Waianiwa School September 2024

What a fantastic day we had at the Central Cup tournament in Term 2.

We are so very proud of the way our Year 5-8 students participated with excellent behaviour, sportsmanship and skill.

Each and every student represented our school with pride.

This year we took the biggest group of students we have ever taken and entered two Year 5&6 teams and a Year 7&8 team.

The teams all played 30 minute games of netball, basketball, soccer and volleyball and they did so well.

For a small school we have a lot of talent.

Thank you to our senior teachers Natasha and Mrs V for all the practice you did with them, it definitely showed when the teams were out on the courts.

A huge congratulations to our Year 7&8 team, the Waianiwa Wipeouts, who wiped out all the other Year 7&8 teams to bring home the first place trophy!

Woohoo!

Once again, we were lucky enough to have the Waianiwa Women's Institute come and serve soup and cheese rolls to all of our students and staff.

Robyn McCallum, Susan McPherson, Annette Sanderland, Lauren Hayes and Raewyn Stuart make a delicious soup and perfect Southland cheese roll.

We really appreciate your kindness and generosity in doing this.

Thank you so very much.

At the end of Term 2 we held the annual EIS Technology Challenge, which is open to Southland Primary and Intermediate schools to enter.

This year was the 10th year that EIS have sponsored this event and we really appreciate their generous contribution.

EIS sponsorship means we can run it with a minimal entry fee for the teams, ensuring as many schools are able to enter teams and get their students involved in hands on thinking, collaborative, problem solving challenges.

EIS also send a judge and we really appreciate Andrew coming each year to be involved in this event.

A big thank you to Shari, Mrs V and Mrs Carey for your work on the planning and organisation of this and running the event on the day.

Feedback was very positive from the judges and schools who entered and it was a successful event.

Thanks also to our Friends of the School who organised and provided morning tea and lunch for the judges and to our judges from within our local community who gave up their time to be involved on the day.

Well done to our Year 5/6 team of Karl, Fletcher, Lachie, Cohen and Year 7/8 team of Max, Kaeden, Angus, Alexis who worked hard to complete the challenges and a special mention to our Year 7/8 team who placed 3rd.

Well done to our Student Council, Mikaella, Meriya, Hana and Athena on their organisation of our Daffodil Day mufti and activity day.

What a sea of yellow, orange and white the school was, recognising that many of our families have been and/or are being impacted by cancer through loved ones and friends.

Thank you to those Room 3 families who supported this by making baking to be sold at lunchtime.

The school also contributed the sausage and ice pop money from Friday lunch to our donation (a big thank you to Charlotte in Room 2 for this idea).

Around $300 was raised for the Cancer Society - a great effort for a small school, thanks to all our fabulous families for your support!

We are so proud of our tamariki who all performed amazingly at Polyfest.

What superstars ⭐.

A big thank you to all our whānau and family members who came to support and watch us.

Our trip to Polyfest was a highlight and it was great to see all of our students on stage, supporting one another and giving it a go.

During our kapa haka practices we learnt a new song called Utaina Mai and look forward to sharing this with all of our families as part of our production.

Our production, The Life of Maui, has many areas of the curriculum being incorporated into our learning.

We are each creating a visual art piece to be put on display around the hall, learning and presenting our lines, acting, dancing and choreographing our class items plus learning about visual media, with the seniors creating brochures and advertisements for our production.

Mrs M is also working with a group of art students to create the backdrop, we are so lucky to have her expertise.

We cannot wait to perform this early in Term 4.

Earlier this term, we held our Year 5-8 school speeches.

We were very impressed with the high standard of speeches and the varied topics.

It was clear that all our students put a huge effort into the research, writing and presentation of their speeches and they should all be very proud of their efforts.

Presenting speeches is always challenging and nerve wracking, but all our students gave it 100% and did an amazing job.

Ka rawe tamariki mā.

We have also hosted the cluster speech competition for Waianiwa, Wallacetown, Winton and St Thomas Schools.

Well done to Mikaella, Angus, Neeve and Patrick for their excellent representation of our school in this and a big congratulations to Mikaella placing 3rd in the Year 7&8 section!

Thank you to Mrs Carey, Pam Fleck and Shirley Pratt from Southern Reap for giving up their time and taking on the tough job of judging the speeches.

Our senior students have really shone in their leadership abilities during a new tuakana teina (older and younger students learning together) time with Room One recently.

Our seniors are buddied with a Room One child and have to plan and record activities they will prepare and ‘teach’ to the younger children.

There have been some really creative ideas including making cards, learning how to kick and throw, creating the Eiffel Tower using straws, playing snap, playing hopscotch, making clay using glue, playing jenga and learning how to play twister.

Everybody has been really engrossed in this big/little buddy time and we look forward to continuing these sessions throughout the year

We have had Louise here this term teaching a 2 day Year 5-8 group and a 1 day Year 1-4 group art workshop which has been facilitated and provided through the Southern Reap Gifted and Talented programme.

The students selected for this are those who display passion, talent and ability in visual art.

The groups worked through a process to create an animal using design, drawing, painting and then sewing.

The students enjoyed their time and lessons and gained valuable skills and new learning in these sessions.

We really appreciate the work that Southern Reap do for our schools and the opportunities that they provide for our students.

Coming up next term we have science workshops, and a leadership course facilitated by Southern Reap.

We have also welcomed Cycling Southland to our school this term to do a bike skills and safety session with our Room 1 and 2 students.

We were impressed with the number of Room 1 students who embraced the challenge of riding without their training wheels with the support and encouragement of Marc and Mary from Cycling Southland and Mrs Kerr.

Valuable skills were gained during this time and we appreciate Cycling Southland's support and willingness to come into our school and run these sessions each year.

It is great to see the students building on their skills and knowledge year after year.

We wrapped up our Olympics learning with a visit from Alena Saili.

Alena is from Invercargill and plays for the Women's NZ Rugby 7s team and the Black Ferns.

She is a double Olympic gold medalist with her medals from Tokyo and Paris.

Alena spent time with the students answering their questions and talking about her Olympic experiences, her rugby career thus far and her road to representing NZ on the world stage.

She also allowed the students and teachers to touch the medals and try them on which we all thought was pretty special.

The medals are very heavy!

Alena was humble, real and down to earth.

She laughed with us, she answered all the students' questions, she posed for photos, she chatted and she signed numerous items for us.

It was a privilege to have her in our school and to listen to her talk of her experience.

At school, Alena's favourite subjects were maths and science and she talked about how important it was, while chasing sporting dreams, to also make sure you are applying yourself to your school work.

Alena had a dream to play for NZ and through extremely hard work, sacrifice and determination she achieved that.

She spoke of a normal day for her and I think we were all very blown away by the amount of hours of her day spent training.

Before breakfast, morning sessions, afternoon sessions, and then again after dinner.

She spends most of her day training and keeping herself fit and at peak health and performance.

Her dedication and commitment to her sport and her job as a professional athlete is huge.

What an amazing role model Alena is and an inspiration to our young people with big goals here at Waianiwa - like Alena, we know you can work hard to make them happen.

Waianiwa School proudly supported by Fiordland Escapes