I'm in the Sunday Star Times!

On Sunday December 19th 2010, there I was in the Sunday Star Times - along with Chris and Kids from Pt England School.  Check out the article here:

Underwater adventure: Chante Filipo has some fun learning.

If schools can't get their students to a pool, why not bring the pool to the school?

It sounds far-fetched, but that's exactly what WaterSafe Pools2Schools programme is doing in Auckland.

Chief executive Sandy Harrop says schools face a lot of barriers when it comes to giving their students an aquatic education.

"These barriers are identified by schools as support for teachers and the cost of pool entry, tuition, transport [and] time out of school," she says.

Pools2Schools breaks down all those barriers by bringing the pool – and all that goes with it – to the school.

The programme was trialled at Papakura's Red Hill Primary school last year using a 10m by 5m vinyl portable pool borrowed from Premier Exhibitions.

Deputy principal Charlotte Castle said that when the school started working with WaterSafe, it realised a lot of its students didn't even know how to float. Now, thanks to $95,000 of KiwiSport funding, Pools2Schools has its own portable pool, water filter system, heat pump, scaffolding, marquee, security fencing and trailer.

It also comes with WaterSafe Auckland's aquatic education facilitator Chris Burton, who teaches the students and the teachers. Burton says Pools2Schools is not just about teaching kids how to swim 200m – a goal set out in the national curriculum.

"That's not necessarily going to help you in a rip," he says. "It's about building a knowledge base and decision making."

Decisions such as when to signal for help, how to fit a life jacket and how to duck-dive under big waves.

For the past seven weeks the covered pool has been at east Auckland's Pt England School. When the Sunday Star-Times visited, Year 5 students were learning how to use their hands like ice-cream scoops and how to stay warm and float in the water.

"I feel like a safer swimmer," 10-year-old Crusader Faletagoai says. "I didn't know how to do it properly before." Classmate Prince Scanlan says he's going to show his three and six-year-old sisters what he's learnt in the pool this term. Teacher Helen Squires says the students have also enjoyed lunchtime classes in the pool with Water Polo NZ, Surf Lifesaving and Olympic swimmer Hayley Palmer. Fellow teacher Jody Wild says her Year 1 students have "come along in leaps and bounds".

What Am I?

What am I?
I have little pricks sticking out of my slimy sometimes sticky body. They help me to grip on to things and they also help me to dig into the dirt. On the inside of my body I consist of three main organs. The first one is my crop, which is the first place where my food goes through. The Crop is a bag like organ that will keep the food that I eat until my Gizzard is ready to chomp up the food that I eat. My next organ in line is the Gizzard which chomps up my food. “How does it do that,?” you ask. Well the Gizzard has stone like things on the inside of it to turn food in to a mulch like liquid.

Reflection for 2010

This year in year five I have enjoyed playing with my friends and learning new things like, Mighty Mariners because it has taught me that no matter if you’re big or small you can do anything you set your mind to. I have also loved learning about our earth and what it does and how it does it. The way it moves is really interesting. The best memories I have had this year would have to be having more opportunities in preparation for next year with getting netbooks.

Triathlon

Polynesians

Mighty Mariners - Cheng Ho

The Intermediate Block

Year 7 Block


On Friday there was a lot of noise as one of the builders started to prise the weather boards off the old dental clinic in preparation for the new intermediate block. Pt England has just been built a new dental clinic so that the forms 1 and 2 have got their own block just like the Juniors and seniors. It will take a while for the intermediate block to get on track as we do not have enough teachers. For now they are in two classes with two separate teachers that are very reliable they are Miss Nua and Miss Tito. I think that those two teachers are the best yr7 teachers for pt England because they are good teachers and are very trusted to come to school every day.

Any way there are a lot of year 7 students that have been crammed up into little classrooms but they only have to wait for a little while longer, as the builders have just about finished the out side and are slowly moving towards the insides.

Swimming

Swimming

As I squeezed into the damp clammy life jacket, I shivered and shuddered because it was cold. Brooklyn, my buddy, was helping me adjust it so it fitted nice and snug.
Before we were allowed to hop into the pool Chris made sure that our life jackets were the right size.

Chris is from water safety NZ,and he is going to be here for the rest of the term to teach us how to be safe in the water. His company that he works for have installed a new portable pool on the
hard courts for us to use until Chris goes to another school.

On Friday after school the hard courts were empty but on Monday that was a different story.
When I came to school a pool had magically appeared. I went to go see how big it was but there was a big bunch of kids doing something so I went to go see what all the commotion was about. It was just people admiring the school pool. It was big, bigger than I expected.

The pool was cold but the life jacket was keeping me a tad warm. As I was walking down the steps I had to turn around 180 degrees and push off the stairs in the help position. As I was floating in the pool heaps of people were pushing me but I think the best way to stay in one place is just to relax and pretend that you are by yourself with nothing to worry about.

In that first session we were just talking about the things that we need to do if we are stuck out at sea.

I love having Chris around he is really helping to encourage us to be able to swim properly. I used to be really scared of the sea but now I am not that scared anymore because I know that I can swim. I wish that we could keep Chris for ever.

This Terms Topic

Immersion Assembly

“I wonder what the new topic is for this term?” I was saying to myself as I was walking up the ramp to class. I was trying to see what the new topic was as Rita was making her way to open the door for me to get in class but I couldn't because of the curtain to room fifteens window. Rita opened the door and I was looking around the class and saw a few changes that were made to it by Miss Squires but then my daydream was interrupted by “That is our table” Rita pointed over to the table near the window I did not reply but went and put my bag on a chair. Then Brooklyn came and I told her where our table was and the bell went and Miss Squires said”Okay lining up for assembly”and room fifteen obeyed her.

Once we were all lined up and Miss Squires ad taken us to Immersion assembly. Immersion assembly is when teachers dress up as the topic to give us kids a little taste of what our term would be all about this term is “LITTLE CRITTERS”. There was heaps of amazing costumes, there was red feathers, white gloves and tinsel but that was not all there was heaps more.

There were 5 teams my favourite was team 4 because they were a colony of bees and Mr barks was the queen bee and had four babies,one set of twins and two sets of single babies. Miss Squires was a worker bee as well as Miss Va’afusuaga, Miss Garden and Miss King. Mr Barks was flicking his long, curly golden coloured hair or should I say wig and talking but he would get interrupted by having a baby or babies.

I also liked team 5 although they were just worms it was nice and simple not very frustrating because you have find something to do that is cool. Any way hey were in sleeping bags slithering across the stage.

I like our Immersion Assembly's because it gets me more excited for the rest of the term.
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Ozzie

Australia

When my dad said that we were going to Australia for a week I felt ecstatic  because I hadn't seen my family in Australia for over about a year and a half or so and since my Nana died a lot of the family has moved away mostly Australia. Other wise we have not been in touch for a long time!It is a bit hard because we live all over the place some people live in Auckland some people live in Rotorua and Australia so we live in a lot of places.

Before we went to the airport I had stayed with my dad for the night and had to go to  my daddy’s school where he teaches. It is called “Green Bay High School” and I had to stay with my dad in his class room. It felt like a really long time but it was because I wanted something to eat so dad took me to the tuck shop and we got a lolly snake each and I got a pie and a cookie dad got a sausage roll and a cookie.After we ate dad had one more class then we could go.

We got picked up by my brothers mum. She picked us up because she was coming with us because it would have been Tipene’s [my brother]first time on an airplane. When we were on the plane I watched shrek forever after. I was unfortunate because I spilled my drink on my pants it was not cool.

Finally we got to Australia and luckily my pants dried. When we had all our things my aunty was waiting for us and when we up to her she gave us a big hug. Then we went to the car and drove to her house. When we got there I got a big surprise from my cousin because he is like tall and when I say tall I mean tall.

We stayed there for a week. We did a lot of fun stuff like swimming in the pool and we went on this cool indoor play ground like three times the size of chipmunks it is like big and I mean really big.

Sydney is a really cool place to be and you really should go there are so many things to explore and it is just awesome.

BIG FOOT ADVENTURES

''What are those cones for?''I asked my friend. "For the bikes." She replied. Suddenly it hit me, today was the day to show that I can ride a bike and prove that I'm a strong rider. I couldn't wait! Big foot adventures had come to our school to teach us about being bike safety smart. The people that worked for the company were very cool. Adrian and Tony loved the outdoors! I think their passion for being outdoors rubbed off on me.
Room 15 were listening attentively as Tony told us about the safety precautions. He also explained to us what a bike was like in good working order. Toni said that a carefully adjusted helmet was correct safety equipment, along with brightly coloured clothing and correct footwear.

I carefully manoeuvred around the obstacle course, going over the ramps and round the cones. The course was not as simple as it looked. It was more complex than I first thought because going up the ramp was pretty hard. You had to put all your weight forward to make it easier on the legs.

A funny moment was when Lola fell off the ramp twice. However she had a good attitude because when she fell she got right back up again and laughed at herself. She showed us that she was a champion, someone who never gives up.
Looking back, I learnt some valuable information from Big Foot adventures about bike safety that I can use for my whole life. I've done quite a lot of biking riding since. I really hope we do it again.

As soon as I walked into the hall for our Immersion assembly I was amazed at all the teachers in their wonderful most terrific costumes.All I could see was black,red,white and heaps more colours,then I got pushed because I was day dreaming to much.It was o.k though because I didn’t get hurt.Once we all sat down Mr Burt talked to the school about our topic for this term.I kind of wasn’t listing until.....”MIGHTY MARINERS”.I got a huge fright as the school and teachers
yelled it out,I just had to stop drifting away to fairyland and actually start listing to what Mr Burt was saying otherwise I might get another huge fright so I did.Mr Burt said something like “mighty mariners are people who have a lot of courage to sail around the world” or at least something a long those lines because I may have drifted away again but only just a little which was good I hope.


Anyway one of my favorite teams was team 2 because of Mrs She.She was a very aggressive pirate and sounded like she had a few beers.It was very funny.


My other favourite was team 4 because of Miss King,the prettiest pirate of all time,was looking for Johny Depp Who played Jack Sparrow in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.Suddenly “JOHNY”she cried waving to Mrs Tele’a who was pretending to be Jack Sparrow waved back.


I honestly can not wait to see what the teachers will where for next terms topic because it is funny seeing the teachers humiliate themselves.

"Famous" - a podcast for KPE

Chante and Vivienne

This is my first podcast for KPE.

There are a few books at Pt England School that are extremely popular and they turn up time and again in our podcasts. "Famous" by Elizabeth Pulford is one of these.

Immersion assembly

Immersion Assembly
BEEP BEEP went Mr Jacobson's megaphone, all the kids looked at him in confusion. Then he said "OK,OK everybody I know there has just been an eruption but it will be over soon".He was all dressed up in rescuers clothing.I definitely knew this was going to be an great topic.


Teams 4 item was a quiz about "Who is smarter then a ten year old"
"Who is smarter than a ten year old" bellowed a voice"I am MAGGIE MAGMA and these are your contestants,The first contestant is Miss Cinders" she said "Then in the middle" she paused "you have Miss Bionic,Tech tonic,Electronic,supersonic" she said "and lucky last, the lovely Miss Lahar" Miss Lahar was standing up and twirling like a ballerina.I started giggling,Brooklyn did too.

Lastly Miss Nua or should I say Lady Lava and Miss T,I mean Miss Kulalava were very beautiful volcanoes,and talked all about there family volcanoes.Lady Lava said she was going to sing us a song,but it wasn't ready. Miss Kulalava said her aunty was a very active volcano.
I hope we study something like this again.

Being Back

COMING BACK TO PT ENGLAND

Yes!!! I'm back at Pt England. Isn't it just wonderful, coming back to a place where it all began? Well it is for me ,especially if it is coming back to a great school called Pt England Primary school in Pt England, Auckland.

When I came back my best friend Brooklyn said that I could never ever leave again until college, I started laughing but once she said was serious my laughing cut straight away and there was an awkward silence until to my relief the bell went for the start of school.
I asked Brooklyn, "Hey, who's our teacher?"she said "Miss Squires ,she's really nice trust me she is."

Ever since then it has been like I never left, all my friends are still the same, I am not treated like a new girl and it is just really fun being back at Pt England. I never want to leave ever again.