Dear Parents,

I begin our monthly newsletter to you, one week ‘out’ from the 8 November date when our country’s voters will make a claim to a government, which will lead us for the next three years.  Recently, I have attended a number of electioneering campaign meetings to ascertain and glean the political party(ies) which will best meet the needs and operation of ‘our’ Independent school.  I would encourage you to do likewise.

Grandparents’ Morning: Friday 24 October:  

It was again a pleasure and a privilege to receive about 120 of our honoured guests: our pupils’ grandparents.  Amongst the guests was Mrs Button, the granddaughter of A. Walter Averill, a past: Bishop of Christchurch and Vicar at St Michael’s, who gave his name to one of our four School Houses.  Mrs Button, who is Taylor Keys’ (Year 5) grandmother, brought a family Bible, which had an inscription recognising A. Walter Averill’s appointment as the Bishop of Waiapu.  The age range, for our 2008 grandparents, was: late 40’s to 94.  Our 94 year old, Mr Ian  Mathieson, Drew Mathieson’s (Year 8) grandfather, shared some of his lifelong pearls of wisdom with our present day pupils.  Mr Mathieson was presented with a book, on St Michael’s history, to mark the occasion.

Library:

Our heartfelt and sincere thanks are extended to those grandparents, who bought books for our Library:  $2,300 worth sold on the day.

Roll:

We welcome Alana Hamilton, who has joined our Year Five class from Oamaru, whilst her father receives treatment at Christchurch Hospital.  Please remember Mr Hamilton in your prayers and also Mr Harold Petrie, grandfather of Laura Brown (Year 4) and, Mr Heine Jonker, father of Angus (Year 4) and Kevin (Year 6); both gentlemen have recently had large operations.  We pray for a speedy recovery for all of these members of our St Michael’s School community.

ACADEMIC 

Assessment Week:

Our Year Six, Seven and Eight classes complete their annual assessments, during Week Four: 3 - 7 November.  We wish these students ‘well’ as they prepare and pursue this important part of our learning and teaching process.

Effort Assessment: High Flyers:

The following pupils, who recorded the highest aggregates in our final Effort Assessments for 2008, are suitably congratulated:

Year 0: Jacky Chen

Year 1: Daniel Jung

Year 2: Anoushka Chiswell

Year 3: Harry Kendrew

Year 4: Chelsea Yu

             Charlotte-Jane Irwin

             Jane Kim

Year 5: Madeline Kendrew

Year 6: Jacqui-Lyn Welch

Year 7: Rebecca Tang

Year 8: Courtney Clyne (59.5/60!)

Otago Problem Solving 

Final results have arrived and the following pupils deserve special mention.  The scores are out of 25.

Certificates of Merit go to:

Georgia Rouch      Year 7    15

Pippa Nicholls      Year 8   13

Samantha Knegt    Year 8   13

Lucas Perelini        Year 8   14

Thomas Pearson    Year 8   14

Kempton Haitana   Year 8   16

Te Teira Pitama      Year 8    16

Certificates of Excellence go to:

Jacob Fitzgibbon    Year 7   17

Tae Joon Kim        Year 7   20

Aaron Smith          Year 8 19

Courtney Clyne      Year 8 19

Florence Fournier Year 8 20

Callum Salt            Year 8 21

Blake Morgan        Year 8   22

Tae Joon Kim, Florence Fournier, Callum Salt, and Blake Morgan have been selected to take the Final Challenge, where top pupils win prizes.

Science: Year 7 at Christ’s College:

We have a Year 7 team entered in the 2008 Intermediate Schools' Science Competition at Christ's College on Wednesday 19th November. The competition consists of three practical activities - in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics/Technology.

Representing St Michael's will be Sebastian Gurobi-Hines, Raphaela Walsh, Emma Pearson, and Georgia Rouch.

Learnz School:

We are now registered for virtual educational experiences, which ensures that our pupils can receive a learning experience from the confines of an ICT link up e.g.  One of our classes has been invited to travel under the Antarctic Icefield and the cameras and return footage will ensure that they receive the experience first hand.

CULTURAL

Christchurch Music Festival:

Our Senior Choir contributed to the Mass and Special Choir performances at the Town Hall, on the evening of Friday, 17 October.  At the close of this evening’s concert, Charles Levings, one of the Musical Directors, confirmed that we had witnessed one of the most outstanding standards of performance in all of his years with the festival. This had been doubly endorsed with standing ovations by the audience on the night. 

Choir at St Mary’s:

As indicated in a previous newsletter, our choir will record their input, for the Christmas Day special of “Praise Be”, on Wednesday 12 November in St Mary’s Anglican Church (Merivale).  A notice will come home regarding transport arrangements.

Interhouse Chess:

We thank Mr Hamish Kenworthy for his control and organisation of our Chess club’s activities.

SPORTING  ROUND-UP

Athletics Sports:

Owing to inclement weather, our 2008 annual sports was held on our postponement date: Friday 31 October, at Christ’s College on the Upper Field.  A near perfect day resulted in: excellent attendance by our parents, optimum participation by all of our pupils, perfect weather conditions and, sublime performances of our parents and staff in their respective races!

Please join with me in commending our 2008 champions:

Junior Syndicate:

5 year old girls’ champion: Saskia Rankin

5 year old boys’ champion: Fletcher Anderson

6 year old girls’ champion: Claudia Gale

6 year old boys’ champion: Lochlan McNicholl

7 year old girls’ champion: Anoushka Chiswell

7 year old boys’ champion: Bennet Anderson

8 year old girls’ champion: Maleka Smith

8 year old boys’ champion: Liam Scrase

Middle Syndicate:

8 year old girls’ champion: Meg Byers

8 year old boys’ champion: Harry Grossi

                                           Do Hyung Lee

9 year old girls’ champion: Karenia Anderson

9 year old boys’ champion: Aaron Li

10 year old girls’ champion: Madeline Kendrew

                                           Anastasia Loeffen

10 year old boys’ champion: Jed Scott-Stafford

11 year old girls’ champion: Simone Gale

11 year old boys’ champion: Ashton Finlayson

Senior Syndicate:

12 year old girls’ champion: Florence Fournier

12 year old boys’ champion: Oliver Dunne

13 year old girls’ champion: Samantha Knegt

13 year old boys’ champion: Aaron Smith

Touch:

Our touch team has had a sound start to the season.  We have been lucky to have had the expertise of Mr Te Wairau, (a student teacher in Year Six), who is also the Junior Development Officer for Canterbury Rugby league.  He has been able to upskill the boys in a variety of tactics and strategies.  Unfortunately Lucas Perelini suffered an injury to his knee; we hope you recover quickly Lucas.  Thank you also to Mrs Clark, who takes the boys for a fitness run on Tuesdays.

J.C. Russell 

Pupil Successes:

Pippa Nicholls is congratulated on her selection in the Junior Nationals’ Swimming standards for her 400m freestyle.

Shannel Cartwright: Fifth in Synchro and tenth in Individual at the Nationals’ Trampolining in Hamilton.

Megan Lord: Bishopdale Tennis Club Age Group Champion for the 2008 season.

Olivia Mattison: recent second placing in North Canterbury horse riding event.

Jordan McIvor: Well done on your Highland Dancing awards.

Annabelle Priddy: Annabelle will sing in the “Christmas in the Park” concert again this year.

Tyler Smith: Second place in the local “Lord of the Rings” battle competition.

SPIRITUAL

Year Eight Assembly Leaders this month have been: Thomasina Loeffen, Victoria Allan, Aaron Smith, Kempton Haitana, Courtney Clyne, Pippa Nicholls.

Bible Readers at recent School masses have been:

Thomas Pearson, Annabelle Priddy and Florence Fournier.

SYNDICATE REPORTS:

Senior Syndicate:

The Senior pupils have been hard at work revising for examinations in English, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science, and we look forward to that effort resulting in individual success. There is certainly an art to examination revision, as most of us can appreciate. 

As a syndicate we have enjoyed our Decision Makers unit - each Senior class is running their own election, complete with Parties, Journalists, Pollsters and Electoral Office staff. We will announce the winning parties in the next newsletter. It has been great to see the pupils learn about our electoral system by taking part. I can see a few budding politicians in our ranks!

This term Year Eight are involved in Technology classes at Hagley Community College, studying Food and Nutrition. I doubt you will get to see any of the wonderful goodies that are created, but at least you know they will have recipes up their sleeve when called upon. 

Finally, please support the Year Eight class as they arrange and run the disco next week. We appreciate the thoughtful donations that they make each year to the life of the school. So grab your tickets and dust off those dancing shoes!

A P Kendrew

Middle Syndicate:

It has certainly been a busy start to the term with many different and varied activities being undertaken.

Swimming Week starts this week and provides an ideal opportunity for the children to further refine their stroke techniques and build endurance and confidence for the summer ahead.

Our athletic sports was a great day for both individual performances and intense Interhouse rivalry.  Quite a few athletes from the Middle Syndicate will be competing at the upcoming ISSA Athletics next week.

Children’s progress in Numeracy was assessed last term in a whole school review.  The results showed that many of our children have an increased understanding in the varying strategies to solve problems.  We are pleased with the progress in the Middle Syndicate and will continue syndicate numeracy and review this for 2009.

Year Six is lucky enough to be going to the Science Roadshow so we will include an update on this in our December “round-up”.  

J C Russell

Junior Syndicate:

The junior children have settled back quickly to school routines this term and the New Entrant children appear to be enjoying their first taste of school life! At break times the children are enjoying the new playground sports equipment, funded by the PTFA, and also the opportunity to play in the gully on Fridays.

The Science trip to Travis Wetland was a very worthwhile and enjoyable experience. Both teachers and children were impressed by the standard of programme offered by the Learning in Action team.

Children have their Spellathon lists now and are hopefully busy learning their words and collecting sponsors.  

Grandparents Day was once again well supported by the juniors. Thank you to those grandparents who joined us on this day. We hope you enjoyed your time with us.

Thank you, parents, for joining us on Athletics Day. The children put in a lot of effort practising for this occasion. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did! Thank you also to the junior staff for their efforts and in particular, Mrs Clarke, for organising the junior section of this annual event.

T V Price

Principals’ Tips:

Pocket Money/Allowance 

Establish clearly that in every family there are regular tasks to do that are part of being in a team.  The tasks are not attached to any monetary payment.  When your child is old enough work out an amount for a regular allowance.  Use this allowance to teach the child about saving, giving and spending, and establish what your child will be responsible for buying (e.g. bus tickets, presents, treats and prepay phone).  Have a list of 'extra' jobs that enable your child to earn additional pocket money for special projects. 

(from Mary and Ian Grant’s Parenting Tips)

Lots of adults are still waiting to hear the words “I love you” from their parents.

It may not come easily but your children need to hear you say: “I love you”.  Be bold, don’t wait for them to deserve it, just tell them.  It will make a difference.

(from Mary and Ian Grant’s Hot Tips for Parents)