Week 9/End of term, Term 2 Newsletter

Newsletter Contents:

1. Message From the Principal

2. Fundraising Committee

3. From the Board

4. Hero Tips and Tricks

5. Important Dates and Reminders

6. From the classrooms – Room 2

7. School Events

8. Writer’s Corner

9. Community Notices

Kia ora e te whānau,

What a fantastic end to Term 2 we had! Our Kapa Haka Roopu truly shone on the biggest stage of them all at Huttfest in the final week. Their performance and stage presence were more polished than ever, embodying the true meaning of our school vision: “enhancing the mana of all learners.” Every child on that stage represented our school with pride and mana, uplifting us all – we couldn’t be prouder of their achievements! A huge thank you to Whaea Col, Matua Whaitiri, and the countless parents who supported them leading up to and on the night of the event. 

We also successfully distributed our new reporting framework through the Hero app, showing your child’s current progress for mid-year expectations. We know we’re still in the early stages of implementing two new curricula and navigating a new reporting tool, and I want to acknowledge the amazing mahi our teachers have put in so far, especially the adaptability they’ve shown in embracing new learning in such a short space of time.

Get ready for our upcoming MANA hui on Tuesday, July 22nd, and Thursday, July 24th! This is a fantastic opportunity for us to connect and discuss your child’s mid-year progress, as well as collaboratively set goals for the rest of the year. You’ll also get to see some wonderful examples of your child’s learning firsthand. We value these hui as they strengthen the vital partnership between school and home. Last term, we were thrilled to have over 95% of whānau connect with their child’s teacher in Term 1 – let’s aim for even better attendance this Term 3! Bookings will open on the Hero app under “school interviews” tomorrow (Monday) morning. 

As we look ahead, we’re excited to begin shaping the future of Dyer Street School! This term, we’re embarking on a vital journey of consultation with our whānau, students, and staff to gather your unique visions and needs for our next strategic plan. I’ve already had the privilege of connecting with some of our tamariki, asking them insightful questions like “What will the world be like in 50 years’ time?”, “What do you like learning about at school?”, “What would you like to learn more about?”, and “How can we help you with your learning?” Their perspectives are incredibly valuable. To ensure every voice is heard, we’ll be gathering community input in several ways, from a Google Form for parents to face-to-face meetings with whānau and tamariki. I truly look forward to sharing the findings as we begin to craft our next strategic plan for 2026-2028, ensuring it reflects the collective aspirations of our Dyer Street School community.

From next week, we’ll be taking orders for our brand new Dyer Street School sports shorts. These fantastic shorts are designed to complement our existing sports top and hat, completing the sharp and unified look of our Dyer Street Sports uniform. While we currently only have one sample size available, it will provide an excellent guide for selecting the correct size for your child. Each pair of shorts will cost $35 including GST, and we anticipate their arrival by mid to late August. A link will be shared on Hero so you can purchase these shorts. A reminder as well that we have on stock in the office, Sports tops of various sizes and school hats for purchase. 

Finally, a special acknowledgement to one of our former pupils- Katie Iti, who passed away on the weekend from the flu. Many of our current staff remember Katie well and have been shocked by the sudden news of her passing. Our thoughts and hearts go out to Katie’s whānau at this tragic time. Moi mai rā Katie.

I’m looking forward to cracking back into it on Monday. 

Ngā mihi

Lee Ewington

Tumuaki

Week 9 Principal’s award winners

The Fundraising Committee is next meeting on Monday, 4th of August 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the school library. 

This year, Hero is being used to communicate about meetings and opportunities to contribute to fundraising and support for the school. If you would like to receive these posts, please let Ms Waghorn know – megw@dyerstreet.school.nz. We also have a Facebook group where information from Hero is duplicated, and some discussion between meetings happens: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1QS2HYTXXz/

The Fundraising Committee organised a successful movie screening at Petone Lighthouse in the holidays, thanks to all who organised and supported!

Upcoming Fundraising Events:

Save the Date – Fundraising Quiz night – Friday September 12th

You will now have had time to sit and digest your child’s latest achievement information. You may not realise that you can see a lot of information about what areas of the curriculum your child has mastered by clicking on the radial dials.

The example below shows the dials for a year 6 student in writing. This student’s teacher is confident they have demonstrated all the skills from the 6 months and 1 year at school writing curriculum so these display the tick. For all other year levels, the teacher is not confident the child has consistently demonstrated all skills.

The year 2 dial shows as 96% complete, with 0 current goals. When this dial is clicked, parents can see the goals achieved and not yet mastered. For this child, there is just one goal not acheived – this is shown in black text, the goals acheived are shown in green.

This child has goals that have been identified as priority goals by the teacher, from within the Year 5 curriculum, when the Year 5 dial is clicked, these show as yellow.

MANA hui in week 2 will be the main chance for most parents to discuss their child’s progress and achievement by unpacking the report information with the teacher. To maximise this time, please ensure you have spent time reading through your child’s goals and have read the information provided to support the reports. This is still available to read in Hero, as well as viewable at this link: 2025 Reporting Information 

It will also be available to read on our website, under curriculum.

For guidance on how to support your child with goals they have not mastered, a good first step is to visit the MOE Parent Portal: https://www.education.govt.nz/parents-and-caregivers/schools-year-0-13/parent-portal

Rocks needed!

We were lucky to have the parent run Garden Group come in and clean up the vege garden in the holidays. It will be great to have this continue this term!

Jonny has also been hard at work improving the outside environments too. He needs some help to collect riverstones for our front entrance garden. If every child at kura bought one or two large rocks in this would be complete in no time! Feel free to just bring rocks in any time and just place them in this garden area – perhaps a fun whānau weekend activity can be rock collecting?

Garden Group WhatsApp link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/IzEu3xcgfZvKOxF5RDRqXB

Teacher Only Day POSTPONED

The teacher’s only day scheduled for August 1st has been postponed until Term 4. School will be OPEN on this day.

Shoes 

It is a school expectation that all children wear shoes when outside in terms 2 & 3 – we are finding it challenging to get children to follow this rule this year. Please reinforce this at home with your children.

Celebrating Identity and Culture at Dyer Street School

At Dyer Street School, we are committed to elevating student voice and better understanding how our tamariki see themselves within our kura in terms of their culture and identity.

To support this kaupapa, we have established a Student Cultural Committee. This amazing group of students has started identifying the key cultural elements that they feel should be seen and celebrated across our school.

We are thrilled to announce that we’ve been given the opportunity to collaborate with local artist Amy Burrell, who will be working alongside our students to create a mural that represents the rich diversity and identity of our school community.

Amy is keen to ensure the mural reflects all our voices—not just those of the students, but of our wider whānau as well.

Amy’s Challenge to Our Whānau:
As a possible holiday activity, we invite you to work with your children to create and share:

• Designs

• Patterns

• Photos

• Drawings

These should reflect things that are precious to your whānau—your identity, heritage, and cultural story. It might be:

• A pattern/design that represents your village or homeland

• Cultural attire (patterns from performance groups such as kapa haka, designs found on cultural clothing etc)

• A flag (colours, mascots)

• A traditional design displayed on the body (e.g., tā moko, tatau, henna)

• Any other meaningful symbols or cultural expressions

How to Contribute:
If your whānau would like to be part of this project, please email your contributions to me, along with a short paragraph explaining:

• What the item/design means to you

• Where it originates from

• Who your child(ren) are

Amy will be back at Dyer Street School to meet with myself and the student committee early next term (week 2/3). It would be wonderful to be able to hand over your contributions to her at this hui.

This is a beautiful opportunity to celebrate who we are and share that with the wider Dyer Street School community.

Ngā mihi nui,
Whaea Penny

pennyc@dyerstreet.school.nz

DATES

Term 3

Week 1

Monday 14 July – Term 3 begins

Friday 18 July – Pōwhiri for new students and whānau

Week 2

PAT testing begins

Tuesday 22 Mana Hui – Parent Teacher Interviews – 1:30 – 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday 23 Assembly, Room 4 hosting, Room 9 & 4 sharing

Thursday 24 Mana Hui – Parent Teacher Interviews – 3:15 – 5:45 p.m.

Week 3

Tuesday 29 – STEM Challenge 9 – 11 a.m.

                     – Board of Trustees Hui – 6:30 p.m. 

Thursday 31 BSLA (Literacy) Whānau Hui – 9 – 10 a.m. School Library

Week 4

Monday 4 August – Fundraising Committee Meeting, 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday 6 August – Assembly – Room 10 hosting, Room 10 & 1 sharing

Week 5

Mon 11th – Thurs 14th Swimming Lessons, Stokes Valley Pool

Week 6

Mon 18th -Thurs 21st Swimming Lessons, Stokes Valley Pool

Room 2

We are going to begin publishing writing from students in the school newsletter. If students want to submit writing, they can share it with Ms Waghorn megw@dyerstreet.school.nz. This can be work done at school or home, but must be to a publishable standard (e.g. no spelling errors).

This issue’s writer is Tāne, from Room 9.

Native animals    

By Tāne       

What are they?

They are native animals that only live in that one certain country and some can’t survive in other countries. It might be hard to fit in with the other creatures and the environment . They have to eat different things and some have to survive differently too.

How do we protect them?

We can protect them by helping them to survive, like birds, we could grow more trees and kill possums. We should ban poaching because the more we kill them they will become extinct. We need to put up more rat traps, too.

What are their threats?

For birds, it’s rats, possums and stoats ,but for some native animals its ,they might not have one, but birds. Lots of NZ birds are getting extinct. Some threats are bears and lions too.

Where do they live?

They live in their natural environment. They live in their country, the Forest, the City and the jungle.

 Conclusion

 Now you know it’s amazing to learn about and interesting.      

The Ministry of Education has reached out to invite our school to participate in a short survey they have developed to gather valuable feedback from both parents and teachers regarding school lunches and related topics. The goal is to better understand the current experience and identify areas for improvement.

Here is some information about the survey: