We celebrated four great students in our junior assembly today.

The teachers were treated to a pink ribbon breakfast this morning by three lovely intermediate students fundraising for breast cancer.  Lucky us.  This is a good opportunity to introduce Catherine Palmer who is in the photo with me.  Catherine is our new deputy principal.  She currently teaches in the intermediate and is Olivia’s teacher.  We were really lucky to have her teaching Georgia also when she was in the intermediate.  It is really exciting to see Catherine as our new deputy principal, she will be amazing.

Also lovely Fran, is the intermediate girl on the far left of the above photo.  She is Gabriel’s oldest sister.  Gabriel is the youngest of four and I was lucky enough to teach his middle sister Scarlett three years ago.

It is always so gorgeous bumping into little faces out and about on the weekends.  It was very cute to see Vanessa and Arthur at St Lukes today.  Olivia and I had to get a whole lot of science board supplies as the intermediate children are working on big science inquries at the moment.  We will make sure little Room 5 goes up to see them all when they finish to have a look.  It is always nice to visit different parts of the school and see what the children are up to.

If you need some ideas though…

Sarah has lots of ideas on her facebook and instagram feeds if you are interested.

I know your little people are too young at the moment to join school sports teams but Kohia offers some great opportunities.  Team sports tends to start in year 3.  The older my girls have got the more busy our lives seem to be juggling all the teams they are involved with.

We always need parent coaches and managers and we can’t offer all the different team sports without support.  I am not a sporty person so have always offered to be manager instead of coaching various things over the years – I am just responsible for looking after balls, washing bibs and sending out emails.  The girl’s Dad, Andy,  is a keen soccer player so took Olivia’s intermediate soccer team to zones last Thursday.  There is something for everyone.  The school does however always offer to send you on courses and gives you resources if you are keen to coach but need support.  They also can bring in outside ‘proper coaches’ to get you and the team underway, model some activities and teach you all the rules.  You have lots to look forward to.

The other lovely thing about Kohia is the culture of promoting service and giving back, it is a real part of our community spirit.  My 15 year old daughter Georgia  coaches the Kohia year 5 netball team for example.  It is not uncommon to see our past students coming back and doing different things for the school . The coach of Olivia’s waterpolo team is also a past student.

If you child is not sporty, the school also offers Kapa Haka, chess clubs, art clubs, choir and lots of drama and dance opportunites.  For a small school we are pretty amazing I think.

…and finally in terms of school productions, we take turns.  For example the Koru team (years 1-3)  did a big production in 2016 and we will do another one next year.  Last year our Harakeke team (years 4-6) did a production.  This year it is the intermediates turn.  In this photo Vanessa’s older brother Arthur, Sebastian’s older sister Eloise and Helena’s older sister Annemie were in my class when we did a gorgeous Mexican dance as part of our ‘Around the World’ production.  All these costumes were made by Enzo’s Mum, the class looked stunning.

Our weekends are fill to the brim at the moment with waterpolo, netball and football.  It is always nice to get home afterwards and get warm.  Our beautiful 18 1/2 year old cat Moby loves it when we get home and we put on the fire.

Hope you all had a great weekend.  See you tomorrow.

Who is Claire from Scotland?  Claire is the niece of one of our lovely learning assistants Helga.  Claire has been volunteering her time in the year 1 classrooms, (Tuesday/Wednesday in Room 4 and Thursday/Friday in Room 5) for several weeks.   Claire is amazing.  Because she is doing this all so generously we are thinking of ways to give her a very big thank you on her last day, Friday June 8th.  The children adore Claire and she has been a huge help.

Jess, our new full time learning assistant starts on Wednesday 5th June.  In year 1 the recommended class size is between 18 and 20.  We are a little over that so our school board have very generously paid for full time support for Rooms 4 and 5.  A lovely lady called Kim is the new learning assistant in Room 4.   We are very lucky to have a well resourced and supportive school. It will make a massive difference to what we can achieve in Room 5 with our learning so it is really exciting.  Claire, Jess and Kim are all really special people and your children are so lucky!

We are LOVING our time with Claire!  She is very popular with our little people. One of the things I love about teaching is lots of amazing, generous and super cool people cross your path.  It is a profession where you see lots of ‘goodness’.  Thank you Claire for volunteering your time so generously, you are a human legend!

The events will take place in week 7, so we have two weeks to fundraise.  More information will be sent out next week.

I got sent these yesterday from our parade…they were too cute not to share.  Going through Mt Eden Village is always really special with the parents and community coming out to support us.

We are celebrating in the Brownette household as Olivia got a school certificate.  Have a lovely weekend everyone – I know many of your little people are feeling really tired at the moment.  We are too!  Mid-term is always tough.  We will be doing some serious relaxing in our house, in between netball, soccer and waterpolo that is.  Have a happy weekend everyone.