A big thankyou to all our whanau for supporting St. Johns Green Day. It was a great parade this morning and was lovely to see the children all dressed in green and certainly Whacky!. As a school we raised $103.40.

We are already half way through the first term on 2016 and there is already so much to celebrate. At Whanganui East we would like to welcome all our new families to our school and thank you for coming aboard and supporting your children in their new adventures. We would like to welcome three new teachers to our staff. Mr Rennie joined us in Term 4 of 2015 (Room Seven), Whaea May Bennet (Room Eight) who has come back to her home town after teaching many years in Auckland and to Whaea Jorden Webb (Room Two) who is a beginning teacher. Both Whaea May and Whaea Jordy are passionate about korero maori and we look forward to their support and guidance in supporting the Whanganui East staff and students in our journey to bring te reo into our school curriculum at Whanganui East School.

Term One has already been a busy one for all of the students at Whanganui East. In our first four weeks all classes got to swim Monday to Thursday at Wanganui East Pool where they extended their swimming skills and develop sound water safety knowledge. The senior school has started working with Central Football and are currently learning about team work while developing great ball skills. Our ‘Little Achievers’ programme which is run every Friday morning for four years old’s, has started strongly. We have had to bring another teacher aide, Kelly Watkin, on board to support our growing numbers to ensure that all the children and their family get the support they need in preparation for their start into their school lives. ‘Te Mana’ our Wednesday after school homework programme has also started strongly with over twenty families taking the opportunity to help extend and support their child’s academic achievements.

At Whanganui East School we are all about providing opportunities for our children to extend themselves academically and sporting. This term we have been able to enter three Cricket teams into the Friday Kiwi Cricket Competition at Victoria Park, three Volleyball teams which play every Friday at Springvale Stadium and two Teeball teams who play on a Saturday Morning at the Braves Softball Grounds. This year we have also entered three Touch teams into the Junior Touch Module playing at Springvale Stadium every Tuesday. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parents and staff who have offered their coaching skills and are supporting our children to have these wonderful sporting opportunities, without your help it wouldn’t be possible, THANK YOU.

Mrs Ray

Whanganui East looks back on 2015

It has been an amazing year at Whanganui East School where everyone has worked so hard and reaped the rewards in return. To celebrate the fantastic work of just a small portion of our children we would like to share with you our top academic achievers for 2015: Mikayla Taiaroa – Year Six Academic Achievement, Jennifer Ramage – Year Three Academic Achievement, Erena Rapana-Nuku and Lyzz Barry – Year Six Excellence in Attitude Award, Jayda Metekingi-Samuels – Year Three Excellence in Attitude Award. A huge congratulation’s to all our other students that received awards in our final assembly and to all the outstanding children that tried and strived to do their very best: you have all achieved high levels of attainment in your own rights.

At Whanganui East we embraced our parent and community voice and have put the ‘H’ back into “Whanganui’ and we are in the process of changing our school emblem starting with our fantastic new sports uniform which were designed by one of our teachers, Mrs Lourie, and funded by our fabulous PTA. During the year our school has been undertaking a colour change with random splashes of colour going up around the school, too much excitement. This colour change will continue throughout 2016 so keep an eye out it’s going to look amazing! A big thank to our Board of Trustees that have funded our second digital classroom.

Our children have participated in numerous ‘Education Outside the Classroom’ experiences this year. In Term One the whole school participated in Sea Week alongside Whanganui’s DOC where we learnt about the environment, the native plants and wild life that rely on us to look after our coast lines. Term Two and Three allowed the majority of our school to visit and make great use of our local museum and art gallery which supported our inquiry learning with individualised learning opportunities, put together by the wonderful tutors from the Museum and Art Gallery. Our junior school were lucky enough to be invited to Wanganui Girls College where we were entertained by the Year Eleven’s Drama classes where they had to write and produce their own versions of Fairy Tale Stories. Term Three was when our children show cased their dance talents to a packed audience of whanau and friends at Girls College. Years Four to Six reached new heights during their three day camp at Raukawa Falls.

These are just a few fantastic learning opportunities that our children and teachers have been able to take part in during 2015. I wonder what 2016 has installed for us? Watch this space.

Mikayla – Year 6 High Academic Achievement

Lyzz – Year 6 Excellence in Attitude Award

Jennifer Ramage – Year 3 High Academic Achievement

Erena – Year 6 Excellence in Attitude Award

Well done to Keane and Bonneville for being our top Year 6 Cross Country runners for 2015.     Piper received her trophy for being the most supportive team member in Netball

Well done to all our amazing students who performed on Friday 16th August at the Memorial Hall with over 400 other students from across Wanganui.  We are super proud of their hard work and commitment to learn the songs.

On Thursday 23rd April the school came together to acknowledge and remember those who served and died in World War 1.

We created a Field of Remembrance to remember and acknowledge their service and sacrifice.

The white crosses are personalised to those who died from our local community.  The field of remembrance will be uplifted on the 4th May.