Heron Herald Term 4, Week 2, 2021

Kia ora koutou,

VACCINATION MANDATE
This week we received confirmation from the Ministry of Education regarding the government’s COVID-19 vaccination order. As a result of the order, everyone who works for a school, who may have contact with children or will be present at a time when children are also present, must have had a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by 15th November and be fully vaccinated by 1 January 2022, unless medically exempt. I can confirm that Matua School will meet the requirements of the vaccination mandate prior to the dates required.

You will be interested to know that the scope of the vaccination mandate also includes volunteers. Therefore, all parents and community helpers who take part in school trips, programmes and sporting activities will be required to provide evidence of vaccination. We are currently working on the processes for collecting this information, however, it is important that you are aware that this requirement will impact upcoming events.

SCHOOL EVENTS
With Alert Level 2 gathering restrictions having a significant impact on schools, many events around the country are being cancelled. It is increasingly difficult for us to run events normally, with any parent involvement making it even more difficult to meet requirements. Our goal throughout the pandemic has been to keep school feeling as normal as possible for children. While this is becoming increasingly difficult, we are working hard to maintain a sense of activity, fun and celebration throughout this final term. Please understand that when we run events or trips, parents will be asked not to be present or limited numbers of parents helpers will be used. This is not our preference but will be a decision we need to make to ensure the activity can happen for the children – which is the priority.

COMPETITION SUCCESS
We love seeing Matua students take their passions and use them for good! Congratulations to Leni, Abigail and Hajin who created and entered a video into the Tauranga Moana Biosecurity short video competition. Winning first place for their age group, the girls won $250, of which $100 was donated to Kids Can! You can check out their winning entry below – great work team!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Term 4 is quite a short one this year and we are already two weeks in. Please note the key dates highlighted in this newsletter, including our final day of school being Wednesday 15th December. As usual, school will finish at 12:30pm.

Our wonderful teachers continue to work hard to make Matua the best place for your children to learn and grow. We all love being part of the team, and take pride in ensuring that all children are cared for and valued. We are in the process of writing reports and setting up classes for next year. Reports will be emailed home to you on Friday 10th December.

Nga mihi,

Marcus Norrish
Principal

Middle Team Tennis Workshop

Monday 1st November

Don Warner Cricket - Mini Syndicate

Thursday 4th November

Middle Team Tennis Workshop

Monday 8th November

Community Ear Van At School

Friday 12th November

Senior School Athletics

Tuesday 16th November

Middle School Athletics

Wednesday 24th November

Last Day Of Term 4

Wednesday 15th December – 12.30pm

ENROLMENTS FOR 2022

If you have children due to start with us in Term 1, 2022, please enrol them asap. We are in the process of organising classes for next year and it would be incredibly helpful.

If you are moving away or changing schools, please notify the office as soon as you can. This is a huge help.

CHANGE OF CONTACT DETAILS

Please also keep the school office up to date with new contact details. If you have moved house, changed your mobile or home phone numbers or email address.

EAST CLUSTER WINTER TOURNAMENT

Our senior students had a lot of fun at East Cluster Winter Tournament. The students competed against all the other primary schools in our cluster in hockey, netball, basketball, football and rippa rugby.

We had some great results, with our year 5 hockey team winning the tournament, the year 6 football team came second and the year 6 netball team came first.

Well done to everyone involved and huge thanks to all our amazing parents that helped to coach and manage our teams.

PTA

Quiz Night

Many of you will have already seen the Facebook posts or heard the news that we made the decision to cancel the Annual PTA Quiz Night Fundraiser. This is obviously very disappointing that we have now had 2 years running with no quiz. The popularity however will see the quiz return next year and we look forward to it being a great success.

Christmas Night Market

Enquiries about the Night Market had already started a couple of weeks ago – this is a popular event within the community. Unfortunately COVID strikes again and due to advice received by the school from the Ministry of Education along with the uncertainty of levels and restrictions associated with the current outbreak, we have chosen to cancel this year’s market.

We will be back bigger and better next year!

November PTA Meeting

Tuesday 2nd November at The Matua Bar

Pop over to The Matua and have a drink with us. We’ll be talking about ideas for our next product related fundraiser now that all the cookbooks are sold. We will also be discussing next year’s Gala Day – successes and failures, and setting a date and format for next year.

We hope to see you there.

Take care out there,

Karen and Hayley

…

LIBRARY

Scholastic Book Issue 7 Term 4

The last day for scholastic book issues is Wednesday 3 November. This is the last issue for 2021 for Matua School. Any orders labelled as gifts can be picked up from the school office. The delivery date will be announced on our Matua School Facebook Page.

End of Year Library Tidy Up

Thank you for your response to library emails concerning overdue books. This new system has definitely ensured we have fewer outstanding books in the community. This works especially well towards the end of the year when we are recalling all library books. The school library will be closing to classes on Monday 22 November. By this date all library books are to be returned. If you are having trouble locating library books also check tote trays and classroom libraries before asking children to see Mrs DG in the library.

Library Stock Take

The library stock take will take place during week 7 (starting Monday 29 November) and week 8 (starting Monday 6 December). We would greatly appreciate any helpers during this time. If you are able to help with a morning or an afternoon over these weeks please contact the school office or email Tracey library@matua.school.nz

DIGITAL CULTURE AT HOME

Parents often comment on the challenges families face navigating the use of digital devices and keeping children safe online. If you are interested in being equipped to build and maintain a healthy digital culture at home, follow the link below for more information on how to sign up for this 2 part course.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

SKATEBOARD RAMPS

We run a ‘Wheels Day’ for the children on a Wednesday lunch time in the school car park. The children can bring in their skate boards, helmets, elbow and knee pads and spend the lunch break doing tricks, going over ramps and generally having heaps of fun. We would love a few more skateboard ramps for the children to use.

Do we have any families that would like to donate a ramp they may have that is sitting at home not getting used anymore? Or are there any budding builders out there that would like to build some for us?

Please contact the school office if you are able to help in any way.

MUSIC HUB – GUITAR LESSONS

Kid’s Guitar Lessons at School 3pm Wednesdays

Joe has a couple of places available for a beginners guitar group after school each Wednesday

For more information please go to https://musiqhub-bop.co.nz/info or Text Wayne 027 271 7685

We’ll be in touch right away with any other information and enrolment details!

TERM DATES 2021 / 2022

Term 4 – Monday 18th October – Wednesday 15th December

Term 1, 2022 – Tuesday 1st February 2022 – Wednesday 13th April

Term 2, 2022 – Monday 2nd May – Friday 8th July

Term 3, 2022 – Monday 25th July – Friday 30th September

Term 4, 2022 – Monday 17th October – TBC

SENIOR SPEECH COMPETITION

Big congratulations to Harper, (year 6), and Jacob, (year 5), for winning the senior speech competition last term. They went on to represent Matua School at the East Cluster Speech Competition held at Pillans Point School.

GARDEN TO TABLE

Zealandia Horticulture & Garden to Table

We are delighted to announce that Matua School has won a carton of mixed vegetable seedlings (approximately 100 plants) as part of the Garden to Table Schools Seedling Offer.

Watch this space as we plant and watch them grow.

DOGS IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS

It appears that it has become normal practice for Matua locals to walk their dogs through the school grounds, either as part of a walk or on the way to the park. Dogs are not actually permitted on the school grounds and with the amount of dog poo that our caretaker is having to pick up off the school field, we can see why. If you do take your dog walking, either during school hours or in the evenings and weekends, could you please avoid passing through the school? It would also be appreciated if you could spread the word to the wider community. None of us want our children coming across the mess that Steve has had to pick up while playing sport on the field or rolling down our hills.

SPORTS

We have had a pretty busy start to the term with our Winter Tournament taking place on Tuesday of week 1 and the Young Einstein Competition and East Cluster Speech Finals on Wednesday. All students who participated in the Winter Tournament and our Tabloid Sports day had a brilliant time and represented Matua well. Here are the overall results for our teams:

Football	Year 5	Year 6
1st	Bellevue	Otumoetai
2nd	Pillans Point	Matua
3rd	Bethlehem	Pillans Point

Hockey	Year 5	Year 6
1st	Matua	Bethlehem
2nd	Pillans Point	Pillans Point
3rd	Bethlehem	Bellevue

Netball	Year 5	Year 6
1st	Pillans Point	Matua
2nd	Otumoetai	Pillans Point
3rd	Matua	Bellevue Bethlehem

Rippa Rugby	Year 5	Year 6
1st	Pillans Point	Pillans Point
2nd	Otumoetai	Matua
3rd	Matua	Otumoetai

Basketball	Year 5	Year 6
1st	Pillans Point	Pillans Point
2nd	–	Brookfield
3rd	–	Bethlehem

Well done to all our competitors. Certificates and trophies will be handed out at the next syndicate assembly to celebrate their efforts.

Unfortunately a decision has been made to CANCEL the remaining sporting events that were due to take place this term. I know this will disappoint many of our senior students however this decision was not made lightly. The official Rippa Rugby competition for this term has also been cancelled, however all other sports are still going ahead. These include – basketball, mini polo (flippaball), volleyball, softball and t-ball.

The full list of cancelled events are as follows:

WBOP Primary Inter-School Tennis Tournament
WBOP Inter-School Orienteering
Girls Playing Sport Day
Funky Fun Day’s
WBOP GoGirls Super 6’s
WBOP Cricket Mini World Cup
BOP Zone Athletic Championships
WBOP Athletic Championships

We will still be holding our school athletics days which will be very exciting for the children to finish off the year with. Unfortunately, due to COVID gathering restrictions we can’t have parents on-site for our athletic events.

We have been lucky enough to have Macy and Rebecca from Northern Districts Cricket come into school this week and take our junior and middle school for some fun cricket sessions. Our children have learnt some excellent skills and hopefully gained an interest in the sport. Our mini’s will get the chance to participate in these sessions next week.

There are plenty of sports uniforms from the winter sports season that still need to be returned. Can I please ask that these are washed and returned as soon as possible. If there are any outstanding player of the day trophies at home I would love for these to be returned also.

Our Year 6 netball team, Matua Blue Ferns, came second in division 2 of this years netball season. Big congratulations to the team and huge thanks to Jo-Marie for coaching them again this year

Good luck to everyone over the coming weeks, I hope you all enjoy the last term of sport!

Nga mihi

Stacey Sutherland

LUNCH ORDERS – WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY

Day change to Wednesday from Term 2!

Now with two days of ezlunch each week, your kids will have a great variety of healthy and tasty school lunches. Simply order by clicking here.

Order (or cancel) any time before 9am on the day or schedule in advance.

Order anytime before cut-off or schedule in advance. Lunch will be delivered to school at lunchtime on a Wednesday for Pita Pit or Friday for Subway.ezLunch orders are made online through your myKindo account. You can order lunch by simply going to www.mykindo.co.nz

Click here to view the menu.

Help? Visit support.mykindo.co.nz or tel. 09-869 5200 Mon-Fri 8 am to 4 pm.

Find out more ezlunch.co.nz or mykindo.co.nz

OUR SCHOOL APP

Our School App

We have a new school app to keep you up to date with events and notifications. Click on the button below to check it out.

Click Me

SETTING UP KINDO

Setting up with Kindo

Kindo is our new prefered payment and permission system. To help you learn how it works, we’ve added their new help sheet and video. We hope it helps.

Kindo Help