MISSION STATEMENT. Matamata Christian School, together with the parents, work to provide a Christ-centred education based on Biblical foundations.

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1 MISSION STATEMENT Matamata Christian School, together with the parents, work to provide a Christ-centred education based on Biblical foundations. We strive for personal excellence in the academic, spiritual, physical and emotional realms. Weeks Term 4 10 November IN THIS ISSUE: Developing Breakthrough See p2 Year 6/7 Parent Meetings See p3 Can You Spare Us Some Help? See p4 CONGRATULATIONS TO MATAMATA CHRISTIAN SCHOOL STAFF Last Friday a number of our staff were awarded their bronze medal for three years of Bible study. For a number of years renown international Bible teacher, Dr Chuck Missler, and his organisation, the Koinonia Institute, have been helping our central North Island group of Christian schools by providing our school staff with their Bible development. The Institute is a major online Bible school and think tank for Christian issues and development. Dr Missler has taken a personal interest in our schools and has opened the full resources of his Institute to help develop our Christian schools network. All of our staff have been involved in Bible development with each member studying either in their first, second, third or fourth year. At the end of three years they reach their first milestone, a bronze medal. To achieve this they have studied an Old and New Testament Survey, first level Bible Prophecies, and Spiritual Disciplines. Last week from our school we celebrated this milestone with Michele Lee (our Deputy Principal), Kayla Uerata (relief teacher), Angela Jones (Chaplain), Trish Reichardt (Secretary) and Spence Reichardt (Chairperson of the Association). Next year they will go on to study the book of Genesis and our school will have more staff coming through. Photo: Bronze medalists Spence and Trish Reichardt, Kayla Uerata and Michele Lee. Angela Jones is absent. LIGHT PARTY CELEBRATIONS On the 31st of October our school ran a Halloween outreach in our Matamata community giving away lollies, information about Halloween and the Good News about what Jesus has done for each of us. Going door-to-door our Year 7 and 8 students gave away packs to over 200 households. The school also ran a highly successful Light Party with a disco, plenty of food and lollies, games and a bouncy castle. This once again proved to be a very popular night pulling in many of the towns young people celebrating good and keeping them off the streets. Our sincerest thanks go to Soul Church, Matamata Bible Chapel, and the Union Parish Church for their huge generosity in helping the school make the Light Party happen. Contact Information: Phone: office@matamata.school.nz Website:

2 From the Principal s Desk This week we are delighted to welcome Elizabeth Thatcher to Room 1. Elizabeth is the younger sister of Joshua who is in Room 2, and the latest recruit to our Junior class. As we quickly approach the end of the school year I want to take the opportunity to share with you some of the new things we are working on to take our school and learning to the next level. This term you will have noticed something new we have been trying out across the school called Breakthrough. This is a new take on our traditional Inquiry Learning projects we have run in the past. Breakthrough involves our students problem solving an issue or exploring, conceptualising, researching, creating, adapting and improving. We have introduced this recently to help students develop a range of skills in these areas and challenge their learning in a fresh way. This term our curriculum focus has been on Technology. We set a problem and context - we believe that our school grounds are landscaped and very well laid out but some of our areas are a little bland. So, students were challenged to work out how they could improve our environments through long lasting garden art or features that would help inspire. We have wanted them to be able to create something that they can look back on long term and say they created or had a hand in this. Our Juniors and middle class have been creating smaller scale items such as pavers painted into fractions that support learners understanding of maths, painting an outdoor checkers board on the pathway and creating the pieces to play, creating signage to be put into the gardens that promote the school s core values, and individual pieces of outdoor art. In fact what has really stood out is how students have wanted to create a lot of the items to support learning and support the school s special character values. Senior students have taken on an even bigger challenge. Based on the premise that research says that when we move outside to do some of our learning our academic achievement lifts, they have been designing an outside classroom. They have taken an unused corner of the school and are trying to create a space where up to a whole class can go outside to learn. They are creating flooring and outside furniture from recycled material and have even recycled an old blackboard to mount on the side of the building. Prayer Requests... We appreciate your prayers for the school. Here s what s big on our minds at the moment: That the development of our modern learning environment will create powerful learning for every student. That the new Breakthrough learning programme will finish well, be enjoyed by every student and again create powerful learning experiences. That God will provide the very best Year 1/2 teacher for us for That the Keeping Ourselves Safe unit we are about to teach will equip our students positively in life. Service Quote The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was, If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But the good Samaritan reversed the question, If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? We are looking forward to seeing how this finishes up. Our students are excited and know this is something they have created, will use and forms part of a legacy they will leave behind. All of our students have been highly motivated over this Breakthrough unit. It seems to have captured their imaginations and they have been excited by the fact that we re not just talking about this, but they re actually seeing it develop from a plan and following it through to an end product. This is our first Breakthrough project and we expect that it will lead into further ongoing projects over the years to come. Breakthrough will not always take this form in the future. It is likely that we will relate it closely to our other curriculum topics such as Social Studies and Science as well as Technology too. It will take the form of discovery and creating and will often be about problem solving. It will be school wide and not just limited to our older students. Breakthrough is set to become a further innovative and exciting part of the curriculum we run here at Matamata Christian School. This is part of the development we are doing with the new modern learning environments we are creating. In the next issue of the newsletter I will share with you another part of our modern learning environment development - Own Your Own Devices. There is a parent meeting on Thursday this week about this for parents of current Year 6 and 7 students. If you have a child who will be in our Intermediate class next year please try to join us for this very important meeting. God bless Alistair Paterson

3 News... OWN YOUR OWN DEVICES PARENT NIGHT YEAR 6 AND 7 For a long time now we have been talking about introducing Own Your Own Devices into the school starting with the Senior class. We have been experimenting for some time with laptops, Chromebooks and now tablets, as well as developing the support infrastructure, protocols and resources needed to use them. Our mandate to exploring such a scheme is that they must be able to add significant value to our students learning programmes to justify their introduction. The Board, management and staff have put a lot of work into this over time and would now like to involve parents in discussions. Introducing student owned devices would be done in two to three stages and is unlikely to involve junior students. Stage one would start with Year 7 and 8 students. Thus we would like to talk to parents of current Year 6 and 7 students in a parent meeting to be held this Thursday the 13th of November at 6:30PM. If you have a child that will be in this class next year please try to come along. FUNDRAISING HELP At our school we know how busy people are and we try to keep fundraising events to a minimum. Having said this we do still need to run events that will raise funds as the funding we receive is never enough for us to fully cover resourcing, all the remedial and extension programmes we run, the excellent facilities we have and then to further develop the opportunities and tools that provide the learning experiences to keep our school at the forefront of good practice. We work hard at this and value the tremendous support we receive from our families whether giving time to help in class, on the school property, or by actually assisting with projects we have. This year we have been developing our modern learning environment and the school playground. Much is still planned. There are three key events coming up over the next month that we would be very grateful for your help with. You will read about the Op Shop, the Garage Sale and the Totara Springs Youth Camp fundraisers in the next pages. They have the potential to raise a lot for us that will continue to help with the projects we now have underway. FAREWELL TO MRS STONE It is with disappointment that we announce that we will be farewelling Mrs Stone at the end of the year. Mrs Stone has accepted a position at Te Poi School for 2015 and will be a real loss for many of our little people. Mrs Stone joined us at the start of the year as a beginning teacher and has been a very popular member of our school staff. She has led our Junior class, been in charge of sport and started a weekly garden lunch club. We are very grateful for all her work this year. While she will be greatly missed we do wish her all the best for her continued career next year. We are currently going through the appointment process for Mrs Stone s replacement. While a number may be disappointed at the loss of Mrs Stone we know that God always grants us excellent staff members and we are expecting no less this time. YOUTH CAMP BBQ On the evening of Saturday December the 6th Totara Springs Christian Centre have generously offered us the opportunity to run a BBQ fundraiser at their Youth Games in the evening. Sport takes a massive toll on young people s bodies and hunger and we have the chance to cook hamburgers and sausages to sell to some very busy appetites. If you are willing to help us cook for a few hours and are up for a good social occasion please let us know as soon as possible in the school office. We will start at 8PM and be cleaned up just after 11:30PM. A Matamata Christian School Christmas Production DECEMBER 7PM MATAMATA BIBLE CHURCH

4 WE BELIEVE IN PRAYER DO YOU HAVE TIME TO PRAY WITH US? Every Thursday morning a group of parents meet in the school library to pray over the school, our families and Matamata community. We know prayer is important and helps God unlock his protection, blessings and plans over us. He works through us and when we pray together mountains can be shifted. We would really value your time and support to pray with us. Can you spare minutes? Join in at 8:20AM each Thursday morning in the school library. WORKING BEE We don t like to ask very often but we sure would appreciate any help people could give us please on Saturday the 20th of December. Playground upgrades will be happening in the holidays so we need to clean out the bark from the existing site. There ll be a Bobcat but we ll still need some willing helpers with some shovels please. Start time 10AM. OUR 2014 MAJOR SCHOOL FUNDRAISERS GARAGE SALE OP SHOP TOTARA SPRINGS BBQ This Saturday the 15th of Held the week beginning Held the evening of the November from 9AM at the 24th of November. 6th of December, 8PM school. to just after 11:30PM. Bring everyone you know! Can you spare a few hours Can you spare a few to help? hours of help? Any donated items will be Please fill in the attached Please let Trish know in gratefully received. roster and return to Trish. the office.

5 Even More News.. SCHOOL GARAGE SALE This Saturday the 15th of November the school is having a garage sale. If you have any items you are clearing out and are willing to give away to the school please send them to the school office up until Friday of this week. Please make sure you tell everyone you know about our garage sale so they can come along too. It starts at the late time of 9AM and is sure to be a big one! OP SHOP At first the Matamata Community Op Shop was closing down but the great news is that a new committee has been formed to keep it going! We get a turn at this excellent fundraiser on the week starting Monday the 24th of November. Would you have a couple of hours you would be willing to give us to help man the shop during the week between 9AM and 3PM? If so, please fill in the roster insert attached with this newsletter and return to Trish in the school office as soon as possible to help us with our planning. We are required to have three to four people manning the shop at any one time and would really appreciate any help you can give. This fundraiser traditionally raises several thousand dollars at a time for us and is another excellent social event for those who take part. SCHOOL ROAD PATROL TRAINING We are now recruiting current Year 5 to 7 students to be road patrollers for These exclusive positions are seen as one of the leadership positions we offer in the school. Being a Road Patroller is a position of commitment. Patrollers must be prepared to reliably be available for at least one or more sessions per week in the morning from 8:05AM until 8:35AM, and / or the afternoons 3:00PM until 3:15PM. Being a Road Patroller carries a lot of responsibility. With training they are responsible for getting students across the road safely, have to be reliable in their job regardless of the weather, and must be prepared to be mature and alert in their actions. They are one of the few people in New Zealand who by law have the power to stop traffic! We are looking for current Year 5-7 students to take on this role for Training is coming up at the beginning of December and new recruits may be given opportunities in the last few weeks of this term to develop into the role with existing patrollers. This is a very important role and we would ask parents to help encourage their children to step up to this task. With training just a few weeks away we would ask parents of interested students to please fill in the reply slip below and return to the school office as soon as possible. TOUCH RUGBY SEASON DRAWS TO A CLOSE This week the Touch Rugby season begins to wrap up. Our students have been progressively improving over the weeks and have participated in some spectacular games. We are grateful for the superb coaching of Murray Lambert (middle school) and Jaden Aarsen (seniors) who have given up much of their time and put their hearts into training and developing game plans with our students. Please come along and support our students as they play their final games on Tuesday afternoon on the Matamata College grounds. WORKING BEE A working bee will be held at school on Saturday the 20th of December starting at 10AM. This is to remove the bark from the existing playground ready for holiday upgrades. If you can please spare any time to help we would be very grateful. SCHOOL ROAD PATROL REPLY SLIP My child has permission to train and be involved in Road Patrol for the 2015 year. Something to be aware of (for example days your child couldn t do it on): Signed:

6 Even More News... TARORE BIBLE SOCIETY WALK This Saturday November the 15th the Bible Society are organising a special day to fundraise for their mission to print and distribute Bibles in needed areas internationally. They are putting on a special day to celebrate the life of Tarore, a special local Maori girl whose death in history helped bring peace and spread the Christian message to invading tribes in this area. People are being asked to get sponsors for a walk up Wairere Falls to raise money. Forms are available in the school office. This will be a fantastic chance to celebrate a special part of our local history and promises to be a memorable occasion. If you can, please help out with this great cause. Church Community Notices This column has been set up to support local church and Christian community events. If your church has an exciting event coming up they can advertise it here for free by sending details or advertising to office@matamata.school.nz BOYS RALLY Fortnightly Christian youth action for 7-12 year old boys. Mechanics Night at MBC on Tuesday the 11th of November, 7 8:30PM. Phone Andrew ( ) or Warren ( ) A Matamata Bible Church event Dates for your Calendar November 12 Seniors Service Outreach 13 Year 6 and 7 Parent Night - OYOD 6:30 15 School Garage Sale 18 Board of Trustees Meeting 19 Seniors Service Outreach 24 Op Shop Fundraiser Week 25 Viola Mufti Day December 1 Road Patrollers Celebration 2 Road Patrol Training 6 Youth Sports Fundraiser 9 Board of Trustees Meeting 12 Year 8 Leaving Dinner 16 Production Practise 17 School Reports Come Home 17 School Production and Prize Giving 18 Last Day of School This newsletter is proudly printed using Fuji Xerox products