Together We Grow – Ka Tupu Kotāhi ai Tātou

Kia ora koutou OVS Whanau and Caregivers,

What a busy start to our term!

Ag day was a great success! It was wonderful to see our community come together to celebrate. Our children did us proud with their displays and their efforts with their animals. See below for a bit more of a blurb!

Last Friday was a dedicated teacher-only day, providing our staff an invaluable opportunity for professional development. This time, we joined forces with Whangārei Primary School to delve deeper into our new literacy curriculum. Our presenter, Amber Davidson, delivered an engaging session, helping to clarify the upcoming changes outlined in the new curriculum document.”

We have even more action-packed events lined up in the coming weeks! Keep an eye on your Hero app and emails for permission slips, updates, and reminders about these activities as they come up.

Ngā mihi

Heidi Nieddu

Dates for your calendar

Term 4

4th November – Orders close for calendar art

5th and 6th November – St Johns in with classes

7th November – Central Day at Barge Park

8th November – Athletics Day at Maungakaramea School

27th November – Harold and Life ed come to visit

28th November – Whangarei Primary School Kapa Haka festival

6th December – Whole school beach day

11th December – Kai and Carols

12th December – Year 6 fun day

13th December – Library Pool Party

17th December – RURU fun day – Wet and wild!

18th December – Last day of school.

Star Spot – Celebrating Student Learning @ OVS

Every week at assembly we celebrate super OVS students, and this week’s shout out is to say a huge congratulations to our R.U.R.U award winners from today’s assembly .

Week 3’s super star students are Lily and Max. Ka mau te wehi (that’s outstanding)! Your wonderful RURU values help to make our school a cool place to be!

Star Spot – New students.

We would like to offer a warm welcome to our new students this week! We hope that your learning journey at Ōtāika Valley School is a fun filled, happy, and amazing adventure for you, Deon and Des ( sorry we missed you out in week 1’s newsletter, Des!).

Ag and Flowershow day

We were thrilled to see the sun shining down on us for last week’s Ag and Flower Show Day! It was a fantastic event, with classrooms transformed into vibrant, art-filled wonderlands. Ka rawe te mahi!

A heartfelt thank you goes out to our wonderful PTA for keeping everyone well-fed and happy, and to the extra parents who pitched in on the day. Your help made a huge difference!

A big congratulations to all the children who brought animals to show. Raising and preparing animals for an event like this takes time, patience, and skill—an amazing job by everyone involved! Thank you to all the supportive parents who helped make this possible. If you would like to take your animal to Central Day at Barge Park on the 7th November, you should have had an email explaining the process. You have until 4th November to register your animal. Please contact the office if you have any questions.

The decorated cake competition was a huge hit as well! Every cake was beautifully crafted, and when auctioned, helped raise substantial funds for our school. To our auction winners: if your cake came on a plate or in a box, please return it so we can reunite these items with their rightful owners. Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who contributed. It was great to come together as a community and celebrate our tamariki and our school.

Health Curriculum community survey.

All schools in NZ are required to consult with their school community every two years about their health education programmes. Health education is part of the Health and Physical Education learning area. Learning in health is guided by underlying concepts, key areas of learning and the achievement objectives. The purpose of this consultation is to outline the programmes that we are delivering, how we are delivering them and what we see the education needs are, within health, for our students. The last round of consultation was held in Term 1 2021. Since then we have also been involved in Wellbeing initiatives within our school and as part of the Whangarei Kāhui ako.

Please fill in our Health Curriculum survey by clicking here.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ugFRrYD9xzjbSW6VzSUNAeECVvo4QyapdlFYqkqc2bQ/edit

Athletics – have you signed the permission slip?

Otaika Valley School

Zone Athletics – Maungakaramea

Friday 8th November 2024

Details:

Leaving: from school at 9.15 to arrive at Maungakaramea prior to a 10am start time

Returning: Buses will return to school around 2pm

Transport: Bus

Clothing and equipment required:

Appropriate footwear

plenty of lunch,

water bottle,

any medications your child may need to take.

School shirts will be worn – These will be given to students on the day and will need to be returned to the classroom teacher before leaving school. NO SHIRTS MAY BE TAKEN HOME.

Please feel free to contact your child’s classroom teacher if you have any questions or concerns.

Maungakaramea school will be running food stalls/bbq, as well as selling juicies and drinks. We have not been sent a price list at this stage.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR YEAR 1, 2 and 3 PARENTS: If you are able to attend and help support the juniors please talk to your child’s teacher.

Here is the link for the permission slip.

PTA NEWS

Last weekend to order your child’s art!

This year our wonderful PTA have been offering parents the opportunity to buy their child’s art in the form of calendars, mouse mats, cards and notebooks. The orders for this close on Monday. A big THANK YOU to all the parents who have supported this, and to the PTA who have been in charge of everything else!

Raffle update – Thank you !

We would like to thank the following businesses for their amazing donations and support of our little country school…

SMW engineering

Bunnings

All Truck Repairs

4 Square Marsden Cove

Event Cinemas Whangarei

NT Engineering

Action Zone

SSP Engineering

Russell Law

North Financial

Wild Rose Photography

Golden Bay

Yovich Engineering

2 Duck’s Contracting

It looks like it is going to be another amazing raffle!

Raffle tickets will be sent home next Monday, so please keep an eye out for them in your child’s bag. We understand that with recent events like Ag Day and the book fair, some families may feel stretched. If you’re unable to sell the raffle tickets for any reason, simply return them to the office.

Fuel for schools

We’re thrilled to be part of the ‘Fuel for Schools’ program, which has brought incredible benefits to our school. This term, we received funding to add new musical equipment, enhancing our students’ learning experience. If you know of a business that might be interested in supporting us further, please check out the flyer below!

Fireworks Spectacular!

We’re excited to share details about the upcoming Whangārei Fireworks Spectacular next weekend that promises a fantastic evening of family fun and entertainment.

Event Details:

Date: Saturday 2nd November

Time: 6pm – 9pm

Location: Semenoff Stadium, Okara Drive

The Whangārei Fireworks Spectacular is a not-to-be-missed, whānau-friendly, alcohol-free event, offering an array of free activities and entertainment for all ages. Here’s what you can expect:

Live Performances: Enjoy performances from Kaitaia band JTB, WADPA and Taonga o Te Moana + guests. The event will be hosted by Charmaine Soljak and from The Hits, ensuring a lively atmosphere throughout the evening.

Fun FREE Activities: Kids can indulge in a range of activities, including FREE face painting, sack races, egg & spoon races, cornhole, tug of war, hopscotch, and bike riding. Circus Kumarani will create a magical interactive circus zone, adding to the excitement. The night concludes with a stunning fireworks display!

Food and Beverage: From sweet to savoury, there will be a huge variety of delicious food and beverage options available for sale. Glowsticks will also be available for sale.

Tickets can be purchased from Eventfinda https://bit.ly/3zEOLYJ and from the gate on the day.

For more information and updates, please visit our website: https://bit.ly/487MORx. And here is a link to the Facebook event: (1) Whangārei Fireworks Spectacular | Facebook