Rippa Tournament – Well done to both of our teams!
Rabbit Island School Cross-Country – Thursday 24th May
Our annual cross-country event for the whole school. Family and friends are welcome to come along to cheer the children along.
The children will travel by bus (Seniors/Middle syndicates leaving school at 9:15am, Junior syndicate leaving school at 10:15am) and spend the day at Rabbit Island. A sausage in bread will be provided by the PTC for each child but please bring morning tea, extra lunch and a drink bottle! Appropriate footwear and clothing essential. Warm clothes in a plastic bag and a rain jacket are recommended. Some spare clothes are a good idea too as there will be free play on the beach after lunch.
Senior and Middle Syndicate races in the Totara Picnic Area starting from 9:45am.
Junior races in the Manuka Picnic Area starting from 10:50am.
Details on the email and note sent home with your child.
Term 2 Rich Topic – The Rainforest
Our Rich Topic for Term 2 is The Rainforest. Heaps of fun activities and trips have already happened with more to come!
Week 1 saw the creation of our fantastic Rainforest Room by our Rich Topic team. Each class witnessed the amazing sights and sounds of the rainforest.
Week 3 – Scavenger Hunt – The children enjoyed completing this with their Buddy Class
Week 4 – Our Rainforest dress up day organised by the Student Council is on Friday May 25th (as long as the cross country is not postponed to this day). Dress up in a Rainforest themed costume for the day – perhaps an animal, bird, fish or plant? A Rainforest Music/Dance Assembly is also planned for Friday 25th May 12pm.
Week 6 – Art Assembly Friday 8th June. All classes will present either a whole class or sample set of artworks related to the Rainforest.
Week 9 – Home Learning/Living Museum – This is planned for Wednesday 27th June. Although it is not compulsory, children are encouraged to create a Rainforest project together or separately at home and base it around something they already know or they can research some new learning. It can be as little or big as they want. Ideas include power point (to be printed out), triorama, diorama, poster, sculpture, art creation, lego or any other ideas. Completed projects to come to school on Tuesday 26th June and can be viewed by parents Wednesday 27th June 2:30 to 3:00pm. The hall will look amazing with lots of contributions.
Week 10 – Classroom Walkaround – This is planned for Friday 6th July. A great opportunity for the students AND teachers to see some of the amazing topic related work that has taken place at different syndicate levels.
Senior Camps
All senior classes have held camps at Pinedale, Canvastown during Term 1. It is a superb location. We take children on camp for a number of reasons – personal development, social development and academic development. Yes, they are there to learn. It is always terrific to see all the children enjoying camping, and seeing them achieve many personal goals and learn so much. Then the learning about the unit of work continues back at school for a number of weeks.
One of the best outcomes is how the classes gel together into a co-operative, supportive unit. Developing a class culture was successfully promoted and established on all camps. We also managed to have six teachers who have never been to Pinedale, attend camps to learn about the camp site and how to take a camp there in the ‘Richmond School way’.
The focus of the camps was on GOLD and EARLY NELSON/MARLBOROUGH. The children receive many varied experiences such as viewing the historical mural in the Canvastown hall, a tramp to Deep Creek (where the majority of the 50 million dollars of gold – in today’s $$$ was found in the 1860s), visited the Deep Creek cemetery, they panned for gold, they walked through tunnels and trail races, they looked at ‘problem’ plants, seed dispersal, and studied native and exotic plants, they completed an orienteering course and the majority managed to abseiled.
Kevin Melrose (gold-miner and ex-parent) took 6 days off work and went down to all 6 camps to show the children how he sluices for gold and uses high pressured hoses and suction pumps.
I would like to thank all the ‘camp parents’. They were absolutely fantastic. They all ‘mucked in’ helping with the tasks and with humour! They all seemed to enjoy camp and helped make sure the children did too. The Whenua-iti abseiling instructors told me how many schools struggle to get parent help and especially quality help. They spoke highly of our parents.
We were also very fortunate to have the use of covered trailers owned by Brent Palmer – ex-Board chair and Ray White Realty agent and one from Ridgeline Safety Systems (owned by Daniel Shand and Jaime Kingi). Other parents also supplied trailers and took transport. Apples were donated by Heartland Apples for each camp and meat was donated by the Neal family for two camps. A very big ‘THANK-YOU’ to you all.
Board of Trustees News – Thank you Rachael
Richmond School is governed by a Board of Trustees. On the Board there are seven trustees – 5 parent representatives, a staff representative (Jaime Kingi) and the Principal. Ryan Higgins (Deputy Principal) is the ‘Minute Secretary’.
The Board deals with the ‘governance’ (setting policies and ratifying documentation/happenings once assured they are completed) of the school whereas the management (day to day running of the school) is the domain of the school’s management team.
At last week’s Board meeting the Board accepted Rachael Reddecliffe’s resignation. Rachael has been on the Board for over 3 years. Her educational background and knowledge being a huge asset to the Board. Rachael is owner of Little People early childhood centres in Richmond and Wakefield. We thank her sincerely for her outstanding service on the Board.
Also at the meeting Steve Bell was co-opted back onto the Board and re-elected Chairperson.
School Powhiri – Thursday 3rd May 10am
On Thursday 3rd May we are holding a powhiri at 10am for our new pupils and staff. Parents are welcome to attend.
If you haven’t been to a powhiri before at Richmond School – please assemble outside the main doors at 9.50am and enter with the new staff and pupils there (manuhiri). If you have been to our powhiri before then please enter from the western door and sit with the main school group (tangata whenua).
Please remove shoes before entering the hall.
Ladies dress/skirt please. Men formal wear.