Our Year 5 and 6 girls Rippa Rugby team went to the Counties Manukau Champ of Champs. We played 5 games as follows:

First game against Kauri Flats: Win 5-1

Second game against Puni: Win 5-1

Third game against Patumahoe: Win 7-1

Fourth game against Roscommon: Win 5-4

Fifth game against Papakura Normal: Win 6-2

Finals against Roscommon: Lost 5-4

We are extremely proud of our girls and their amazing efforts. As a team, we’d also like to acknowledge and thank our families who came out to support us. Please leave a comment if you can.

It has been a busy and “hands on” week in our classroom as we celebrated New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week!

Here is a little look at what we’ve been up to:

The Finger-Spelling Challenge

Our main mission was learning the NZSL alphabet so we could fingerspell our own names.  Some of our extra-brave learners even jumped in front of the camera to film a video of themselves signing their names.  Ka pai!

Signs and Songs

We love singing and signing the National Anthem of NZ and He Honore.  We’re becoming absolute pros and look forward to doing our best at our next school assembly!  If you’re free tomorrow afternoon, join us in the hall for our NZSL Week Closing Assembly at 1:30pm.

Ka kite āpopo!

Kia ora! This week is NZSL Week. Did you know that it was only made an official language in 2026? Some hearing people didn’t want deaf people to use NZ sign language because they thought it was too hard to understand. It’s great to see that times have changed here in NZ and we are more empathetic and inclusive of others. Check out our movie for our school challenge. Please leave us a comment.

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What an amazing morning we had yesterday! We were very lucky to have a visit from some firefighters. The children were thrilled to explore the fire trucks and even got to sit inside them. It was very high up, and climbing down was quite a challenge!

We also had the opportunity to try on some of the special gear that firefighters wear. It was surprisingly heavy, and the children found it tricky to move around in it. This gave us a real appreciation of how strong and brave firefighters are.

The fire truck was filled with lots of interesting equipment, and the children were fascinated learning about all the tools firefighters use to help keep people safe.

Kia ora e te whānau,
Te kaha o ngā tamariki ki te pānui pukapuka i tēnei wiki. Kei te pānui rātou he pukapuka hei whakanui te Rā o Māmā. Tirohia ki o rātou mahi…

He waiata whakamahana tēnei. Kei te ako ngā ākonga ki te tautohu i ngā pū o te arapū Māori:

E pānui ana ēnei tamariki i te pukapuka mō te wiki nei:

He mahi whakakapi ēnei. Kei te hanga rerenga kōrero ngā ākonga, ā, ka tāpiri rātou he whakaahua me he pikitia mō te rerenga kōrero:

Nā Niwa tēnei mahi. Ka pai kotiro!

Nā Mia tēnei mahi. Tau kē e hoa!

Today we had some very special guests from Auckland Council come and speak to us about Dog Safety. There has been a rise in dog bites and dog attacks all over our country, some even in our community. It is important for our learners to keep safe around stray dogs and dogs that are off lead wandering around the streets.

Some of the reminders are: always ask the owner before you pet a dog, have a closed fist and allow the dog to sniff your fist, pet a dog under it’s neck or chest, don’t approach dogs when they are eating and stand like a tree and try not to run if a dog chases you. It’s important to look for signs when NOT to approach a dog.

A big shout out and thank you to Lesha, Austin, Miguel, Justine and a crowd favourite Paprika (husky dog) that came to visit us. Here are some short snippets and pics from their visit with us today. Click here if you would like to know more.

On Monday we had our MPPSA Rippa Rugby tournament. We sent two teams to represent our school. A Year 5 and 6 boys team and a girls team too. Our boys did really well and played a total of 6 games. Our girls also played 6 games and won all except for one draw. The girls team played Roscommon school in the final and won 30-15. We are off to Auckland Champs sometime later in the year. Here’s a quick video of our day:

Kia tūpato koe!  He ika kei roto i te moana.

Wheels Day in Room 7

Wheels Day was so much fun! The children brought their own bikes and scooters to school, and everyone had their helmets on and ready to ride.

We got to ride around with our Papa team, practising our balance, steering, and control. It was exciting to zoom around safely and cheer each other on. Everyone enjoyed showing off their skills, and it was so cool to see how confident the children were on their bikes and scooters.

Wheels Day was a fantastic way to be active, have fun, and spend time with friends.

Celebrating Culture Day in Room 7

Culture Day was such a special day in Room 7! It was wonderful to see all the children come to school dressed in outfits that represented their cultures. Everyone shared stories about their families, traditions, and the countries they come from.

The children were proud to talk about their culture, and it was amazing to see how curious and interested their classmates were. We listened, asked questions, and learned so much about each other’s backgrounds.

It was a joyful day filled with laughter, learning, and celebration. Seeing everyone participate so enthusiastically made the classroom feel like a big, happy community where all cultures are valued and celebrated.

This term, Room 7 had an exciting time learning to swim and become more confident in the water. Every lesson, we practised safe ways to get in and out of the pool, like going backwards down the ladder or sitting at the edge and turning a quarter turn.

The children loved being in the water and tried lots of new skills. They practised blowing bubbles for five seconds while standing and learned to put their eyes in the water and submerge up to their shoulders. Some even submerged their whole bodies and sat down under the water while blowing bubbles!

We also explored floating and moving in different ways. Many children could float like a starfish on both their front and back for five seconds without help. We tried assisted floating with flutterboards and noodles, and learned how to hold a board using a “crocodile snap” grip.

By the end of the term, we were moving confidently around, in, and under the water. We could dog paddle across the pool and even roll from their front to float on their back.

We have been celebrating NZ Book Month for all of March, and today we had a big celebration day.
We dressed up as a character from a book, rode a bus up to the library, learned about our library and had fun with story-time, bubbles, dancing, and reading books in the children’s section.

We had a parade back at school and enjoyed dancing across the stage.

We were really excited to learn that we won the ‘Decorate your Door’ challenge!  Yay!  Our prize was a basket of sweets and an awesome book to keep in our classroom.

It has been so much fun celebrating NZ Book Month.

Ngā mihi nui to all our whānau that joined us at Te Paataka Koorero o Waimaahia today!

Today we celebrated our Cultural Diversity. I made a poster with some Canadiana on it, and then everyone had a chance to experiment in Canva to make their own. My favourite part of today was seeing the kids in Akomanga 17 in all of their beautiful clothing. Kingston loved the Rangi team performance at the hall, Mali loved seeing everybody in their cultural clothes, Hadrian loved making cultural posters, Luisa loved taking a class photo to show off her dress and Anne Marie loved the amazing decorations in the hall. We had a fabulous day today!

Room 15 took to the seas in Week 5! We spent an amazing day at Ōkahu Bay learning the literal ropes of sailing. From rope-tying to speedboat rides, our tamariki dived into every challenge. The water was a bit choppy, but that only added to the fun!

Kia ora whānau,

This week at WPS, our Room 3 stars have been shining bright and giving their best efforts during our “testing week.”  We’ve been working through spelling, reading, writing, and maths assessments, and we’re looking forward to setting some learning goals to share with you at our upcoming Learning Conversations on Tuesday 31 March.

Reminder: School will close at 2pm on this day. Please make arrangements to collect your child at this time.

Our class got to go to the “Te Matariki Clendon Community Centre and Library“. In celebration of Book Month but also to promote the importance of reading. Did you know that library cards are free and you can use them at 54 different libraries across Auckland? We were so happy to have Farah and Matua Pikari show us around and talk to us about their library and it’s importance in the community. It’s a place where people can go for lots of different things: activities during the holidays and there’s a soup kitchen there every Thursday afternoon, for whanau to have a free kai (dinner). Check out a few photos from our trip there and it was amazing to see some children come back to school and read the books they issued straight away.