March 2015 - Mangakahia Area School

MANGAKAHIA AREA SCHOOL
TE KURA TAKIWA O MANGAKAHIA
March
Term 1, Week 6, 2015
Family Newsletter
Kia ora familes and whanau.
COUNTRY MEAL
I trust the school year has started well for your children and whanau/
family. It was great to meet up with so many of you at the whanau BBQ .
The BBQ had a good turn out and it was a great way to start the term. I
hope those who sampled my raw fish didn't go away disappointed.
Each month the Mangakahia Sports
Complex at Poroti is the venue for the
local Community Country Meals, which
are held on the second Friday of each
month. Come along and join us as
Friday 13 March is our month to host.
This term has already been a busy one. With Swimming Sports and Athletics completed we congratulate our champions and wish our students
competing at regional events all the best in their preparation and hope
they are able to give their best on the day.
Proceeds from the Country Meals are
shared with a community group, sports
club or local school that hosts the meal
each month. They are a great way to
meet the local community and have a
relaxed night out.
On March 13th we have our annual Community Dinner held at the Mangakahia Sports Complex. Please do come along and support us. It is a
fundraising event and a great way to showcase our kura to the local community who may not know too much about us. Also this term is the secondary school Te Taitokerau Festival. The kapa haka team's preparations
are full on. We once again are benefiting from a wonderful support crew
and the expertise of our tutor Whaea Mereana. They have a busy practice schedule from here to Week 9 but all are confident that they will also
keep up with their classroom work too.
Meals cost $6 for children and $12-$15
for adult’s meals. A delicious range of
salads plus dessert is included with the
meals. There is a fully licenced bar.
Come along and enjoy a night out with
your friends and neighbours.
A salad contribution would be appreciated. We also need some people to
help out on the night to serve meals.
For more details contact the school’s
office. See you there!
It is pleasing to note that the majority of students are making good choices and benefiting from all that the school has to offer. I commend those
students who enhance the mana of themselves ,the school and their
whanau in the way they wear the uniform, apply themselves to their studies, enthusiastically participate in extra curricular activities and live our
values of Matauranga, Wairua, Kotahitanga and Whanaungatanga.
In talking to students I tell them that I went to the best school in New Zealand. Surprisingly, to me, they express serious doubts about this claim.
“Why was it the best?” they ask.
‘Because I went there’ is my reply.
My simple message to them is if Mangakahia is not the best school in
New Zealand then what are they doing about it?
DATES TO REMEMBER
13 March,
13 March
23 March
31 March
My hope is that whanau , staff and students will build on the great work 1 April
done by so many who have served this school in the past to make it2 April
simply the best.
Ka kite ano, Phil Reynolds, Principal
3 April
5 April
6 April
20 April
25 April
27 April
Country Meal for MAS
at the Sports Complex.
Ki o rahi Tournament for
Yr 7/8 at Kensington.
Reotahi Trip Yr 7/8
Te Taitokerau Festival at
Opononi.
MAS performs at Te Taitokerau Festival, 9.20am.
Term 1ends.
Good Friday.
Daylight Saving ends.
Clocks go BACK 1 hour.
Easter Monday.
Term 2 starts.
ANZAC Day (Saturday)
ANZAC Day (Mondayised)
Board of Trustees News
Swimming Pools
Admin & Community
News
Bucket Hats: We now have a supply of
blue bucket hats you can purchase for
$5 each. These will be named and kept
at school to ensure they are not lost or
misplaced.
Hangi 19 March: The Kapa Haka group
are selling Hangi tickets as a fundraiser
for the Te Taitokerau Festival at Opononi. Tickets from the office at $10 each.
The hangi is on Thursday 19 March.
Calling all Soccer Players!
Girls & Boys Needed (class years 1 – 8).
Register with the Mangakahia Soccer
Club for 2015. Please email us on
mangakahiasoccer@gmail.com with:
your child/rens name, their date of birth,
your contact details (phone number). Or
alternatively contact Meredith on 021
182 7036 (please leave a message with
your phone number) Registration closes: Sunday 22nd March 2015. Looking
forward to another great year of club
soccer!
Mangakahia Junior Rugby Rally/
Registration Day. Saturday 14th of
March, 10am at the Mangakahia Sports
Complex, Mangakahia Rd, Poroti.All
existing & new players welcome. Any
queries, Kim Cocking 434 7720.
Ruatangata Hockey Club. Kwik Sticks
(school years 7 and 8). Rally day will be
held March 15th at 9am on the LJ Hooker
Turf at Northland Hockey, Kensington .
Come ready to play.
Kiwisticks & Ministicks (school years 2 to
6). If you wish to play hockey this year
please register by contacting Tamla at
tamlajsimpson@gmail.com. Please provide the following information:
Name, School Year, DOB, Grade you
played last year (if applicable) Gender,
School you attend, Ethnicity and contact
cell phone number.
Registration closes 21st March 2015.
As we all know the pools are a tremendous asset for the school and
community and as such the Board are
wholly supportive of the pools remaining open during the holiday period for
all to enjoy. The Board asks that all
users of the pool help support us to
keep the pools open by maintaining
basic hygiene rules e.g. proper togs
in the pool, NO DOGS etc. A water
test recently showed extremely high
bacteria levels that made the pool
unsafe for swimming. The tests indicated that dogs had been in the pool.
The pool was closed for three days
and after much effort and cost to get
the water back to normal, we were
able to reopen the pool so the students could enjoy swimming again.
It has also been noted that some
young people have been seen jumping into the pool from the toilet roof
and in one case from the shade sail.
This is extremely dangerous and puts
the board and school at risk with the
Labour Department, not to mention
the risk of injury or fatal harm to the
pool users. The last thing the board
want to do is have to drain the pool
over the holidays in an effort to keep
everyone safe from harm.
Please
help us keep the pool safe and open
for everyone to enjoy .
Show Day
Some parent trustees on the board a holding a meeting on Wednesday 18 th
March in the school staffroom, starting at 5.00pm to form a ‘Show Day Committee’. The idea is to organise an event that will be memorable in the calendar
year as a great day for all students, families and Mangakahia community members. If you would like to be involved, we would love to see you there. Should
you have any queries or questions please phone Susan Henderson on 433
1161 in the evening or on 021 854 901 during the day.
Board of Trustee – Vacancy
We have a vacancy on the Board of Trustees. If you would like to be part of a
great team of trustees striving to do the best for our school please either let the
office know or contact Susan Henderson on 4331-161. If we have more than
one person interested in this position we will hold a bi-election.
Sports
Swimming Sports and Senior Athletics have been have both recently been held
at school. Congratulations to all students who participated. Qualifying competitors in both have gone on to the next round this week, the Whangarei Primary
Schools Swimming Champs and the Northland Secondary Schools Athletics.
Wai Nursery Update 2015
Staff and students of Mangakahia Area School would like to thank
Russell Watson and North Power for the incredibly generous nursery start-up funding last year.
Several different year levels enjoyed propagating riparian native
plants in our nursery, while the senior Horticultural students ran and
maintained it. The senior Education for Sustainability students have
been investigating the importance of riparian strip planting along
our waterways which also restore and protect vital Tuna Whakaheke habitat, while teasing out fresh water issues around the four
aspects of sustainability - environmental, economic, social and cultural.
It has been a learning journey from local ecosourcing of seed, propagation and growing on until planting - our first planting season will be May this year. We have a total of 3,500 cabbage tree, flax, manuka and carex secta plants.
In a weeks time senior horticulture students will be out ecosourcing up Puketetoi Rd for this year’s seed. Senior Education for Sustainability students will be involved in two days of planting out along wetland areas up Puketetoi Rd as part of
understanding the importance of social action and being active Kaitiaki. All of this work contributes to important NCEA
credits, which are University aligned and approved.
Horticulture students are also investigating the idea of changing the growing of our future plants from pb bags to root
trainers within forestry crates. This will enable us to grow twice as many plants per year. It will be less work, less potting
mix and easier to transport plants to planting sites along our waterways and within wetland areas. Plants in root trainers
will also be easier to plant out than those in pb bags.
Please let us know if you have any waterway areas around the Wairua Hydro Scheme that you would be interested in
planting out in the future. This initiative would not have been possible without your help and support and we thank you.
Noho ora mai
Merryn Robinson, Education for Sustainability
Selling Wai Nursery Plants
We have just sold $600 worth of native riparian plants from our wai nursery to Whangaroa college. They are also wanting to develop a nursery and
be involved in ecological restoration. Well done to our Level 2 Horticulture
students who ran our wai nursery last year, growing these plants.
Ecosourcing seed from Titoki Station
Our Level 2 Horticulture students and Jacque Knight from NRC went to Titoki
station this week to ecosource local native riparian/wetland seed for sowing
in our school’s Wai Nursery. Our mission was to collect the seed of Coprosma, Flax, Kanuka, Manuka, Carex Virgata etc that will be propagated here
and planted out next year on Titoki Station.
Ivy-Lee and Liam ecosourcing Kanuka Seed
This will be where our existing wai nursery plants will be planted out by senior
Education for Sustainability students in May this year. Titoki Station represents a fantastic local model of ecological restoration by actively fencing off wetlands and planting. we are so lucky to have a
farmer willing to develop an active relationship with our school
and students in this way.
An existing wetland area on this property
Poor Knights Marine Reserve Field Trip Feb 2015
Our Year 11 Education for Sustainability (EfS) and Art students joined our Year 13 EfS students
on a Perfect Day field trip out to the Poor Knights marine reserve with Dive Tutukaka!
Our Year 11 EfS students are investigating whether tourism is a sustainable use of this biophysical environment, while the Year 13 EfS students are analysing and comparing the various
measures that are put in place to sustain and/or protect the Poor Knights.
Our Year 11 Art students are using the Poor Knights trip to take photos and to get a physical
sense of the environment they will be basing their years work on. They will focus on environmental
conservation and exploring the natural beauty of their surrounds.
For most of us it was our first time out in the marine reserve. It was a beautiful clear calm day,
where we were blessed by a pod of dolphins following our boat out to the Poor Knights.
We would like to
thank the following members of
the community
for their support of our school
through NorthFuels ‘Fuel for
Schools’ programme:
D.B. Douglas Ltd
G.W. Ware
Pukepoto Dairies Ltd
ITR Ag Ltd
P. & C. Noakes Ltd
Once out within the reserve, all enjoyed either, snorkelling, kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming,
sunbathing and sight seeing. It was just amazing to see the incredible unique biodiversity, underwater splendour, stunning geology and interesting cultural history of this world renown dive site.
Hoana, D’Len and Megan
Cody, Te Awatea and Cale
For every 2 litres of bulk fuel
they purchase 1 cent is donated to Mangakahia Area
School.
For more information about
the programme, call 0800 4
THE KIDS (0800 484 3543) or
visit
our
website
www.northfuels.co.nz
Taysia and Shane
Hi, I’m Linda Makiha Registered Nurse and I will
be coming into the school to start our Rheumatic Fever School Swabbing Programme on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays to swab anyone with a sore throat.
Mangakahia Area School
PDC Titoki, Whangarei 0535
Phone: (09) 433-1702
Fax: (09) 433-1714
E-mail: admin@mangakahia.school.nz
Please return consents as we can only swab
those with sore throats who have returned
them.
Rikoriko Cave, the largest sea cave in the world