Junior School hit by “Earthquake Disaster”

The junior school was hit pretty hard by a very localized Earthquake on Tuesday with desks and chairs tipping over and injured staff and students everywhere. Luckily for us the senior children were safe and sent to assist where they could in the junior school. All this activity was filmed by staff and used as an amazing discussion tool about disasters. All we can say is that it was a good thing that our whole school topic for this term is set around answering the big question of how to survive a disaster. The students all agreed that we are not prepared and we need to do a whole lot of work to find out how we can be. This should be a very interesting topic, one that will generate much discussion at home.

Member of Parliament visits Conductive Education

Clayton Cosgrove MP for Waimakariri visited Addington today to look at the Conductive Education Unit and talk with Teachers and parents of students attending. Mr Cosgrove was contacted by a concerned parent who lives in his electorate.

Our principal Trudy Heath, Dave Ching, NZ Conductive Education Foundation member, and Teachers and Conductors from the Unit spoke with Mr Cosgrove about the history of the Unit, its funding, and the impact of funding cuts on our families. 

Brittany and her Mum, Julie Baker, spent some time, outlining to Mr Cosgrove and the Christchurch Press reporters with him, the consequences for their family in particular. 

At the end of his visit Mr Cosgrove thanked Trudy and her team and said he was now very aware of where our students would be without Conductive Education and was committed to assisting the school raise the profile of our funding issue.

Conductive Education Farewells

At our full school assembly today, we said goodbye to two teachers from Conductive Education. Mrs Wycherley and Mrs Pilgram are leaving us after many years. We are very sad to see them go. We asked them what they would miss most and they said they would miss the wonderful children, teachers and staff, and how everyone gets on and treats each other so well. This was the best thing about Addington and they would miss everybody heaps.

Mrs Pilgram was going to spend more time with her family and maybe do a bit of study at university. Mrs Wycherley will be spending more time with her family. Both hope to do some relieving at school so we will see them again. YAH!

Reporters: Jyr and Jack

Earth Science in Room 2

Today Room 8 went to Room 2 our Year 1 ‘Buddy  Class’ to find out what they had learnt about the earth. They had three groups: one learnt about the earth inside and out, another about rocks and the last group learnt about volcanoes.

The Earth Group made a KidPix presentation telling us all about the earth. Mrs Craib said it was because they didn’t want to talk too much. We found out lots of interesting things - like sand is made from broken down bits of rocks. 

The Rock Group told us all about what rocks are made of. If crystals cool fast they look like glass, but if they cool slowly they look like ice crystals. They made some yummy rocks by melting butter and marshmallows to make the magma and adding rice-bubbles for the minerals and chocolate bits for the crystals. At the end we got to taste some and it tasted  delicious. 

The Volcano Group knew heaps about volcanoes. They made a volcano and showed us how it erupted. It was all very interesting and amazing.

Reporters for Room 8- Caroline, Sheena and Skylah