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MARCH APRIL
Wed 11 – Fri 13: Takahe, Camp @ Palm Grove Paraparaumu Tues 7: Year 3-4 Futsal Tournament ASB Sports Centre
Wed 18: Whānau Hui, Staffroom 5.30pm
Wed 8: Year 5-6 & Year 7-8 Futsal Tournament ASB Sports Centre
Fri 20 : Kiwi – Trip to H20 Extreme, Upper Hutt Thurs 9: Tui Open Morning : Last Day of Term 1
Tues 24: Rippa Rubgy tournament Mon 28: Term 2 begins today
Thurs 26: Whole School Athletics, Newtown Park BoT Meeting, Staffroom 7pm
Mon 30: Cricket Tournament Year 5-8
Kia ora parents/caregivers,
We are now half way through the term and today the Takahe team left for their camp at Palm Grove in
Paraparaumu. We know they will have a wonderful time and the students get so much out of this learning
opportunity. We are expecting their bus to arrive back around 2.30pm on Friday.
The Moa syndicate had a fabulous time at Tea Pot Valley last week. We would like to thank the teachers
and the parent helpers who helped make this such a great experience. Here are a couple of photos from
the camp.
Newsletter No 3: Wednesday 11 March 2020
From the Principal
What’s coming up
Above – During their trip to Teapot Valley Camp in Nelson, the Moa students walk part of the Abel Tasman and enjoy time
at the beach afterwards.
Staffing News
Greg Kyle has won a teaching position at a school in Ngatea and he is leaving at the end of the term. Greg
has been at Brooklyn for the past 9 years and he is moving his family to a more affordable housing area. We
would like to wish Greg all the best and thank him for his years here at Brooklyn. We are currently advertising
this position and will let you know when we have appointed a new teacher. I’m wondering who on staff will
lead the Jump Jam sessions!
Deborah Mansfield who has been working here at Brooklyn as a teacher aide has left us as she was offered
a position as a Teacher Aide at Wellington High with more hours. We would like to thank Deb for all her help
with our students and we hope she is enjoying working with older students.
Teacher Only Days
Last year as part of our collective agreement pay settlement, there was an Accord signed allowing for 8
teacher only days over the term of the agreement (3 years). This year we are going to take 3 of these days
over and above the teacher only days at the beginning of the year and the Friday before Queen’s Birthday
weekend.
28th May- Teacher Only Day
29th May- Teacher Only Day
29th July- Parent/Teacher Conferences all day
13th November-Teacher Only Day
School will still finish on the 17th December.
Attendance
Brooklyn is part of a Kāhui Ako - a cluster of schools working together to improve educational outcomes and
experiences for our tamariki. Our Kāhui Ako involves Kelburn, Karori, Northland, Brooklyn, Wellington Girls
College and Wellington College. We are specifically looking at 3 areas -
To support the well-being of all students
To develop students as agents of their own learning
To embrace the languages, cultures and identities of students
One recent meeting focussed on attendance. Nationally regular attendance at school is slipping. Our
Kahui Ako has over 5000 students and the average attendance in term 2, 2019 was around 70%, down 5%
from the previous year. If you apply 70% attendance to a primary school context it means that children
would head to secondary school having missed more than 2 years of their primary school experience.
At Brooklyn we are lucky to have good attendance rates - last year we finished on an average of 89.6%
attendance which is just ‘AT’ what the MOE considers good attendance (MOE definition of attending
regularly is attending over 90% of half days). 89.6% equates on average to all children having around 1 day
off a fortnight. In 2018 our Term 2 overall attendance was 93.1%.
So the Brooklyn community has overall good attendance ...BUT as the Kāhui Ako principals discussed we do
want to impress on whānau how important regular, consistent attendance is. Children need a regular
pattern, and they need to know that attending school every day is what they do, and an important part of
their life. Learning builds up sequentially over a week, and over time. Days lead into days and so frequent
absences do affect the flow of learning for children.
Illness, sickness and being unwell aside, consistent attendance is really powerful for children to be engaged
with school, with a purpose to build momentum in their learning, rather than experiencing a stop, start the
process to their studies. The weekend is the time for rest and recovery and a chance to do those other
areas of interest and opportunity in our lives.
Brooklyn School Travel Survey
Wellington City Council, together with Brooklyn School, Greater Wellington and NZ Police, are looking at
ways we can make travel to school safer and more sustainable for tamariki in your community. The
information provided in this survey will help us tailor our school travel programme, TipiHaere TravelWell,
for Brooklyn School.
This survey should only take 10 minutes to complete. No personal contact information needs to be
entered unless you'd like to take part in further initiatives in your school community.
If you have any questions about the survey or TipiHaere TravelWell, please contact:
George Booty, Sustainable Transport Coordinator, Wellington City Council
Email [email protected]
Here is the link;
https://forms.gle/FrJdMAhN7yhyAyV57
Please could you fill this out by Friday 10th April 2020.
Landscaping
We are still fundraising to help with planting out this area. Last year we asked for donations to go towards
this and we appreciate your help with this. We are asking again for your support to help develop the middle
and lower tiers of our landscaping area. The middle area will eventually have raised garden beds where the
students will be able to grow vegetables that we can eat. The lower tier is going to be an orchard with fruit
trees. This is going to be our outdoor learning environment and we looking forward to further developing this
area. We would like to ask you (as our community) to help us by sponsoring a tree for our orchard. We are
looking for the following levels of sponsorship:
5 x $500 Gold Level 30 x $200 Silver Level Unlimited x $50 Bronze
We intend to make a plaque celebrating our kind donors which will be installed on one of the retaining
walls. Please help us if you can, your generosity would make a difference to our children’s learning
environment.
We are developing a planting plan for this area and intend to start planting when the weather gets cooler
so the plants have a good chance of survival.
Building Update
It’s great to see that the ground work has started on Stage 4 of the
redevelopment. We look forward to watching the continued
progress. This stage is projected to be complete late in Term 3.
Athletics
This event will be held at Newtown Park on the 26th March. Kiwi, Takahe and Moa students will leave school
by bus between 9.00am and 9.15am, leaving Newtown Park around 2.20pm to return to school. The Tui
syndicate are leaving school at 9:40am and bus back at 12:40pm.
We encourage you to come and watch and support your child/family participate in various track and field
events.
Children - support your house by coming in your house coloured sports attire, along with an energy packed
lunchbox and plenty of water (Remember to wear your House T-shirts!
Welcome
We would like to send out a warm welcome to the following new students and their families – Belle Bulled
(Rm 2) and Henry Bush-King (Room 1).
Equestrian News
We would like to congratulate Chloe Armstrong who recently competed as an individual representing
Brooklyn School at the Otaki College Interschool Show Jumping Day 2020 and won Junior Reserve
Champion. Way to go Chloe!
Community Notices
Come and play hockey with the Geckos Hockey Club at the
Brooklyn Bowling Club astro turf at Tanera Park.
Tuesdays 4-5pm for yr7/8, 5 -6pm for yr 5/6
Fridays 4-5pm for yr 1-4
Give it a go! ust turn up on practice day and we take it from
there. We provide sticks and balls.
More info about Wellington's best little hockey club: https://www.facebook.com/geckoshockeyclub/
