On Tuesday 8 May the Bank of New Zealand was “Closed For Good” so they could complete projects in the community.

Owairaka School was lucky enough to have a BNZ team helping us with one of our Enviro projects.

They worked all day, sometimes in the rain, to revamp our Butterfly Garden using the plans [...]]]>  

On Tuesday 8 May the Bank of New Zealand was “Closed For Good” so they could complete projects in the community.

Owairaka School was lucky enough to have a BNZ team helping us with one of our Enviro projects.

They worked all day, sometimes in the rain, to revamp our Butterfly Garden using the plans developed by Room 15.

We would like to thank the wonderful BNZ team that worked hard all day at our school – the garden looks fabulous!

We had a fantastic Green Day on Friday 30 March!

We started the day with a special Green Day assembly at 9.15am. Children talked about Earth Day and our school’s Care Code. The Quiz Show, Are You Smarter Than An Owairaka Student?, was a huge success! We also got to watch a DVD of James, Tia and Matthew being [...]]]>  

We had a fantastic Green Day on Friday 30 March!

We started the day with a special Green Day assembly at 9.15am. Children talked about Earth Day and our school’s Care Code. The Quiz Show, Are You Smarter Than An Owairaka Student?, was a huge success! We also got to watch a DVD of James, Tia and Matthew being on the Good Morning Show.  Another special part of our assembly was welcoming Rachel to our school.  A big thank you to the Western Springs Rotary who are always great supporters of our school!

The rest of the day was filled with caring for our environment, tidying up and planning new Enviro projects.

Race Relations Day was a wonderful day for our school community. We shared our culture with each other, learning languages, customs, songs and dances.

Many families came to school to enjoy the day and help with our shared lunch.  We all enjoyed tasting the delicious food!

In the afternoon we went to the [...]]]> Singing, dancing, celebrating and eating!

Race Relations Day was a wonderful day for our school community. We shared our culture with each other, learning languages, customs, songs and dances.

Many families came to school to enjoy the day and help with our shared lunch.  We all enjoyed tasting the delicious food!

In the afternoon we went to the hall for a special assembly.  We sang songs and the children participated in a costume parade – they looked fantastic!

Thank you Mrs Kapisi for organising such a wonderful day!

On Thursday 22 March we held our first Make And Take morning for 2012.

The Health Promoting Team and some super helpful teachers set up tables with healthy sandwich fillings and mini muffins.

It was great to see lots of children, parents and teachers making a healthy lunch!

The aim is to encourage more children to walk to school. If they can’t walk all of the way we encourage families to park away from the school and walk part of the way.

Unfortunately the weather has not been good – so far there has been [...]]]> Monday 19 March – Friday 23 March is TravelWise Week.

The aim is to encourage more children to walk to school. If they can’t walk all of the way we encourage families to park away from the school and walk part of the way.

Unfortunately the weather has not been good – so far there has been rain every day!

On Monday we sent home a special Travelwise Brochure.  It reminded everyone to always use the crossing and park sensibly outside the school.  We also suggested some fun things to do on the walk to school.

Aronui on his unicycle!

On Wednesday we had our Walk To School day.  The student ambassadors wrote the names of children and parents who walked to school on leaves and fruit.  We also included children who came on a scooter or bike – these are great TravelWise choices too!  Children and parents then placed their name on our special ‘TravelWise Tree’.  After lunch we handed out some prizes.

A big thank you to all of the children and parents who have been TravelWise this week!

A special thank you to Auckland Transport for helping us with this project and giving us prizes to hand out.

We were very excited to have Tamati Coffey broadcast the weather for TV One from our school library this morning.  He was joined by 36 of our students as well as Mark Sommerset, last year’s Children’s Choice award winner in the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards. Mark read his winning book, Baa Baa Smart Sheep [...]]]>  

We were very excited to have Tamati Coffey broadcast the weather for TV One from our school library this morning.  He was joined by 36 of our students as well as Mark Sommerset, last year’s Children’s Choice award winner in the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards. Mark read his winning book, Baa Baa Smart Sheep to our students and kindly donated a number of his wonderful books to our school.

Later in the morning the children were very surprised when two Shortland Street Stars also came in to read to them, our own Frankie Adams (ex pupil) who plays Ula and her stage mother, Tevila Blakely who plays Vasa. During the morning our visitors held a reading competition.  Karl from Room 16 won this because he read with such good expression.

What a wonderful festival on Saturday!

Owairaka Primary School is very proud of the seven groups who performed at the Eden/Albert Cultural Festival on Saturday 26 November.

The groups who performed were: Hip Hop, Indian, Indonesian, Kapa Haka, Niuean, Samoan and Tongan.

A huge thank you to all of the children, staff, parents and volunteers that made this [...]]]>  

What a wonderful festival on Saturday!

Owairaka Primary School is very proud of the seven groups who performed at the Eden/Albert Cultural Festival on Saturday 26 November.

The groups who performed were: Hip Hop, Indian, Indonesian, Kapa Haka, Niuean, Samoan and Tongan.

A huge thank you to all of the children, staff, parents and volunteers that made this day such a success.

On Friday 28 October our fale was formally opened with a full school celebration and shared lunch.

Click here to see the programme of events:  Fale Opening

The fale will be a meeting place for parents, children and the wider community as well as a learning centre for all of our children who want to learn more about [...]]]>  

On Friday 28 October our fale was formally opened with a full school celebration and shared lunch.

Click here to see the programme of events:  Fale Opening

The fale will be a meeting place for parents, children and the wider community as well as a learning centre for all of our children who want to learn more about Pasifika culture.

Our fale was built by Athol Greentree from Urban Fale.  He did a superb job, with great attention to detail.  We encourage everyone to make the time to come and see our wonderful fale.

We were very lucky to have some special guests join in our celebrations.  Auckland’s top chef, Michael Meredith, came to cook with some of our Garden to Table students to help prepare for the day.  The Honourable Georgina te Heuheu kindly agreed to be our guest speaker.

Special thanks to our staff, children and parents of the Samoan Support Group for all of their hard work.  Thanks also to The Trusts Charitable Foundation for their sponsorship and the Owairaka Board of Trustees.

We had special visitors, including members of the Eden/Albert Board, who came to celebrate our Enviro success.  We were very excited to be awarded our Green Gold sign and a special flag to fly on our new flagpole.

During the assembly: