MBAS Newsletter, Term 4, Week 7, 29th Nov 2024

MBAS Calendar

Kia Ora tātou – Greetings to you all

From the Middle Years

As we head towards our final two weeks our days are still jam packed and we encourage you to ensure your child attends until the very last day. This week has been a busy one with loads of sports events and activities for the students and the big preparation for our twilight Gala on Friday after school. A reminder that school will end at 2pm so that staff can get ready for the Gala to open at 3pm. Buses will run as per Wednesday times. This is an exciting event that I am sure will bring back many childhood memories for a number of you. Please come and enjoy some of the festivities with your children. 

A heads-up that our Middle Years final celebrations of learning will be on Thursday the 12th of December. Year 7&8 celebration of learning will start at 11am, if you are attending you will be able to take your child home with you afterwards. All other students will be supervised in their classes until home time at 3:05pm. The Year 9 &10 celebration of learning will be at 1pm.  You are all very welcome to attend.  

As I prepare to leave my position as Deputy Principal of the Middle Years at the end of this year, I have reflected on the incredible memories we have made together. I am grateful to have been a part of your children's learning journeys and it has been a privilege to watch them grow and develop and achieve success. To all of our students, keep dreaming big and support each other to achieve your goals. To the parents and caregivers, keep supporting your children to be the best they can be.  

"For every ending there is a new beginning" - I wish our new DP the very best.

I wish all of the MBAS community a well deserved and great Christmas break.

Ka kite anō
Jenny Bloom 
Deputy Principal - Middle Years 

Attendance Matters!

Overview of attendance for Schools in New Zealand

In Term 3 of 2024 51.3% of students met the criteria for regular attendance at schools and kura. This is an increase of 5.3 percentage points from Term 3 2023.

Short-term illness/medical absences continued to be the main driver of non-attendance (with contributing factors including COVID-19 in the community and other seasonal illnesses).

Term 3 2024 saw a decrease in both justified absences and unjustified absences, making up 7.7% and 5.3% of term time in Term 3 2024 down from 8.3% and 6.2% of term time respectively in Term 3 2023.

Regular attendance from the Ministry of Education is 90% or higher. 

 Here is our student data for those who have attended this year to date at 90% or higher.

Year 1, 19 students from 77

Year 2, 25 students from 70

Year 3, 28 students from 69

Year 4, 21 students from 52

Year 5, 32 students from 60

Year 6, 13 students from 40 

Year 7, 38 students from 77

Year 8, 23 students from 57

Year 9, 25 students from 97

Year 10, 25 students from 89

Year 11, 33 students from 97

Year 12, 35 students from 81

Year 13, 10 students from 47 

Library Book Return

All MBAS library books need to be returned ASAP to avoid any possible fees. The Library is currently undertaking its annual stocktake and there are no more book loans for 2024. A bill may be charged for any books not returned.

Kindo School Payments Now Live!

MBAS Business - Whitianga Christmas Night Market

Some of the year 9 and 10 Business and Enterprise students have been gearing up for the Whitianga Christmas Night Market happening this Saturday after the Christmas parade, down town from 4pm. We will be at a stall that has some of the following fabulous products pictured for sale. Come and join us and grab yourself a bargain, buy local and support these young entrepreneurs!

Room 33 - Dame Whina Cooper

Room 33 has learnt about Dame Whina Cooper and the path she has paved. We have revisited the treaty of Waitangi, along with the treaty tribunal and what that was designed for.

On Monday, we spoke about the current hīkoi and why people are protesting. Students were aware of the gathering that was happening here in town at 12pm and wanted to attend. We couldn’t make this happen with our timeframe so they problem solved and said “let’s walk at school around the field” so that’s what we did. Room 33 went out to our field today and walked for 20 mins then visited puahape. In the 20mins we achieved 1.2ks our students then went away and compared our 1.2ks with Dame Whinas walk of 1,100km.
(This walk was an option for our students)

During our walk I posed some questions to our tamariki:
- what do you think the weather was like?
- do you think she would have kept walking in the rain?
-do you think she was arguing or bickering with others during the walk?
- why do you think she made a big impact?

Without any direction our students connected and linked arms with each other to show their unity. It was a heart warming moment to experience and to have other classes join us was awesome. Our tamariki soak up all that is happening outside of school, they are listening and understanding.

M3 - Gala Prep

Gala prep underway in M3. We were busy painting signs to advertise our bake sale. We are looking forward to seeing all the yummy baking on Friday and supporting our Twilight Gala event.

M8 - Science

M8 are learning about the different types of rocks. Here they are excavating for fossils.

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M10 - Tuakana

We had a fun time this week with our tuakana. We did some probability with a die, seeing if we could predict the pattern of the die roll. Some tried it out with different dice. Then some pānui to finish off. On Rāmere we will be writing letters to our next year teachers with our tuakana.

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Nurses Notes

FREE PERIOD PRODUCTS IN SCHOOLS

DID YOU KNOW PADS, TAMPONS AND LINERS ARE ALL FREE

 BRING YOUR BAG AND STOCK UP

          AVAILABLE IN CABINET OUTSIDE NURSES ROOM – JUST HELP YOURSELF

ALSO AVAILABLE - FROM BASKETS IN THE LIBRARY, SCHOOL OFFICE

AND THE BATHROOM NEXT TO THE NURSES ROOM IN THE RANGIMARIE CENTRE

Community Notices

The Mercury Bay Art Escape Trust Scholarship

Check out the Mercury Bay Art Escape sponsorship recipients and their journeys on the website link below.

https://www.mercurybay-artescape.com/scholarship-programme

Cooks Got Talent

Skool Loop - One Stop School Information App