Roundabout Reports

April

 

Krypton Factor 2015
by Claudia and Dan

 

The Krypton Factor was held on the 22nd March, which was luckily enough a sunny Sunday morning. Each year the Krypton Factor is held at a different school and this year it was taking place at Konini Primary School. This event, run by the Henderson Lions Club is exclusively for West Auckland schools.

 

Woodlands Park School has entered the Krypton Factor for several years and always enjoyed the day’s competitions. This year we again sent 2 teams of eight, with children from Year 3 to Year 6. The day was spent competing in fun-filled, mind bending activities: from feeding the worm to general knowledge quizzes like matching country’s names and flags on a world map. We participated in 12 activities throughout the day competing against Konini School and Laingholm...although the points we earned from each activity put us in the competition against 23 schools.

 

We had a great day and were thrilled to find out that one of our teams came 2nd in overall winners, Summerland came 1st and Edmonton came 3rd. And well done to Laingholm for winning the best supporters team.

 

ANZAC Service @ WPS
At 1.30pm on Friday 24th April Woodlands Park School assembled in their school hall for an important ANZAC Remembrance Ceremony. We all felt very thankful for the services that past and present soldiers had done for us.
We will remember them.

 

 

Swimming Sports
by Rebecca & Arlo

 

Every year Woodlands Park School competes in the inter-school swimming sports along with other West Auckland schools. This year, on the 25th of March 2015, David Butterworth and Natasha Robinson (the sports teachers) organised a team to compete at West Wave in Henderson. Year’s 3 to 6 are allowed to try out and compete. The strokes were front kicking, free style, back stroke, back sculling, breast stroke and some relays.

 

We came 4th place in the first division. There is also a second division with four other schools. We swam 25 metres apart from the championships where you swim 50 metres more. We did an awesome job and came one step above last year! The team included over 20 people, with 1 teacher and lots of parent helpers. We tried our best and by the end of the day our throats were sore with cheering each other on. We thank all the people who helped us have a successful day! And well done to every other school that competed!

 

 

 

Working on our newest school mural
Over Term 1 and Term 2 a group of dedicated students have been working with artist Sue Newby (one of our WPS parents) on our latest school mural. It is an artwork depicting our school pepeha.

Within the pepeha you will see the Auckland City in the distance and to one side Titirangi roundabout and Lopdell House…then in the centre front you will see the Waitakere Ranges,  Manukau Harbour and the Waituna Stream that runs around Woodlands Park School. There are images within the pepeha that are significant to Woodlands Park School: tuna, koru, waka, Drazil one of our kaitiaki, kete representing learning at our school and hibiscus flowers linking our Pasifika whanu.

This new mural will be mounted on one of our school buildings facing the road for all our community to see.

 

 

May

New Teacher @ Woodlands Park: Kit McIntyre
Interviewed by Rebecca, Claudia and Arlo

  1. What has drawn you to teaching at WPS?
    I came here because the school has such an excellent reputation and I really wanted to teach you children.

  2. What were your first thoughts about WPS?
    Oh…how friendly everybody was and how well-behaved the students were. And how everything was soooo well organised.

  3. What are some of the challenges you have found teaching at WPS?
    I haven’t found any challenges.

  4. What do you love about teaching…and what do you hope for your students?
    I love watching children learn new things.
    I love children using their own thinking skills. I hope that they will use their own thinking skills in everything they do.

  5. Why do you enjoy teaching?
    I love teaching and sharing science and I also love sharing art.

 

The Amazing Vintage Bike Show
Reported by: Dylan and Dan

On the 8th of May a vintage bike collector called Shane came to Woodlands Park School. This programme was a cool part of the Travelwise learning programme run by Auckland Transport.

Shane came to our school to encourage us to learn more about the history of bikes and to wear safety gear while riding (did you know that the helmet was invented only about 10 years ago?). He also showed some of his great collection, while showing us his impressive bikes he did some amazing tricks and skills on some of the vintage bikes, like the penny farthing. Shane had some cool but scary ways of getting off the penny farthing. The oldest bike had no pedals so it went downhill fast.

 

Welcome Back Mrs Marshall!
Reported by Isabelle and Josefine

Term 2 is well underway and we have welcomed back Mrs Marshall. It is a pleasure to have Mrs Marshall teaching our newest new children again. Room 16, otherwise known as the Butterfly Room has started with 7 children and will fill up as Term 2 progresses.

Everyone in the Butterfly Room has been busy, busy, busy learning how books work, using lots of rhyming, moving to sounds in words and syllables, writing with Casey the Caterpillar and learning to count.

 

Building Update: