15 November 2018 Term 4, Issue 2 2019 School Term Dates Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 4 February 12 April 29 April 5 July 22 July 27 September 14 Oct 19 December Easter 19 April Good Friday 22 April Easter Monday 23 April Easter Tuesday School closed for Strike Action Friday 16 November Dear parents, caregivers, students and friends of the school Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa Our talented students have participated in several wonderful learning and performance opportunities in the last two weeks. The Bands have performed at the Brandon Intermediate Music Festival and the Battle of the Bands competition, and our EPro8 teams competed in the first round of EPro8 challenges. All groups have represented Maidstone in an outstanding manner - we are very proud of them. Attached to this newsletter is a summary of the results of the Parent Consultation Survey conducted in September across Upper Hutt. This summary relates to the results for Maidstone families only. I thought you might be interested to see the general thoughts of our community. Be assured Maidstone has taken note of your opinions and they will inform planning for 2019. Transition programmes are well underway with both Contributing Schools and Colleges. I m always impressed with how well these are conducted. Both transitions are significant in the lives of our students and we aim to make the changes a very positive experience, setting our students up for success. Thank you for your support on Friday with the Teachers Strike Action. We hope you are not too inconvenienced; this action is not taken lightly. Nga mihi nui Mary O Regan Principal/Tumuaki Sum-R-Reading Now that Summer is almost upon us it is time to talk about our Sum-R-Reading programme that we offer our Year 7s over the Christmas Holiday break. The students may take books home from the school library. Those that have taken part in this programme have found that they can continue the good reading work they have done over the year and are more ready to learn when they return next year. Summer is the ideal time to catch up on reading for enjoyment an effective and painless way to expand vocabulary, improve analytical and communication skills, as well as enhancing the memory and ability to focus. It costs nothing except some encouragement from caregivers. So have a chat with your Year 7s and watch this space for information on when to join up.
End of Year Dates for your Calendar 11 December Service to School Assembly 12 December Pool Party 13 December Open Afternoon 2019 classes displayed 3 7.00 pm 17 December End of Year Prizegiving, Lane Park, 12.00 2.30 pm 18 December Year 8 Social 19 December Final day of school for 2018 school finishes at 12.00. Phone 04 528 3094 Email admin@maidstone.school.nz Website www.maidstone.school.nz Brandon Intermediate Music and Dance Festival On 2nd of November, Jinx (Maidstone B band) and a dance troupe arrived at school early to hop on a bus and go to Brandon Intermediate. When we arrived there, we were greeted by the Intermediate with a powhiri. They also greeted us in many different languages, such as a Samoan Sasa, a Tokelauan song and many other Pasifika greetings. We (Jinx) were performing second. Our band played Perfect and Pumped up Kicks. We had a lot of fun performing on stage, and we are sure the audience enjoyed it as well! After lunch, the rest of Brandon Intermediate filed into the hall so we could all watch the dance troupes perform. Maidstone s dance was contemporary, Newlands had a ballet group, and Brandon assembled a hip-hop piece. We left Brandon Intermediate feeling proud of ourselves with our performances, and content from watching the other schools perform. Overall, we all had a very fun and enjoyable time at the Brandon Intermediate Performing Arts Festival! MAD ORIENTEERING TRIP Monday November 5th the MAD group completed an urban orienteering course around Upper Hutt. We started at Burger King and were given our maps and questions. We had just over an hour to find as many of the answers to the questions as possible. Most of us thought this would be easy, but as we found out very quickly it was not. We had to be very careful when looking for clues and helped each other out where we could. We used lots of teamwork and communication to succeed. We all got ice blocks at the end, as by the end of the trip we were all very tired, and a little bit sunburnt. It was a great experience and something we would love to do again. Touch rugby tournament A group of 12 represented Maidstone at the Inter-Intermediate Touch Rugby Tournament at Hutt Park, Lower Hutt, we played 5 games in total. The first game was against Hutt Intermediate, the reigning champions. They were a very rough team and played very good touch rugby. The score was 5-0 to Hutt Intermediate. After the hard loss, we kept our heads up and went straight into the second match. Our second game was against Wainuiomata Intermediate 2nd team. We lifted our game up and fought hard and got a win out of the second game. The scoreline was 4-2 to us, we had started to find our feet. We had a 3 game wait until our next game against Levin Intermediate. They had 1 fast player that scored all the tries for the team in all their games. We came up with
a strategy to lock him down and managed to get the win. The score was 3-1 to us. We then had back to back games. Our 2 nd to last game was against Newlands Intermediate. We played really well beating them with a score of 6-0, and then we had to wait to find out if we had made it into the semi-finals. Unfortunately we didn t make it to the semis, but we had one last game playing for 5th and 6th place against EBIS. We drew at the final whistle and played a drop off. We had to drop two people off the field and have a 4v4. Luckily we got the final try and came 5th out of 14 teams so we were happy with our performance. Marsden Whitby enrolments 2019 Marsden Whitby is currently planning classes for 2019. There are a small number of places left in Year 9 for 2019, the other year groups are full. If you are interested in a place for your son or daughter in Year 9 next year please get in touch with Enrolment Manager Lorraine Rose as soon as possible. Phone 04 234 1070 or email lorraine.rose@marsdenwhitby.school.nz www.marsden.school.nz/whitby/ Battle of the bands The band woke up early and tired on a Wednesday, and met at Maidstone Intermediate, sleepy and totally ready for the Battle of the Bands, which took place in a theatre at Southwards Car Museum. We got our instruments, and hopped in our rides. We arrived at the museum, and sat ourselves down in the theatre. Before it was our call to the stage, we went into a dressing room to tune up, we all had butterflies in our stomachs. The dude called, Give it up for Maidstone Intermediate!. Showtime. The band entered the stage, Emily introduced us, and told Carter to take it away. The band performed two of the greatest rocks songs of all time, Bohemian Rhapsody and Sweet Child of Mine. With strong vocals from Emily and Jolie, solid drumming from Alex, a steady bass from Jillian, thunderous guitar from Dani and Hupstein, and a loud keyboard from Carter, The band was awarded 2nd place, which was delightful for us, we were happy enough to at least have a number. After the prize giving we headed home. We were all very tired. Hupstein was awarded First place for his outstanding guitar skills.
On Thursday, November 8, Maidstone Intermediate competed in the EPro8 challenge at Hutt Intermediate School.. We entered three teams; The Banditos, Maidstone Magnetix, and the 4 Musketeers. EPro8 is an engineering and problem solving challenge. Each task is worth a certain amount of points, which you earn by completing the task. The top 4 teams from the first heat get through to the semi finals. This year, Maidstone Magnetix took 2nd place, and The Banditos came 1st! With a mixture of effort and teamwork, we were able to win by 40 points. It was a very exciting experience, and we can t wait for the semi finals! By Grace T, Rm 13. COMMUNITY NOTICES School Rewards Scheme
i For every pair of school shoes sold, the Shoe Clinic will give a $10 donation to our school, helping give your child more opportunities Simply nominate Maidstone in store. Thank you to the following firms for sponsoring this Newsletter and the Maidstone Gold Ticket Wheel of Fortune David Haswell 027 440 6534 04 526 6602 Ask about our party bus Ph. 0800 634 572 Fax 236 0174 nzcoach@xtra.co.nz Ryan Thomas Custom Construction For a quote please call Ryan Smith 0273467235 Or Email: ryanthomascc@gmail.com Ground Floor, The Mall, Upper Hutt Phone/Fax (04) 529 7342