led Conferences" blog post.

Year 1 - 3 conferences will last 10 minutes in total, but you will notice they are scheduled at 15 minute intervals. This is to give the teachers time between conferences.

**We had a slight hiccup with the bookings last night and they were temporarily closed off - they are now open again so if you've had trouble accessing the website to book, please try again today.

Whānau Hui Group

The Whānau Hui Group meet each term with the purpose of supporting the school to grow tikanga and te reo Māori throughout the school. The group will be meeting at Becks whare, 115 Farnham Street on Thursday night at 6.30pm and are keen to welcome new members.

This meeting is to discuss how we will support Ridgway kura in continuing its te reo including planning for Matariki and a noho marae this year.

Korero with Kathryn

I'll be opening up a few Korero spots during the year to talk with parents about how we are going and what we are doing. These times will be a good opportunity for parents to hear about our vision for Ridgway and increase their understanding about why we do the things we do. If there are particular topics you'd like to see covered, please let me know.

My first Korero will be on Monday 11 March from 7-8pm. I'll be discussing the individual timetables that we have introduced in Kūkupa and Kākā whānau. Please RSVP directly to me (principal@ridgway.school.nz) if you plan to come along - that way I'll know how many chairs to put out, and if I need to get extra chocolate biscuits. We'll korero in either the staffroom or the library.

National Arts Festival

Year 4 - 8 Monday 11 March

Year 1 - 3 Monday 18th March

You have been sent information today about the shows your child will see and a sign up form for parent helpers.

These shows are offered to schools at a heavily discounted rate, and we in turn provide these dramatic performances to all of our students as a compulsory part of the curriculum. We can only do so with parent support however, and request that parents make a voluntary contribution of $25 per child towards the school's cost. This was added to your child's account at the start of the year.

Movin' March - and WOW Passport

We'll be participating in the WCC Movin' March event again this year. Movin' March promotes children walking to school, something we are very keen to see more of our families do on a regular basis.

The Movin'March team have sent us a stack of WOW (walk or wheel) passport cards which we will hand out to children .

Each day that your child walks or wheels to school (or part of the way to school) they'll get a stamp on their passport. Once the passport is full they can enter the draw for prizes. All entries will go in the draw to win one of six $300 AVANTI vouchers. The school with the highest percentage of walk or wheel trips in each district will win a $100 Prezzy card - so help us be in to win.

Our school will hold a WOW Family Walk to School Day on Friday 8th March. Students are encouraged to dress up as heroes, walk or wheel to school, then celebrate our WOW week with a shared breakfast. You are welcome to join us too, give it a go on WOW Family day and be part of the fun.

Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon - Wellington

Sunday, 17 March 2019

Kilbirnie Park, Wellington

This is a great event and children can compete as individuals or make up a team. If your son or daughter would like to complete, sign them up under our school name on this the link

Interested in becoming a board member?

More information about our own board elections will be sent out in due course. If you are interested in finding our more about what board members do remember the NZ School Trustees event hosted by Wellington High School on 1 April 2019. Please RSVP using this link if you are attending:

What Now Live Audience

The What Now crew will be filming live from Berhampore School on Sunday 7th April, and invite you to be part of the live audience. It's free to go along, but space is limited so if you want to enjoy this experience and perhaps even be seen on tv register online www.whatnow.tv/bonus/audience .

Families (including adults) are all invited to come and experience live tv being made while being part of our awesome audience…& it's FREE!! As space is limited, we work on a 'first in best dressed' approach.

Sarah Taylor
Deputy Principal