Otawhito Year 5/6 Learning Team 
Term 1 2016
Dear Parents/Caregivers;
Welcome to another year at Halswell School! We have lots of exciting things coming up, including swimming sports and camp. It’s great to see the children returning from their holiday excited and enthusiastic about the upcoming term.
A special welcome to our new families (we have quite a few!) The children have done a wonderful job of settling into their new environment. We are also lucky enough to have some new staff in Otawhito - Tash Fraser, Leigh Hurford and Jeneane Jefferson.
Team organisation
Like last year, we operate as two Studios - Kowhai and Koreke. Your child has been assigned to a teacher, but will be taught by all of the teachers in the Studio on a daily basis and at times we interchange across the whole team.
NB: Jeneane releases Tash (T31) on Tuesdays.
Carolyn (T32) works Mon/Tues/Wed and Leigh takes T32 on Thursdays and Fridays.
Anita is released on Thursdays by Sam Jack in Term 1.
Term 1 topics
Maths: Statistics, Whole number knowledge
Arts: Self portraits
Writing: Recounts, Memoirs (writing about “Me”)
Spelling - the children will be given levelled lists of words in their notebooks. Please check that these are at home for the children to practise during the week.
PE/sport: Small ball skills
Health: Kia Kaha, Keeping Ourselves Safe (including Cybersafety)
Science/Social Sciences: NZ Geology (Camp related)
Dates for your diary:
School Triathlon: Wednesday 10th Feb
Meet the Team: Wednesday 10th Feb
School Swimming sports: Monday 15th Feb
Y5/6 Keeping Ourselves Safe Programme: 29 Feb - 3 March
Zone Swimming: Thursday 10th March
Easter: Friday 24th March - Tuesday 29th March
Camp T30, T35: Monday 4th-6th April
Camp T31, T32, T33: Monday 11th - 13th April
Canterbury Swimming: Thursday 7th April
End of Term 1: Friday 15th April
Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS)
As part of our Health and PE curriculum, Constable Ross will be coming in to do 3 KOS sessions (see dates in the list above) with each T Group. The topics he will cover are:
The Real World - the students will identify behaviours of other people that make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable and distinguish between touch they like, touch they don’t like, and touch that confuses them.
About Abuse - write a definition of abuse, recognise and identify different types of abuse and explain that abuse is wrong and must be reported.
The Digital World - the students will identify various digital technologies, describe how and when they use these technologies and give some safety rules for using digital technologies.
Constable Ross does an excellent job of delivering these sessions and there is a lot of valuable discussion that results from them. We encourage parents to discuss with the children what they have learnt.
Please feel free to see your T group teacher if you would like further information about the content of the lessons.
Camp fundraising
Well done to all of the children and families who participated in the “General-Knowledge-Athon” last year. The children worked really hard to learn the facts and many children raised significant amounts of money to put towards their camp.
In the next couple of weeks you will receive more information regarding camp. This will include the camp cost ($175 minus any fundraising money), consent form and medical form and a gear list. Please keep an eye out for these important notices.
ACTIVE
This term we are focussing on Interactors and Versatile Players. The children will be developing and working towards goals related to these ACTIVE characteristics. A lot of the goal setting will relate to the opportunities at camp, as well as working effectively in an MLE and developing self management and social skills. You may like to discuss with your child what their goals are and how they are progressing towards them.
Contact details
Please ensure that we have your correct contact details (phone and email). These can be updated at the office if necessary.
Please feel free to speak to any of the teachers if you wish to know more about the upcoming term. Also, keep an eye on our Otawhito blog http://hs-sb-otawhito.blogspot.co.nz/ to see what we have been up to.
Kind regards
Anita, Deb, Carolyn, Chris, Tash, Leigh and Jeneane.
Otawhito (Y5/6) Teachers
