Term 2 in Room 8

Kia ora and welcome all of you to the Rūma Waru blogspace! As you all know, I have recently joined the staff as the wonderful Mr Kay has moved with his family to the United States. I am in my first year of teaching, which can be a nerve-wracking time. Fortunately, Crofton Downs School is filled with fantastic staff who are highly capable and supportive. The students I have spent time with so far have also made the transition very smooth for me, and they are very responsible and caring young people.

Maths

For the students who are in my maths group, we are currently focussing on a fractions unit, while my release teacher Kriss will be working on some strand maths with them (at the moment, she is teaching students about statistics). We have also been invited to take part in a online Mathletics Challenge which will run for the next month or so, and will be a great opportunity for students to put their maths knowledge and skills to use in a slightly more competitive setting than they are used to!

Literacy

My literacy group have been working our way through a myths unit these past two weeks, and will start to delve more into modern myths and heroes as the term progresses. As with last term, students are also engaging in Chapter Chat tasks and questions which allow them to think imaginatively about our senior pod book, Fish in a Tree. This book tackles issues of bullying and dyslexia, which are very thought provoking ideas for our young people to be considering.

Sports

As you know, this is a busy term for sports, with students attending weekly swimming sessions at the Keith Spry pool, and the school's cross country event taking place on the 23rd of May. We have some great athletes in our class, and there is a lot of effort being put in from all of the students, so they will definitely impress everyone when cross country comes around! If your child does get injured or is sick on a day when we are practising for cross country, please do let me know, as we don't want them to push themselves when they are ill or hurt.

Staying in touch

I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of you already during parent teacher interviews and during our Learning Hui this week. Please feel free to email me if you have any concerns or issues to bring to my attention; my email is lwilson@cdps.school.nz. I'm happy to meet you outside of school hours by appointment as well if you need to discuss anything in person. I will be updating this blog at least once a fortnight, and hope that I will have many occasions to contact you with good news about your child and their progress at school.

A 3D puzzle model of the Eiffel Tower some of the students built together before school! I hope to give them more opportunities for model building as the term goes on, as this sparks huge excitement for many of them.