St John’s Girls’ School

Newsletter 24 February 2017

Principal’s Comments

Tena koutou katoa – Greetings to you all

Welcome to Jessica Wallis who has joined Year 7 as a boarder.

The house captains and deputies organised a fantastic house picnic yesterday. They learnt many leadership skills which

they will be able to fine tune during the year. Everyone had a wonderful day and as per usual we were lucky with the

weather. I was impressed by the house captains and deputies but equally impressed by the other Year 7 and 8 girls who

stepped up to help the house leaders.

Senior Water Forum

The senior syndicate held a Water Forum on Wednesday as part of the immersion process of their inquiry. They invited

six experts in to answer questions from the Year 6—8 girls on various aspects of water. I left having more questions than

what I started with! It was a great way to get the girls thinking about this very important resource. If you have skills/

knowledge in this area get in touch with the Year 6— teachers.

Nga mihi nui (King Regards)

Brenda Mackay

TERM DATES:

Term 1

February

28th Zone athletics (8-10 year olds)

March

1st Zone athletics postponement

2nd Rocky shore : Rms 1—4

7th Family Fun Night

8th Year 7 Vision testing

9th & 10th Cyber Safety

13th BOT meeting 5.30pm

14th Rocky shore—postponement date

15th Interviews—School closes 2pm

21st BOP and Parents Assn AGM

27-31st Year 8 Camp

28-30th ` Year 7 camp

30-31st Year 6 camp

April

8th Southland Athletics

10th Swimming Sports

11th School Aerobics competition 1.30pm

12th Easter service practice

13th Easter Service St John’s Church 1.30pm

Last day of Term 1

May

1st First day term 2.

Congratulations to the following girls who received awards

recently—

Room 1 Sophie Purdon, Leah McEwan

Room 2 Hazel Stevenson, Isabella McNamara

Elizabeth Torrington

Room 3 Sophia Campbell-Wall, Lily Hillman,

Sophie Hall

Room 4 Kacee McEwan, Lucia Hughes,

Brooke Acker, Laura McDowall

Room 5 Johanna Neylon, Holly Hampton,

Brooke Egerton, Isabella Willis

Room 6 Sarah Slee, Rebecca Laverock,

Katie Unahi, Katie Dennis

Room 7 Ella Burdon, Holly Driver, Sarah Hay,

Eva Sexton

Values Cup:

17 Feb Madeleine Lawlor

24 Feb Holly Driver

R E M I N D E R S CANTEEN: Please name all lunch orders clearly in black vivid marker. Also remember not to send frozen heat-ups as

they don’t heat on time.

AFTER SCHOOL CARE: This programme operates every day from 3.15 to 5.15pm. You can use it on a permanent or

casual basis.

ABSENT/LATE

If any girl is going to be late to school, or absent, please contact the office before 8.45am, explaining her absence.

Either phone or email office@stjohnsgirls.school.nz. All girls who are late must report to the office on arrival please.

SIGNING IN/OUT

Anyone who comes on to the school grounds during school hours must go to the office and sign in, even if you just

dropping something off. This includes anyone coaching sports teams or helping in classrooms.

All pupils must report to the office when they leave school and again when they return if they are leaving during the school

day.

UNIFORM

Winter kilts for Year 5-8 girls need to be ordered now as they take around 8 weeks for delivery. Order forms are available

from the school office. Girls may collect these.

ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS

Thanks to those who pay into the correct accounts and clearly reference their payments, however we are receiving many

payments with incorrect or no references and it’s very time consuming contacting parents to sort payments made without

references. Please ensure you always include a reference— uniform, stationery, camp or the invoice number.

BOT account: 03 1750 0202108 90 Activity Donation, uniform, stationery, camp, ski day

BOP account: 03 1746 0051474 90 Proprietors Donation, Attendance Dues, boarding fee, taxis

CHANGE OF DETAILS Remember to notify the office of any change to email, home addresses or phone numbers please. This is particularly

important now that we are using digital mediums so frequently.

ROOM 4—Year 4 & 5 —Miss Smillie

A nice hot day. Having fun playing lots of games and enjoying lunch. ALABASTER HOUSE PICNIC! We played

cat and mouse with the parachute, duck-duck-goose and rock paper scissors, as well as eating lunch and playing the

gumboot toss. My favourite part was the lolly scramble and that was my glamourous day.

Jaylah Harvey-DeClifford

Today we went to the park. We went in our houses. There are four different houses, Enderby, Marchant, Lester and

Alabaster. I’m in Lester, so I dressed in blue. When we got to the park we put our packs on our tarpaulin, then we

played our first game which was bump. We played some parachute games and after that we had lunch.

After lunch we had a gumboot throwing competition and played Indian chairs. Indian chairs would have been my

favourite game.

We had a lolly scramble at the end of the day. I got 3 lollies but gave two to Lucia because she only had 1 and then I

had 1, so Laura gave me two.

We went back to school and that was the house picnic.

Anna Williams

ROOM 5—Year 8 —Mr Hughes

How is it that four weeks can fly by so quickly? We've spent a lot of time working on routines so far this year and it

has all paid off as we're all humming along nicely.

Our class novel has us sitting on the edge of our seats and we cannot wait to hear what the climax of the story will be.

We've all predicted what might happen. With only five chapters to go we'll soon find out!

'World of Water' is our inquiry this term and it has been amazing not only to discover how many questions we

initially had but how after finding out some information, we think of a whole heap more questions! Yesterday we had

a panel of six experts visit the senior syndicate to be part of a Q&A panel. We asked dozens of questions and learnt so

much. This is really only the beginning for us. Did you know that less than 1% of the world's water is accessible for

drinking?

Deep Cove information and forms came home this week. Thank you to those families who have completed them

carefully and returned them to Mr Hughes. Let's not forget the highlight of this week, the house picnic. What a

brilliant job our leaders did, supported by the other Year 8 girls. We spent a wonderful day in the sun working

together, having fun and building leadership skills.

SAFETY REMINDER

We advise parents to drop off and pick up girls from the Avenal Street entrance as Dee Street can be very busy,

especially in the mornings. Please remind your daughter that if she does use the Dee Street entrance she must walk up

the path and not the driveway.

We are very lucky to have 11 new girls join our stunning Room 6 this year. We have been working hard to get to

know one another and have started making great friendships. Our room is looking very colourful with all our

artwork. We have made portraits, a friendship quilt, Papa and Rangi tile art, and a car for our motivational quote—

’Road to Success’.

Room 6 really enjoyed the house picnic at Queens Park yesterday. It was lovely to see the sun and play all the great

games that our house leaders planned for us. We have been really busy testing over the past 2 weeks and looking

forward to diving further into our Water of the World inquiry topic. We enjoyed having Pat from Environmental

Southland and a panel of experts visit St John’s this week. It was a wonderful opportunity to have question and

answer time about water sustainability.

We are also beginning to prepare for our Year 7 camp to Dunedin. This provides a great opportunity for the girls to

research about their heritage and explore the wildlife of the Otago Peninsula.

YEAR 7 VISION SCREENING The Vision Hearing Technicians from Population Health, Southern District Health will be visiting your school to

screen all Year seven students for distance vision.

Distance Vision (Amblyopia & Hyperopia)

This determines how well your child is able to see at a distance. It involves reading an eye chart (not required if your

child wears glasses or is currently under care for their vision).

If you DO NOT wish your daughter to be screened please fill out an opt-out slip available from the school

office.

ROOM 6—Year 7— Ms Hawke

ROOM 7—Year 6—Mrs Taylor

Room 7 has made a great start to the year. We have settled into our new class and are getting to know each other

better. We are looking forward to our camp at Mokotua at the end of March.

The aerobics competition is coming up this term. We are learning our dances in our houses during dance. We are

making cards with each routine block. We hope to manage without too many arguments.

For our inquiry we are learning about water. We have started by making videos about the water cycle. We walked with

the other senior classes to the Waihopai River to spark our imagination. Pat Hoffman from Environment Southland

came and demonstrated her model of the water catchment and how pollution affects waterways and animals. A group of

local experts came and we asked many questions. It was really interesting, especially hearing about the Maori view of

the water cycle.

This term we have been learning how to write persuasively and want to tell people to use sunscreen. We have been

concentrating on this because getting sunburn can cause skin cancer. We have been reading an interesting novel about

the ranger’s apprentice called the ‘The Ruins of Gorlan’. Will is the main character and he is learning to become an

apprentice. We got this book through a scheme that has joined with Kellogg’s to give books to schools. If you have any

shop receipts for Kellogg’s products you can put them in the St John’s box at Windsor New World during February and

you will help us get some new books for the library.

Today some of our class are running the 1500m at Sacred Heart. If they do well they will represent us at Southlands.

In maths we are learning to subtract and add big numbers. We are working on our basic facts and have speed tests daily.

We need to pass 40 questions in 3 minutes (on an iPad) or 2 minutes if you use a computer. These tests self mark and

email us our results (usually!!).

Yesterday was the house picnic. It was nice having time out of class. Some of the games were exhilarating. It was fun

not being in school uniform. We got to know the new girls in our house and our house captains. The lolly scramble was

fun and scrumptious!

To get to know each other better we have created ‘Chuck Close’ style portraits. Our self portraits have turned out really

well, as you can see.

In music we have been learning about the instruments of the orchestra. There are four groups, strings, woodwind, brass

and percussion. There are a lot of stringed instruments in an orchestra and not many percussion. Next week Samara is

going to show us her cornet.

We are looking forward to the exciting things coming up, including our visit to Waituna Lagoon while at camp. We are

going to try and have a positive attitude towards school, our goals and attitudes using our seven school values all the

time.

SPORTS NEWS

We have been able to enter the following sports for Term 1. I wish to thank

all those parents who have set aside time to coach the teams. Without your

assistance and dedication, we wouldn’t have been able to enter them.

1 x Y7/8 Basketball team

2 x Y4-6 Water Polo teams

1 x Y7/8 Water Polo team

1x Y7/8 Touch Rugby team

1x Y5/6 Touch Rugby team

1x Y3/4 Touch Rugby team

1x Y7/8 Summer Football team

1x Y5/6 Volleyball team

Unfortunately, some Year 7/8 girls missed out on volleyball due to no coach being available.

We still have spaces available for Year 4-6 girls in the St John’s Fins and St John’s Flippers water polo teams.

Please contact me if your daughter has expressed an interest in playing this season.

ILT SWIMMING FUNDING

Through the generous funding of the Invercargill Licensing Trust, ILT Foundation and the Invercargill City Council

the Invercargill Schools Swimming Programme is almost fully funded again for 2017.

Funding includes pool charges, assistance with 2 x Splash Palace Swim teachers and subsidy of $1.10 per student per

session for transport costs.

This is a wonderful gift to our students and we really appreciate the funding.

REPRESENTATIVE NEWS

TERM 1 WEEKLY DRAWS

SCHOOL SPORTS TEAMS

If your daughter has made a representative team by participating in a St John’s Girls’ School sports

team, please remember to inform either myself or Mrs McEntyre in the school office so we can note

this for end of year certificates and for Y7/8 stripes.

Thank you. My email is fsmith@stjohnsgirls.school.nz

The weekly draws are available on the individual sporting codes websites and the

volleyball and water polo draw will be emailed through as soon as I receive it.

Water Polo Southland also has a new website where you will be able to find draws/results -

http://www.sporty.co.nz/southlandwaterpolo

Postponements/cancellations are posted on the sporting codes websites/Facebook pages and I will

post them on our school Facebook page as soon as I am notified.

COMMUNITY NOTICES

ZONE ATHLETICS

The All Saints Zone Athletics Sports is to be held on Tuesday 14th March at Surrey Park. We kindly

ask for six parents to help at the long jump pit. If you are able to assist, please contact me through the school office

Tel. 218 7759 or email me fsmith@stjohnsgirls.school.nz.

SOUTHLAND SECONDARY SCHOOLS TRIATHLON

Today we had 12 girls competing in the Southland Secondary Schools Triathlon in Winton.

Y 8 Team 1: Holly Hampton and Alex Hopcroft

Y 7 Team 1: Katie Unahi, Giovanna O’Donnell and Angeline Crowe

Y 7 Team 2: Sarah Slee, Cate Reynolds and Katie Dennis

Y 7 Individual: Abbie Middlemass, Meg Pope and Grace Watson

Y 8 Individual: Tess Bryan and Johanna Neylon

Thank you to the parents who transported and supported the girls.

Central Hockey Club Open Day Invitation

If you are interested in playing club hockey this season we invite you, your family and supporters to attend the

Central Club Open Day to learn more.

Club hockey is a great place to develop skills and have some fun. Central provides quality coaching in a supportive

environment. We are a family club with a proven record of helping players achieve representative honours and just

as importantly have fun in a team environment. Come along and meet the coaches and club members, and learn

more about what we offer.

When: Sunday February 26th at 10.30am

Game from 11am – 12am, followed by a BBQ – join us for a sausage afterwards.

Where: Invercargill Turf

Subject to numbers the club will be entering teams in:

Division 5: This is a new competition (1/2 field 8-aside) for Y 4 - 6

Division 4: Full field 11 aside for Y7/8.

Division 2 Women: Open to boys Y 8-11, and girls Y 8+

Division 2 Men (Yr 9+)

Premier Men

(Age ranges are for guidance only, and there is discretion up and down grades based on skill and physical

development).

Can’t make it but, are interested in learning more? Contact: Colin Keyse 217 0600 (evenings)

M: 027 240 7688 E: colin@selectoruniforms.co.nz

Later this term St John’s will be calling for girls who wish to play school hockey.