Dear Parents,

Welcome to Term Four.  I hope and trust that you have captured some magical memory moments, during our recent holidays, in the company of your children.  This newsletter will seek to bring you up to date with our achievements and happenings as we put a closure to our third term.

Roll:

During the course of this new term, we will welcome twelve new pupils.  Nine of these pupils will begin their time with us on the first day of term: Olivia Mattison (Year 6), George Addis (Year 5), Joy Kang and Charles Lee (Year 4), Seung Hyung Lee, Lachlan Forbes, Blair Lavery, Kahu Alexander and Bogdan Teplovs (Year 0).  Lauren Matthews (Year 0) will commence her time with us on 20 October, with a sister and brother, Olivia (Year 8) and Jasper Savage (Year 2) joining us for their St Michael’s experience on 3 November.

I know that parents would combine with the staff and me in ensuring these new families feel ‘at home’ and welcome within our St Michael’s family.

Education Review Office:

As indicated to our stakeholders in our July newsletter: our triennial review was most pleasing and we are proud of our confirmed report, which is now on the Education Review Office website.

ACADEMIC 

I.C.A.S. English:

The following are our final; 2008 results in this prestigious international competition:

Distinction: (Principal’s Gold and Red awards and eight merit marks): Nicholas Stevens (Year 4), Saskia Klinkenberg (Year 5).

Credit: (Principal’s Gold award and five merit marks):

Charlotte-Jane Irwin, Taylor Keys, George Warren (Year 4), Madeline Kendrew (Year 5), Simone Gale, Megan Lord (Year 6), Rebecca Tang (Year 7), Florence Fournier, 

Samantha Knegt and Lucas Perelini (Year 8).

Participation: (Principal’s Red award and three merit marks): Vincent Kenworthy, Taylor-Jane McNicholl (Year 4), Davis Gale, Jesse Simkin (Year 5), Letasha Lowe, Jordan McIvor, Priyanka Nathu (Year 6), Courtney Clyne and Olivia Parker (Year 8).

Canterbury-Westland Science Fair:

Emma Pearson is highly commended on her attainment of two awards at the Canterbury-Westland event.

Emma won: the Institute of Engineering and Innovation sponsored prize(an IPod Shuffle) and the Science Alive’s Best Interactive: 20 concession tickets.

CULTURAL

Annual Interhouse Poetry and Speech competition:

We commend the following pupils, who were judged in the top three places by our adjudicator, Mrs Lyndsey Sturge, a past staff member at St Michael’s and, the present Synod representative on our School’s Board of Governors:

Interhouse Poetry:

Year 3:

1st Alexander Johnson

2nd Maleka Smith

3rd Liam Scrase

Year 4: 1st George Warren

2nd Laura Brown

3rd Rosa McGunnigle

Year 5:

1st Madeline Kendrew

2nd Saskia Klinkenberg

3rd Daniel Alexander

Year 6:

1st Anastasia Loeffen

2nd Phoebe Brosnan

3rd Megan Lord

Interhouse Speech:

Year 7:

1st Laurel Gregory

2nd Shannel Cartwright

3rd Kendra Dunstan

Year 8:

1st Florence Fournier

2nd Drew Mathieson

3rd Courtney Clyne

Christchurch Music Festival Choir:

Our School’s choir is featured on the Friday 17 October night of the annual Christchurch Music Festival’s programme. Our special choir representatives sing on the six nights of this festival: 15 - 17 October and 21- 23 October inclusive.

SPORTING  ROUND-UP

Hockey :

It was wonderful to share in the break up function, to celebrate the successes of our four hockey teams and present player and team awards, on Friday 12 September.

Our Junior Blues won two sections: Division 1, Major Championship and Division 1, Supple-mentary Competition.  Played 14, won 11, drew 3, lost 0.  Goals for 69, against 17.

Our Intermediates also won their grade for the third year in succession: Division 1 Major Championship. Played 14, won 10, drew 3, lost 1. Goals for 46, against 14.

Congratulations to all concerned and more especially our two successful coaches: Suzanne Tuetue and Michael Graveston.

Gymnastics: 

Congratulations to James Nicholls (Year 6) on his selection in the Canterbury Gymnastics’ team, which competed in Hamilton.  Well done James on your 4th placing in the Level Four events. 

Ferrymead Soccer:

Matthew Rogers and Conor Keohane played in the Ferrymead Bays Tornadoes team.  The team was unbeaten and the coaches presented each player with a trophy highlighting the quality that the player had shown.

Rugby League:

Congratulations to Jed Scott-Stafford who was named Addington Rugby League Club ‘Junior Player of the Year’.

SPIRITUAL

Bishop Victoria:

It was an honour and privilege to be invited for an audience with our School’s Warden, Bishop Victoria Matthews, the eighth appointed Bishop of Christchurch and, to conduct her on a tour of our School.  I endorsed our School’s special place in the Christchurch Diocese and invited Bishop Victoria’s presence at any of our upcoming events.  Bishop Victoria welcomed the opportunity to continue our Bishop’s Day at St Michael’s and has reinforced that she has a vested interest in ‘her’ Anglican Church Schools.

Board/Staff/Vestry: values and vision seminar 

Members of our St Michael’s: School Board, School staff and Parish Vestry met to discuss our corporate and shared values and vision on the morning of Friday 10 October.  The responses, from our recent parental survey, were highlighted and tabled at this meeting.

Principal’s Tips

Give Your Child the ‘Manners’ Advantage 

Your children will benefit enormously from having the confidence and skills to respond to other people's kindness or words.  A child who says please and thank you, and can respond when spoken to, is also the child who can label themselves as friendly and social. Give your children this advantage by gently and firmly teaching them and not letting a shy phase rob them of the confidence and pleasure that results from using their manners!

As always, I look forward to sharing upcoming events and happenings with our School’s friends, grandparents and parents.

All the best.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Boyce

Principal