Week 2 term 2 2023
Kia ora koutou,
Welcome back to term 2 2023. It is May already and winter sports are beginning. Maeroa has teams in the following competitions: netball, basketball, hockey, indoor soccer, indoor cricket, badminton, and volleyball. An exciting time as the competitions begin this week.
Thank you so much to all the parents/whaanau that have stepped up to support with coaching and managing teams, sport at Maeroa would not be possible to the extent it is without your support. We are very appreciative of you giving your time and energy to our students.
Parents, if your child is in a school team please be sure to thank the coach and the manager for committing to coaching and organising your child's team - it is a big commitment for these people. Some of these people are new to coaching, we want their experience to be a positive one. They need your support in ensuring your child is present at practices and games.
Whether they're playing netball or the Warriors, your child can learn a lot from a great coach.
Support your athlete — and the whole team — by assisting the coach from the sidelines.
- Make sure your child has what they need. If your child is properly equipped, their coach can concentrate on more important matters like safety, teamwork, and skill-building.
- Let the coach do the work. Nothing stresses a coach out more than having too many helpers on the field. Realize that they know how to best support your child's performance. Let him do his job.
- Be aware of the coach's rules. Touch base with your child and the coach about expectations. If you disagree with anything, speak with the coach privately — out of earshot of the kids.
- Ask how you can help. The coach does a lot of work, on and off the field. Ask what you can do to lighten his/her load (without taking over).
- Learn how to handle injuries. Accidents happen. Make sure that you're prepared for them by having first aid supplies at home and in your car.
- Foster your child's fitness. The coach can only transform your child so much. Be aware of their eating habits and encourage good health. Exercise with them, whether it's a jog around the block or a lap in the pool.
- Notice your child's behavior. If they act unfairly to their teammates during the game or don't give the coach their full attention, talk to them later about good sportsmanship and respect.
- Have fun. Maintain a sense of humor, even in the face of defeat. Keep the mood light. "I'm convinced a kid will play all day if it's fun. When it stops being fun and it's about a parent's own dreams, forget it," says Tom Shaw, a three-time Super Bowl-winning conditioning coach.
For your information, I am attaching the Sports Selection Policy.
Ngaa mihi nui
Susan Wood - Principal
Maeroa Intermediate Sports Selection Policy
Introduction:
At Maeroa we believe in the value of Sport and the positive impact it has on our students during the two years they are with us.
We value and promote healthy competition and believe that new skills, attributes, and character are built through these experiences, especially when partaking in a competitive sport.
We offer a large variety of different sports across a variety of different levels for both boys and girls. We have a number of committed staff and parents who are enthusiastic about developing sport at Maeroa; who volunteer their time and effort to organise the implementation of different sports teams into the Hamilton/Waikato weekly and annual competitions. When taking on the coaching or managing of a team, members of staff and parents do so with the expectation that the experience will be a rewarding one. They aim to coach students to the best of their ability and aim to instill the values of good sportsmanship and fair play.
All Coaches who have been assigned to our top sports teams have been carefully selected based on their experience, knowledge, aptitude, and passion they have within that sport. They have also given up their own time to do this.
Our aim regarding the selection of Maeroa Intermediate teams is to put together our strongest team for each sport that we wish to be competitive in, sometimes students want to be in teams for the social interactions.
This is based on the following parameters; ability, experience, fitness, commitment, dedication, and sportspersonship.
In the case where there are multiple teams within a sport, it is important that each student trialing is accurately placed in the team that is at their ability or sometimes with their friendship group to have the opportunity to be successful and enjoy their sport.
Pre-trial Procedure
As we have a roll of 700 students it is important that significant notice is given to students prior to trials of a particular sport. Communication of upcoming sports is made to parents and students through our daily notices, assemblies, email, and on our school website.
Trial Procedure
With often large numbers keen to try out for most sports, and only limited numbers available in each team, it is important that the following trial procedure is followed:
● Communication is evident, informing the students of when trials will be taking place, where and what the students will need to bring.
● Each student trialing for a particular sport should be seen in action (on the field/turf/court) for a sufficient amount of time, this is based on the selector’s discretion.
Students who have chosen not to play for our school teams throughout the year including term 1 will not be considered for our AIMS teams, unless they play for a sporting code where Maeroa does not enter a team in the competition e.g. squash, BMX, tennis, mountain biking, swimming.
1. Non-attendance at Trials Players unable to attend or who have missed a trial/s for any reason will still have a small opportunity to be considered for the team.
Communication of unavailability for trial/s must have been provided in advance of the trial date.
Any information provided by the student/parents on the experience/skill related to the given sport will be considered by the selector(s).
If a player is unable to attend a trial due to injury/illness or other circumstances beyond their control:
● Where possible the player will be invited to attend another trial.
● If this is not possible, the selectors will consider past experience of that player.
If a student has missed a trial due to ‘forgetting’:
● The selectors will base all judgments on the player’s ability on what they have seen in other trials.
● Extra time or consideration will not be given to a player if they have missed a trial on their own accord.
Naming of Teams
● The selector will announce the team either through the daily notices or at a meeting that is called for the players to attend.
● It is emphasised that when a student is named in a team that they are committed to the team and will ensure they attend all training, showing determination and a positive attitude at all times.
● If a player is unable to make a training, communication must be made to the coach/manager prior to the training.
● Failure to adhere to the above two bullet points may result in being asked to explain reasons for behaviour and furthermore could be potentially dropped from the team.
● Coaches are sensitive to the fact that it can be disheartening for a student not to be selected for a team. The coach can explain to the student why this has happened if the need arises.
Team Selection:
During Competition Team selection is at the discretion of the coach and is generally based on the competition at hand.
● While playing the most competitive team for each game to ensure success is the first choice, at times, Coaches will use their judgment and may sometimes choose to give other students who may be slightly weaker the chance of playing. At this level, we try to tread the path between encouraging excellence and giving opportunities for all.
● Team selection and management at any level of competition is the right of the team coach or coaches. During the competitive season, parents may talk to a coach about how their child is getting on or how he or she might make further progress, but a parent should not try to influence team selection.
● If a parent is concerned with the coaching or managing of the team, they can address this issue with the Code coordinator of that particular sport or one of the Deputy Principals.
● If a parent is still concerned with the outcome they are encouraged to put the concern in writing and send it to the Principal. If after the trialing process, a parent is concerned about the placement or non-placement of their child in a particular team, it is important to remember that while our selectors will adhere closely to this policy, it is acknowledged that, there will be, at times, extremely difficult choices to be made which will require the selectors to exercise their discretion and judgment.
Please note payment of fees is required before the start of the competition.
Providing the selectors/coaches have properly considered the criteria and considerations set out in this policy, and have exercised their discretion and judgment in good faith, then they will have fulfilled all of their obligations under this policy.
School Attendance Matters
ATTENDANCE - The Ministry of Education (MOE) has set targets to improve student attendance across New Zealand schools as currently there are many students not attending school regularly. The Government target by 2024 is to have 70% of students attending regularly which is 91%-100%. On average, this means attending at least 9 days a fortnight. The table shows Maeroa Intermediate’s current attendance data in relation to MOE targets. Maeroa Intermediate has engaged with Blue Light Attendance Services to support us in lifting the attendance rates of students who are moderately and chronically absent. We are also part of a Ministry initiative, with several other schools, working to reengage students who are not currently on any school roll. It is important that all students attend school regularly unless they are unwell or absent for a justified reason. As a school many hours are spent on attendance and in classrooms teachers are working really hard to catch students up on learning activities they have missed out on due to absence. Please work in partnership with us by ensuring your child is at school on time every day. Poor attendance also has an impact on student well-being, confidence, social interactions and behaviour.
It is important for whaanau to ensure their children are at school and if they are not at school contact us to let us know where they are.
ANZAC Day Service
Two of our wonderful students represented our school at the ANZAC Service at the Cenotaph in River Road along with many other schools and people who attended.
Thank you to Boston Kerapa and Peata McMillan Room 47/48 who represented us with great pride. Thank you to Mrs Hollinger who organised our school wreath and supported our students on the day.
Girls' Self Defence
We have been fortunate to obtain funding to provide Self Defence lessons with a trained facilitator for all our Year 8 girls. Our girls have been attending this week and will continue next week.
The kaiako is a qualified and experienced Personal Safety Educator. She is helping students learn ways of dealing with unsafe people, situations, and threats to their safety - such as dealing with acquaintance and stranger attacks, being followed, and issues relating to cyber safety,
This includes learning how to give clear boundaries and messages to those known and unknown to them when feeling unsafe, trusting their feelings, and listening to their instincts. The course also covers identifying unhealthy and abusive relationships while supporting them to build healthy and respectful relationships.
The course emphasises how students can 'think' their way out of a threatening situation, and how important it is to tell a safe adult if something happens.
The feedback from our girls who have completed the course so far has been extremely positive.
Online Safety Evening
We are trying to make this opportunity easier for you to attend; we are providing teachers/staff to supervise your children in our school library. This evening is unsuitable for children or students at Maeroa to attend. You can leave your child safely with our staff in the school library.
There will be a lucky draw of 10 x $50 vouchers for Pak and Save for parents who attend.
A special pizza lunch for the class that has the most parents attend this evening.
We really want you to attend this evening. It is hard for parents to parent during these times of the internet and social media. We all need to upskill ourselves in how we can navigate our way through this with our children. We owe it to our children, our parenting, and our community to upskill ourselves.
Koru Badges
Congratulations to the following recipients of Koru Badges over the last few weeks.
Bronze: Zoe Fitzwater, Nesha Krishna, Hadlee Kirkby, Rishu Kataria, Jas Yeates, Amberli Sio Lealiifano, Anahera Beattie, Eva O'Connor, Rion Western-Arnold, Arya Harish, Khlie Woodward, Poppy Pye, Teerthaa Bhaskararalhan, Kimberlee Taylor, Nina Mayo, Jayden Le gros, Elias Piripi, Stevie Neha, Neveah Mathewson, Lockie McGowan, Sasha Duthie, Shiloh Bowden, Lydia Waldron, Dayo Temitope, Tahj Amy, Rickaya Coleman.
Silver: Javahn Leilua, Tyler Horscroft-Hughes, Anahera Beattie, Evie Annabell, Lucy Winter, Kimberlee Taylor, Neveah Mathewson, Kelly Williams, Jasmine Yeates, Sam Cabalit, Siri Combs, Adanna Mayers, Neha Krishna.
Gold: Taylor Clark, Ruby McLuskie.
Platinum: Sadie Muhlmann-Brown, Ruby McLuskie.
Star: Elsie Alexander.
Super Star: Elsie Alexander (first one for 2023)
“A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement.” — Bo Bennett
Maeroa Intermediate Gully Restoration Project April Newsletter 2023
Our Gully Restoration Vision
An ‘outdoor classroom’ space for students.
Planting a variety of native trees.
Controlling erosion.
Creating habitats for a wide range of wildlife.
Improving the water quality of the stream.
After-School Gully Workshops
We continue to have a committed group of students who enjoy working in the gully for a few hours after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Weeding and rubbish removal was our focus in the first few months but with the change in season, we are now well into planting mode. Students are learning the names of trees and the specific conditions they need to grow and flourish.
Saturday Working Bee
We have had amazing support from whanau at the end of the month Saturday working bees. On the 25 March we smashed our volunteer record with 60 participants and on 29 April we had 19 volunteers. In March we cleared a large new section, laid natural weed matting, and continued to weed around the trees planted last year. In April we planted a large number of trees in a shady area of the gully. This area was a real challenge to plant as it was very steep and the soil was dry. Special thanks to Dave Norris from Ecolynx who joined us for the morning and donated a number of karaka trees.
Tackling Tradescantia
Earlier this year Mrs Hollinger's class spent time learning about a beetle that was released into the gully in 2020 to eat a pest plant, Tradescantia. Adrienne Grant from EnviroSchools has worked with this class to introduce the Tradescantia Yellow Leaf Spot fungus into our gully to also help control this pest plant. It will be interesting to see the combined effects of the beetles and fungus on this problem weed in our gully.
Rat Trapping
Term 1 saw the trapping of 11 rats. Students work with a buddy to manage a numbered trap and they check these during the morning tea break. We are using peanut butter in the trap and students position them in spots where they are likely to catch a rat. We have made adjustments to the traps to ensure the rat is swiftly dispatched in a humane way. This programme is run by student leaders Jas and Elsie. They train the group and are looking forward to training new recruits in term 2.
If you have any suggestions or are able to support our Gully Restoration Project in any way, we would like to hear from you.
The next Saturday Working Bees will be on the 27 May and 24 June, 9-12pm.
“Ma mahi tahi taatou- mo te oranga o te katoa”
We should work together- for the well-being of everyone!
Julie Yeoman
Our Gully Project
Environmental Endeavours at Maeroa
Gully Restoration Project
What an awesome start to 2023 and the Gully Restoration Project!
By the end of this term, we would have had 17 after-school workshops, on Tuesday and Thursday, with an average of 18 students participating each afternoon. Many of these students have now earned 3 Enviro Koru flashes.
Several classes have provided service to the gully. Mrs Hollinger's class became beetle-catching experts; Whaea Tash’s class is starting water quality checks; Rooms 70/71 and Room 66 have been clearing weeds and rubbish from the gully; and Ms. Rye’s and Mr Tudreu’s class have moved a truckload of drainage metal to the bottom of the gully.
We held Saturday Working Bees on 25 February and 25 March and what an amazing turnout! We had 41 volunteers at the first one and 60 people at the last one- this is the largest number of volunteers since our project began in September 2020. Our school is very lucky to have fantastic students and whanau who are willing to be involved in environmental projects!
With everyone's support, we have made a huge difference in removing invasive weeds and dumped rubbish. Plastic and glass continue to be the most common items removed but students at the last working bee were astonished to uncover a car door!. Our Autumn planting programme is about to start which is an exciting and rewarding part of a restoration project.
A huge thank you to everyone who has volunteered so far. Our next Saturday Working Bees will be 29 April and 27 May, 9am-12pm.
Rat Trapping
We have started term 1 well with the trapping of 11 rats. Students work alongside a buddy to manage a numbered trap and they check these each morning tea break. We are using peanut butter in the trap itself, and students position these where they think they will catch a rat. We have had to make adjustments to the traps to ensure the rat is swiftly dispatched in the most humane way possible. We have to acknowledge the amazing team of Chole and Shylaco. These students have caught the most rats this term. This programme is run by Jas and Elsie. They train the group, monitor attendance, and complete Enviro cards for teacher sign-off. We are looking forward to training the new recruits for term 2.
Honey Bees
During March a team of 5 students, Mrs J and Whaea Oriana extracted our first harvest of honey for this year. Two students from the group presented a powerpoint about this at the Assembly. The students will be given the opportunity to sell the honey to the community. Our group meets every Friday during sportsbreak. Our next jobs are to weed the gardens around the beehives, clean up old frames, tidy our bee equipment and clean the wax we have collected.
Butterfly Habitat
This term we started a Monarch Butterfly Habitat. At our first meeting, we discussed Why? Who? Where? When? What? questions. We meet every Thursday during sportbreak in the butterfly habitat area. We have collected seeds from existing swan plants, laid them out in the sun to dry, and sowed them. We searched for self-sown swan plant seedlings to transfer into the habitat area. So far we have 5 knee-high swan plants in the habitat area and the seeds we sowed have germinated. Matua Kelly and Siri Combs have bought a few Monarch caterpillars to the school to place on our plants. Recently we have seen a couple of Monarch Butterflies and sighted several baby caterpillars.
Chickens and Ducks
We have two new additions to our flock of feathers. Welsh Harlequin’s- a drake and hen. At present a small group of student helpers meet the needs of our feathered friends twice daily. Their jobs consist of changing water, filling feeders, cleaning the roosting area, collecting eggs, feeding them lunch scraps, raking up food that is not eaten, and mowing the lawns. Any jobs that take longer than the sportsbreak Whaea Oriana does after school on a Monday or Thursday.
Recycling
Every class and office area in our school recycle paper, glass, tins, and plastics, and many classes are also collecting soft plastics. Our food scraps are given to our school chickens and ducks, and the rest is collected by a local pig farmer. We would like to encourage families to think about the packaging that surrounds many snack foods- this is one of the plastics that often gets blown into gullies and waterways which creates major problems. Soft plastics are now collected at many Countdown Supermarkets and the Warehouse, and these are recycled into fence posts or second-life plastics.
Maeroa Environment Endeavours
Road Safety
We have a crossing in Churchill Avenue which we expect all of our students to use before and after school. I have noticed some parents parking on the opposite side of the road from the school and calling their children across to their cars during very busy road times. This is disappointing as we want our students to be safe and use the crossing.
We have also received reports of our students not behaving in safe ways around the roads to and from school. Please speak with your child about being a safe cyclist, scooter rider, and pedestrian. We do talk to them at school about these things but we also know that the emerging adolescent brain needs reminding about road safety often.
Parking
Please do not park on the yellow lines along Churchill Avenue or across or in our neighbours' driveways. It is not fair on our neighbours trying to access their properties.
Uniform
As the weather gets colder it is important that our students remain in their school uniforms when coming to school. If your child does not have a school sweatshirt we may be able to help them, we have a few sweatshirts in our backroom that we are happy to give to students who need them.
Shoes
All students must wear correct footwear either sandals without socks or completely black shoes and socks. Socks can be white, navy or black. Long socks can also be worn as well as normal socks.
If you are having difficulty sourcing totally black shoes we are able to provide them at school. Just come to the school office.
Crocs - must be worn with the back strap.
Pantyhose/socks
Students may also wear opaque thick black or navy pantyhose during the winter months. These are pantyhose not exercise tights.
Students may also wear singlets or thermals under their shirts but these are not to be showing - not long sleeves hanging out of the shirt sleeves or hanging out the bottom of their shirts.
Hair and Make up
Shoulder-length hair must be tied up. No makeup is permitted.
Jewellery
One small pair of stud earrings may be worn. A wrist watch can be worn. A necklace of cultural or religious significance is permitted.
Choir
Mrs Vasa Southen has started in our school working with our choir and students interested in singing. We are really looking forward to our choir performing in the future.
Upcoming Events
Waikato Intermediate Fixtures coming up in term 2:
- Football - Tuesday 9 May Jansen Park
- Hockey - 30 May Innes Common Turf Hockey
- Arts Day - 1 June Hamilton Junior High
- Futsal - 13 June The Peak Rototuna
- Chess - 15 June Berkley Normal School
- 1st XV Rugby - 20 June Te Awamutu
- Basketball - 27 June The Peak Rototuna
Teachers in charge of these sports will be organising the teams for these fixtures.
Community Notices
MELVILLE HIGH & INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS CELEBRATING 60 YEARS
FRIDAY 23 and SATURDAY 24 JUNE 2023
Join Melville Intermediate and High Schools celebration of 60 years of schooling and service to our community. Information and registration available at; [Registrations open 11 May]
www.melville-high.school.nz OR www.melvilleintermediate.school.nz