Issue Four - 27^th February 2009

ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

Welcome to the 4th  issue of our weekly newsletter. In this issue I will highlight the academic activities in the school, as well as other news.

 ACADEMIC MATTERS

At this school we place emphasis on academic achievement from our students. This is observed from the tasks that is set for the students to achieve every day, whether it is an assignment or homework in the classroom. Daily assessment is continuing  with the students as at the end of this term we will be issuing outcome reports for individual students. All class advisors have put up attainment targets in the classroom which is accessible by all students. We encourage all students especially those in the Junior school to the High School section to observe those attainment targets and work towards achieving them.

For the Middle and the High school sections, the final drafts of your assignments should come in next week for marking. All assignments should be bound with a cover page and a clear cover. Please be informed note that you are to provide the hard cover for the back page, the clear transparent cover for the front cover and the binders. All these can be purchased from the stationeries  in town. Please make effort to complete your assignment on time and give in to the office staff to help you to bind them. All the assignments will be collected by the respective teachers and placed in the staffroom where teachers will be asked to make comments. These will then be marked and the outstanding ones will be displayed in the library for future references.

Apart from the major assignment, other assessment tasks are also continuing. We hope to collect at least 100 marks or more during this term. To the Grades 8, 10 and 12 it is very important that you do well in your internal assessments as this will help in your final grading at the end of the year.

GRADE 11 STREAMING

We have as of the end of week 2 streamed all the Grade 11’s into their respective subject areas taking either Social Science or Science courses. This year we have a good number of students opting to take Science courses  with only 8 students taking Social Science courses out of a total of 26 students as of today's roll check.

 ELC AND JUNIOR SCHOOL NEWS

ELC

The ELC section’s  (Grades Play –1)  population as of today’s count stands at 60. This is an increase of 11 students as of last week Friday and we expect the number to level off at 70. This week the Grades 1 and the Preps were learning different letter sounds and  going through these letters. In Mathematics they learnt and drew different shapes and  also did some colorings of these shapes.

The Play and Pre School children have also been learning about the different letters and their sounds. This morning they were going through the letter sounds  following recorded sounds  on the radio.

 JUNIOR SCHOOL 

Children in grades 2/3 in the Junior school section have been  working on addition and subtraction in their mathematic classes this week. They are learning to add two and three digit numbers. In their Language lessons they  were doing cursive handwriting when the writer visited them. Generally, most of them are doing well and they should improve as time goes on.

The Grades 4 and 5 have been learning about shapes and angles in their mathematic lesson this week. In language & Literature they were learning antonyms which are opposites.  

OTHER NEWS 

LIBRARY AND INTERNET SERVICE

Our computers in the IT lab are all networked and all can access internet at  the same time. This is an added bonus for our children especially when they are carrying out research activities for their assignments and other work. All the children in the Middle School and the High School sections have been given their own passwords and they are now using these passwords to log onto their work on the computer. Apart from the IT lab, the Paulias Matane Library is also open full time during school days for students use. Students can also borrow books to read at home and at school.

 BUS PICK UP & DROP OFF SERVICES:

Beginning Thursday( 25/02/09) of this week all children whose transport service was paid for were given pick up and drop off tickets. Parents and guardians are encouraged to make sure that these tickets are kept properly for the duration of the paid service so that the child/children can use them to get on the bus. We have as of this week stopped collecting money from the children and are encouraging parents and guardians to pay for the pick up and drop off service on a weekly, monthly, termly or yearly service. This now means that we will not collect money for daily services.

  BUS PICK UP & DROP OFF SERVICES

We will continue to provide pick up and drop off services to our children, however, due to the increase in our student numbers and the timing that it will take for picking up and dropping off every one on time, we have decided for an alternate arrangement which would include about 15 pick up and drop off points for our children. Parents and Guardians are asked to drop off and pick up your children at those points so that we can serve every body on time. We ask for your cooperation in this regard and ask that pick ups should be on time at those points to collect your child/children.

 SPORTS, DEBATE AND QUIZ

PE CLASSES & SCHOOL SPORTS

We have already started our PE classes with all children taken down to NSI. So far there has been a lot of enthusiasm from the students and we expect this to continue throughout the year.

We have also improved our Friday Sports program for the students in the Middle School and the High school sections. For the last two weeks students have been transported down to NSI in their class grouping which was more orderly than what we had previously.  According to the sports draw for this week we now have a second division in grades 9– 12 . This will mean that we will have Grades 9/ 11 as Division A and Grades 10/12 as Division B. This will create opportunity for all students to take part in the sports programme.

DEBATE & QUIZ

This week Wednesday we had a debate between teachers from the two departments. The topic of debate was “ “The death penalty should be enforced in PNG to minimize law and order problems”. From the Judges point of view it was a  hard fought debate with the Government side (Humanities Department)  managing to convince the Judges that The death penalty should be enforced in PNG in order to minimize law and order problems faced by the country at the moment. Next week Wednesday we will have Quiz contested by the Grade 11 Science students. They will compete in their sporting house colors.

 Our debate and Quiz session this week was affected again by the preparation in the Middle school classroom for our Coffee Evening  on Wednesday. We however, will definitely have the teachers debate next week on a new topic. The previous topic created some  controversies before it was actually brought to the debating floor and has to be changed to gather for good wider opinion  when it is debated on. The Mathematic and Science Teachers have previously taken out the first debate and we hope history will repeat itself again on the debating floor come next week Wednesday

SCHOOLS FOOTBALL

Schools football for this year is on again. Interestingly, it is starting early and so our students have already started training since Monday  of last week. We have teams in the Under 11, Under 13 and Under 16 division for both  Boys and Girls and the Under 9 mixed team. Mr. Kelly is taking the Under 13 and Under 16 Division for training and

Mr. Koko is taking the Under 11 and the Under 9 mixed team. All games will start this weekend and we are looking forward to good challenges from all schools around town. Parents and guardians who have children  in the teams are asked to come along and support our children. The starting time is 8:30 am and we expect to finish by 12:00 noon. All are welcome in the name of our children.

 Have an enjoyable weekend Mr. Huanaromo (Principal)

27/02/09

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