Te Kura o Rātā Templeton School

These legends represented our school tonight at the EPRO8 Interschool event at Clearview Primary School. After a full day at school, they spent 2.5 hours building and solving complex engineering problems. Both teams spent most of the night in the top three, however the clock wasn’t their friend at the end. They competed against some very good teams tonight and we are very proud of them. Our RATA values were on full display, especially tenacity!
Well done to Connor, Eli, Hazel and Kieran (D5075) and Declan, Mason, Riley and Tom (Nuts and Bolts). Thanks to our super subs: Cecilia, Ella, Paige and Sophia for coming along tonight. Thanks also to Maia and our amazing parent and staff support team. We appreciate you all.
Our Year 5/6 team competes in week three next term. As there are still regional competitions going on, we won’t share the construction photos yet.

Feel free to come along to the library for a free hot drink and biscuit on Thursday morning!
We hope to see you there!

Talofa Lava! This week it is Samoan Language Week - Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa. This coincides with 1 June being Samoan Independence Day. Samoa gained its independence on January 1, 1962, this was a historic moment, signifying the first Pacific island nation to achieve independence. To distinguish this event from New Year's Day, Samoa annually celebrates its Independence Day on June 1.

At school this week we are proudly flying the Samoan Flag, and invite all students with Samoan heritage to come dressed in Samoan attire on Friday 5 June.

Kia ora,

We hope to see you tomorrow morning at our Thursday morning coffee and chat in the library - Mō te cuppa kōrero. This will be at the later time of 9 - 10am.

Hot drinks and biscuits provided!!

Yesterday we flew thee Norwegian flag in recognition of it being Constitution Day on May 17. It commemorates the signing of the Norwegian Constitution at Eidsvoll in 1814. This is the third oldest written constitution still in use in the world.

Fun fact: You may be interested to know that the Norwegian alphabet has 3 more letters than the English one, and the sounds/syllables much resemble the Māori language.

Kōrero mai, kōrero atu, mauri tū, mauri ora!
Today, we are standing up against bullying.
https://bullyingfree.nz/

At Te Kura o Rātā, we have our RATA values that we live by. All staff have RATA value agreements that we have signed, and work hard to model. We are part of the E Tū Tāngata https://www.etutangata.nz/ kaupapa to help stamp out Tall Poppy Syndrome across our country. Every day, we remind, discuss, and unpack social-emotional wellbeing, and how to be an upstander in our community.

In society at the moment, there is a lot of tension and stress, a lot outside of our control. At school, we want this to be a safe and welcoming place where everyone has a sense of belonging. We can't control what others say or do, but we can influence and continually work together to solve these complex problems. We do need our community's help and support. The more adults our children have in their lives, to support them when they need coaching or guidance, the better.

Online is such a tricky one for us, especially social media platforms used outside of school hours. At school, we have Linewize https://linewize.co.nz/, which is a tool to help tamariki thrive online. It flags any unsafe search practices used with a templeton.school.nz account, so that we can support our children to be safe online.

We may not get it right all the time, but we are really working hard to create a safe environment where teachers are set up to teach, and children are ready to learn.

Please help us to work together to support all of these awesome young people to thrive!

Over the last two weeks, we have had 64 Year 5-8 students involved in a STEM programme called EPRO8 (Engineering, problem solving, innovation). See this website for more details: https://epro8challenge.co.nz/epro8-school-programme-menu.html

This has involved four full days of construction and problem-solving using our two school kits and six hired kits. Please see some photos below to see what we got up to.

We ran a Year 7/8 and Year 5/6 Internal Event at the end of each week, with a timer and codes to give points when criteria were reached. The result after the timer went off after 2 hours revealed the winners. The top two teams will go through to the interschool regionals. The Year 7/8 competition is in week 9 (Tuesday 16th June at Clearview Primary from 4-7pm) and the Year 5/6 competition in term 3, week 3 (Thursday 6th August at Hilmorton High School from 9:30-12:30pm).

Thanks to the wonderful PSG and a couple of family donations, we were able to purchase a Comprehensive Electronics kit with sensors, not sequence modules, lasers, rams, buzzers, fans, limit switches, time delays, etc. For the first time, we will be able to practice with the equipment before the event. Thank you!!

Congratulations to our winners, and well done to everyone for all of their tenacity, ako, and teamwork over the last few weeks.

Year 7/8 representatives:
1st: D5075: Eli, Kieran, Hazel and Connor
2nd: Nuts and Bolts: Mason D, Declan, Tom and Riley
3rd: Spice: Cecilia, Paige, Ella, Sophia

Year 5/6 representatives:
1st: The Overnight Construction Crew: Archie, Levi, Nate S, Nate P
2nd: 4 Guys and 1 Brain Cell: Knox, Thorin, Eron, Toby (and Lincoln)
3rd: Chipotle Bowl: Ollie, Jason, Lucas, Sonny-Joseph

Te Kura o Rātā wil be acknowledging 'Pink Shirt Day' on Monday 18th May. This is a day that celebrates kindness, inclusion, and standing together against bullying.

We encourage all children to wear something pink to school to show their support if they would like too! It might be a pink shirt, socks, hat, ribbon, or accessory... every splash of pink helps spread an important message: we all belong.

Thank you for helping us create a school community where everyone feels safe, valued, and included. 💕