Newsletter 13/2017 Week 3 Term 3 9 August 2017

Dear Parents and Caregivers of Baverstock Oaks School

Winter is definitely here and I hope you are able to snuggle up at home in the evening and keep cosy. A great time for family reading time. When children see parents enjoying reading they sometimes get the bug also. Or maybe read a book together as family. So much fun when we have so much screen time these days.

This week is the annual Howick and Pakuranga Dance Festival at Elim College on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. I am really looking forward to attending and seeing our two groups perform. I am so proud of the groups that represent our school and the teachers who put in many hours working with our students so they are prepared.

We welcomed a group of Korean students last week with an official assembly. They are with us until week 4 and in the Tall Oaks classrooms. This is a great mutual learning experience for these students and our Baverstock Oaks students as they share and compare life and learning and learn together.

We are continuing to work on saving our planet and recycle and reuse. We are trialing soft plastic recycling this term and have a large bin to accommodate this. This includes the plastic supermarket bags and plastic wrap your can ‘scrunch’ up. Send it along with your child and help us keep our environment litter free and save our landfill. Ensure your children’s lunch boxes are litter free and this also really helps. Buy in bulk and use reusable grip top bags or containers that can be washed and used again.
We are running a Mindfulness pilot programme in four classes this term – Rooms 5, 15, 16 & 31. Genée Crowley, Kate Keenan, Andrew Flanagan and myself were all trained as Mindfulness facilitators in term 1 and now each of us has taken on a class to work with over this term. Already we are hearing from the children the things that are resonating for them and seeing them enjoy a slower pace, time to think and be calm, eat in a mindful way and be ‘present’. We talk about mind wandering and how disruptive that is. Having the mind and the body in the same place enhances focus. Great skills for life.

Parent Corner: Why being liberal with your praise is one of the best parenting ideas

Praise is a great tool, perhaps the most useful tool that a motivator can use – and all parents should be good motivators. You motivate, not to push but to lift them. Your praise indicates that you have noticed something and that you care about it and the person doing it. It generates far more than the temporary sugar-buzz a chocolate bar reward might give them.

Praise alters your children’s attitudes and feelings about themselves. The words people hear about themselves echo for a long time. (Sadly, criticism seems to echo even longer. Many of us still cringe from harsh words spoken to us decades ago). Because of this echo effect, praise tends to build internal reinforcement. When a child repeats behaviour he has been praised for in the past, he hears again the echo of praise he got before, and experiences the good feelings. The reward becomes internal.

Another great spin-off from praise is that it also strengthens the relationship between the one praising and the one being praised. You have to be remarkably inept in your praising to make someone dislike you by praising them! And by constantly looking for things to praise in your children, you will find more and more that you like and enjoy about them.

Let your children see your excitement about their successes. Be liberal and consistent with your praise, and remember to be loving and encouraging in their failures. Never let your encouragement give the impression that your love is conditional on their success. Can you over-praise? Yes, but most kids today would benefit from more praise, so if you are going to make a mistake, err on the side of being too generous!

Thanks again for taking the time to be part of our learning journey. I hope you are regularly enjoying seesaw posts and having conversations with your child about what he/she is learning

Mary Wilson

PRINCIPAL

Food for Thought

Baverstock Oaks School pupils star in Food for Thought video

Pupils in Room 24 at Baverstock Oaks School can now say they have ‘on-camera’ experience, after starring in a special video.

In April the class took part in the Food for Thought programme. They learned about healthy eating from a Food for Thought nutritionist, and then visited PAK’nSAVE Ormiston to find out more about making good food choices.

Food for Thought is a free nutrition education programme that assists Year 5 and 6 primary school students to make healthier food and lifestyle choices. Food for Thought nutritionists share healthy eating tips in the classroom and organise for the class to visit a local Foodstuffs supermarket, where they learn more about reading food labels and making healthy choices.

It is a joint project of Foodstuffs, which owns the PAK’nSAVE, New World and Four Square brands, and the Heart Foundation.

Room 24 were asked if they would go on film to demonstrate what the programme is all about.

“They really enjoyed the experience,” Principal Mary Wilson says. “They got to learn from a qualified nutritionist and then take what they’d learned to the supermarket and apply it to reading the food labels – which is great because it makes it real for them.

“I think our students are very aware of healthy eating. They tend to have healthy snacks in their lunchboxes. It helps that Baverstock Oaks is an Enviro School and has a Litter Free Lunch policy. So the students tend to bring things like whole fruit rather than snacks in plastic packets,” she says.

“Food for Thought has been running for 10 years now and has reached more than 120,000 pupils from more than 1400 schools around the country,” Foodstuffs NZ Chief Executive Steve Anderson says. “It relies on funding from Foodstuffs and the good will of our store owners, who host the children in their stores. We wanted to share that story with all of the store owners at our National Conference, to encourage even more of them to take part in the programme.”

The video was presented to senior Foodstuffs staff from around the country at the conference in Wellington on June 1.

“It was really well received,” Steve Anderson says. “It will help us reach our goal of making the Food for Thought programme available to every primary school in the country.”

Term 2 Tidy Classroom Awards

Room 12 and Room 16 were lucky to be treated to pizza by Crest Clean to celebrate their tidy classrooms for Term 2. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our hard working cleaners for such a yummy treat and acknowledge the great job they do in keeping our classrooms clean.

A couple of reminders for the health and safety of all children…….

SICK CHILDREN

Please DO NOT send your child to school if they have vomiting or diarrhoea during the late evening, during the night or after arising that morning. They should be free of any vomiting diarrhoea or fever for at least 24 hours before returning to school.

BIRTHDAY TREATS AT SCHOOL

Please DO NOT bring sweets, birthday treats or cake to celebrate your child’s birthday at school unfortunately for the safety of our children and possible allergies we can no longer allow this. The school made a decision to stop this at the end of last year.

Thank you for your help and understanding with these matters.

Big Hoot Out…..

Last term, the owl elective worked very hard to produce some truly fantastic products of learning. We used many different materials and techniques to create unique pieces of art. Some of our art took one block, while some took many weeks. We worked very hard on every piece and have produced some lovely pieces of work. The best part is that every single owl is unique, just like us! Most of us think our “masterpiece” was our best artwork. We used different types of paper, dye, ink and paint. These can be seen displayed in the school hall! Please take a look if you happen to be around!

Last week, Baverstock got together to raise money for Child Cancer Foundation and the Little Hoot Education Programme. The children had the opportunity to place their coin on an owl and we managed to fill two of them! We were overwhelmed by the generosity of the community and would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that donated. We raised over $1,000 for a great cause.