| | | | Click on the Calendar icon for our Live Community Calendar | |
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| | Calendar of Events - through to Week 6: | |
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| | | | | Kia Ora, Talofa Lava, Malo e Lelei, Bula, Namastē, Namaskar, Ayubowan, Kia Orana, Taloha Ni, Aloha Mai E, Fakaalofa Lahi Atu, ‘Alii, Malo Ni, Halo Aloketa Aloha, Nī Hāo, Sawatdeekhrap Sabaidi, Terve, Dobradan, Bonjour, Hola, Guten Tag, Ciao, Salaam, Olā, Zdravstvuyte, Konnichiwa, Ahn Young Ha Se Yo, Hoi, Merhaba, Jambo, Yasou, Shalom, Salamat Siang, Ahoj, Xin Chāo, Sawubona, Bok, Yiassoo, Hej, Dia Dhaoibh, Cham Reap Sour, Hoi, Vanakkam. | | | |
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| | Welcome back families and friends of our wonderful school. The start of a new term is always so full of promise, and seeing everyone looking rested and refreshed is always encouraging. I say it often, but there are a lot of rewards in this job that I wouldn’t swap - the hugs and smiles and high fives from our beautiful kids, the warmth, passion and compassion of our staff, and the friendship and support of so many parents and extended family members. This job is not easy, but with all those positives, it makes it immeasurably more rewarding and doable. | |
| | Cardboard Arcade - Room 22 Get Creative with Cardboard:
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| | | | Miss Eyre has a passion for letting her children loose with cardboard, and every year her children respond with creativity, flair and imagination. This year was no exception, except that it was, because they came up with new ideas that I had not seen before. The game at right is a case in point. Zephaniah made a dart gun to fire darts at the cups-target. It was challenging but heaps of fun - especially when I finally managed to knock nearly all of them down with one dart (we’ll leave out how many ‘air-shots’ I had before eventually scoring the hit). Giving our children opportunities to develop and share their creative ideas is incredibly important and equally rewarding. As part of my Masters in Contemporary Education study, I have been reading a great many books lately. One of these is "Cosmic Citizens and Moonshot Thinking: Education in an Age of Exponential Technologies” by Rohan Roberts. | | | |
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| | In his book, Roberts states, "Any curriculum worth its salt would focus not on content but on developing critical survival skills, such as leading by influence, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurship, effective communication, analysing information, and curiosity and imagination.” Projects such as the Cardboard Arcade are good examples of this approach in action. | |
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| | Great News From Our World Vision Sponsorship Efforts:
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| | | | Previously, we have sponsored three children for World Vision Khin Htar from Myanmar, Djeneba from Mali, and Sreynich who lives in Cambodia. We are now only sponsoring two children as Syrenich's family have chosen to withdraw from the sponsorship programme. This is due to her family becoming self-supporting which means they no longer felt they needed the support from us! A huge thank you to all who continue to support this fantastic programme and bring in coins on a Friday. A recent photo of Syrenich at right. | | | |
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| | Keeping in Touch With Lisa’a Travels: | |
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| | | | Hi All It is with mixed feelings that I send this email. I have been without internet and communication for most of my month in Morocco. News of what happened in NZ was very intermittent. I am still in shock that this event could have happened. I have just finished a month in Morocco, which is a Muslim country. The people here are the most gentle, warm, welcoming, humble, beautiful people... my thoughts are with everyone for whom this tragedy had affected. Morocco has certainly changed from when I was here in 1982. Cities have expanded, modernised and embraced the tourist dollar, however much of it is unchanged and people live as they have for hundreds of years. Children in the outer areas do not have to go to school. Where there are schools they tend to be on the edge of a town, are very stark and consist of 3 to 5 rooms. Schools are usually identified by brightly coloured walls. Presently the teachers have been on strike (for the past month) to try to receive better pay, recognition and working conditions. Children stand outside the schools to support the teachers. Morocco is a country of many contrasts, from snow covered mountains to deserts, beaches to oasis, mud houses to palaces. It is vibrant and colourful and packed with history and culture. | | | |
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| | | Sent from my iPad - Casablanca with the largest Mosque in Morocco. Volublis, the site of ancient Roman ruins. Chefchouen, a beautiful blue town perched on a mountain side. Trekking in the Atlas Mountains near Aroumd .The Sahara. Colour and texture in the markets. Travelling for a week with a Berber Nomad family in a valley between the Mid Atlas and Anti Atlas Mountains. An amazing experience. We walked for 4 to 5 hours each day, then set up camp, tended the animals, danced, sang, ate cave cooked meals, and learnt about nomad life. We travelled with 100 sheep and goats, donkeys , mules, camels, chooks, dogs and 12 Nomad Berbers. No communication, other people, showers, technology, or clean clothes for a week. I feel very humble and blessed that I have been able to be part of this way of living. | | | |
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| | Board of Trustee Election Year: | |
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| | Board of Trustees elections are to be held in June 2019. If you are interested in finding out more about this opportunity to contribute to the Governance of our school, you are warmly invited to attend a Board of Trustees meeting as an observer; come and see how it runs and meet current Trustees. The next meeting will be held at 7pm on Wednesday, 22 May. eMail current Chairperson Nic Yelash to register your interest to attend, or if you have any questions about the election process: nicolayelash@gmail.com | |
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| | Nominations are invited for the election of five parent representatives to the Board of Trustees for Western Heights School.
A nomination form and a notice calling for nominations will be posted to all eligible voters. You can nominate another person to stand as a candidate, or you can nominate yourself. Both parts of the form must be signed. Additional nomination forms can be obtained from the school office. Nominations close at noon on 24 May 2019 and may be accompanied by a signed candidate statement and photograph.
The voting roll is open for inspection at the school and can be viewed during normal school hours. There will also be a list of candidates’ names, as they come to hand, for inspection at the school. Voting closes at noon on 7 June 2019
Julie Owen Returning Officer | |
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| | Happening Here at Western Heights: | |
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| | This term we are looking at partnering with Easi Recycling and Longopac through the Auckland City Council’s 'Zero Waste Projects' grants programme. We’ll let you know if our proposal is successful, and if so, how we are going to do a better job minimising our waste by reducing, recycling and composting. | |
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| | Parenting - Teaching - Learning = A Weekly Series: | |
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| | | | Adam Grant, writing for the New York Times recently wrote an article entitled,“What do you want to be when you grow up?” When I was a kid, I dreaded the question. I never had a good answer. Adults always seemed terribly disappointed that I wasn’t dreaming of becoming something grand or heroic, like a filmmaker or an astronaut. In college, I finally realised that I didn’t want to be one thing. I wanted to do many things. So I found a workaround: I became an organisational psychologist. My job is to fix other people’s jobs. I get to experience them vicariously — I’ve gotten to explore how filmmakers blaze new trails and how astronauts build trust. And I’ve become convinced that asking youngsters what they want to be does them a disservice. My problem with the question is that it forces kids to define themselves in terms of work. When you’re asked what you want to be when you grow up, it’s not socially acceptable to say, “A father,” or, “A mother,” let alone, “A person of integrity.” Many parents say their most important value for their children is to care about others. In a 2013 white paper titled "Dancing with Robots: Human Skills for Computerised Work", Richard Murnane and Frank Levy argue that in the computer age, the skills which are valuable in the new labor market are significantly different than what they were several decades ago. Computers are much better than humans at tasks that can be organised into a set of rules-based routines. If a task can be reduced to a series of “if-then-do” statements, then computers or robots are the right ones for the job. However, there are many things that computers are not very good at and should be left to humans (at least for now). Levy and Murnane put these into three main categories: Solving unstructured problems. Humans are significantly more effective when the desired outcomes or set of information needed to solve the problem are unknowable in advance. These are problems that require creativity. Working with new information. This includes instances where communication and social interaction are needed to define the problem and gather necessary information from other people. Carrying out non-routine manual tasks. While robots will continue to improve dramatically, they are currently not nearly as capable as humans in conducting non-routine manual tasks. In the past three decades, jobs requiring routine manual or routine cognitive skills have declined as a percent of the labor market. On the other hand, jobs requiring solving unstructured problems, communication, and non-routine manual work have grown. The best chance of preparing young people for decent paying jobs in the decades ahead is helping them develop the skills to solve these kinds of complex tasks. What are these skills exactly? In March, the World Economic Forum released their New Vision for Education Report, which identified a set of “21st century skills.” The report broke these into three categories: ‘Foundational Literacies’, ‘Competencies’ and ‘Character Qualities’. The foundational literacies are the “basics.” Reading, writing, sciences, along with more practical skills like financial literacy. Even in a world of rapid change, we still need to learn how to read, write, do basic math, and understand how our society works. The competencies are often referred to as the 4Cs — critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration — the very things computers currently aren’t good at. Developing character qualities such as curiosity, persistence, adaptability and leadership help students become active creators of their own lives, finding and pursuing what is personally meaningful to them.
As parents, you can take heart that we are constantly thinking, questioning, reflecting, reviewing and reworking what we teach and how we teach it in order to do the best job we possibly can in preparing your children for the exciting possibilities of our rapidly changing world. | | | |
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| | | We love Seesaw - in one recent week teachers and children uploaded 963 learning item. These items received over 1,500 parent visits - awesome! | | | |
| | Toys At School Reminder: Just a reminder that children are not allowed to bring toys to school unless specified by their classroom teacher for News Sharing Times, or for special occasion days. On these special times the classroom teacher will look after the items and return them to the children at the end of the day. Thank you for your continuing support
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| | Playball west Auckland
Playball is an introduction to eight different sports, Football, Basketball, Netball, Cricket, Baseball, Tennis, Hockey and Rugby. For all Year 1, 2 and 3 students: Our aim is not to create superstars, but rather to provide children with the opportunity to develop a host of necessary social, educational and personal skills by giving children competence in sport. Playball for term two will commence on Thursday the 9th of May from 3:15pm-4:00pm. We will be limiting spaces to 36 children for term three. Signing up prior to the start date is essential Ask about a free trial today. To enrol your child/children please sign up online http://www.playball.co.nz/find-a-class/westernheights Any queries please call James on 027-481-7000 or email james@playball.co.nz | |
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| | David Pogue’s Life Hacks - A Series - Travel and Ketchup Tips: | |
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| | Sudeera Perera was very proud to celebrate Sri Lankan New Year at the end of last term. Room 20 with Mrs MR is the buddy class for prom 12 and they enjoyed sharing the celebrations. | |
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| | | | Sporting Success:Chloe and Peyton Hopson have had a busy Easter holiday, On Sunday 14 both girls competed in a Judo competition hosted by Hajamie Judo out of the Henderson Squash Club. There were over 150 players and both Chloe and Peyton had tough matches, they both did extremely well and ended up in second place in their division, with a Silver medal. Chloe has been selected for the 2019 Henderson Squash Club Girls Development Squad, Chloe has been working very hard on her Squash and the rewards are starting to come. We are so very proud of both girls. | | | |
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| | It was a moving experience to attend the Dawn Service at Waikumete on Anzac Day. It was special to see Sir Bob Harvey and Deputy Mayor of Auckland Penny Hulse there two - two great Westies. It was great to see so many children there too, and a proud moment to hear a Waitakere College student read her reflection on the battle of Gallipoli. | | | |
| | Imogen did a lot of work on a personal Anzac Day project during the holidays.
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| | Welcome to our Newest Western Heights Whanau: | |
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| | | | The warmest of warm Western Heights welcomes to Ratu Mataitini, Maisan Sher, Nasir Hanif, Jacob Siddall, Aran Venkat, Mannat Amit Kumar, Vaani Kumar, Malayah Bristowe, Lisbeth Entoh, Shine Zhu, Lafulafu Seumaalii and Ngahau Eruera. We are delighted to have you join our Western Heights whanau and hope and trust you all feel right at home here. | | | |
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| | As part of our ongoing initiative to move towards Zero Waste, we no longer send home printed newsletters. This way of keeping you in touch with our school is mobile friendly and enviro-friendly. | |
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| | | Should you not want to receive our newsletter via email, please click the Unsubscribe link above. | |
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| | | | | Thank you for reading our newsletter. Thank you for supporting our awesome school and wonderful teachers. | | | |
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