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Pasadena Intermediate School Newsletter

Wednesday 14 February 2024
Newsletter Term 1 Edition 1

Principals’ News

Kia ora tātou,

The year at Pasadena kicked off with an amazing põwhiri, attended by a large contingent of our whānau and community. It was great to engage with new Year 7 parents and witness the excitement of students embarking on their first day at our school. I look forward to connecting with all community members in the weeks ahead. Every day, you will find me at the gate at 3 pm, saying goodbye to our students. Feel free to drop by, say hello, and introduce yourself.

Our teachers utilised the last few days of the break to undertake several Professional Development days. These included an induction day for new staff, an “Amazing Race: around the local Point Chev area and a Professional Development Day. 

School Property

It is very pleasing to announce that our school building has been completed. We are lucky to have state-of-the-art facilities with eight new classrooms, a new Library, two new Basketball Courts, a Netball court, a new playground and a range of new concrete and grass areas. As a school and community, we are very proud of our facilities. It has been great to see our students thriving in the new spaces.

School Fees

Payments for our school fees are processed through the myKindo app, refer here for instructions on how to set up your account.
Please note - Tax receipts can only be obtained by having a current myKindo account. 

School Costs

PARENT DONATION 
Pasadena is a high-achieving, high decile school state school. Unfortunately, the funding we receive from the government fails to provide the type of education and staffing ratios we offer. Each year the Board of Trustees requests an annual donation which is a key component of our budget. The budget component allows us to provide:

• Additional Specialist Staff

• Smaller class sizes

• Learning Centre staff and extension classes

• Purchasing of ICT Equipment

These costs cannot be met by government funding, and we appreciate your contribution in this area. You are able to claim from the IRD your Donation contribution.

PROGRAMME ACTIVITIES
Each year we plan a number of visits, activities, additional learning programmes or guest speakers to supplement our learning programmes.  Often there is a cost associated to these. 

The activities include:  The Life Education Trust Van, Guest speakers, Health Courses and entry fees to local resources.

TAKE HOME MATERIALS (Compulsory)
Students make products in our Specialists programmes which they may take home at the end of the term or year. This fee covers the supply of materials in Technology, Foods and Arts.  

EDUCATION PERFECT
A digital teaching and learning tool kit with over 35,000 curriculum-aligned lessons for English, Math, Science, Social Science, and Health and covers 9 different languages. It provides different levels (Yr1-Yr13) and assists with student engagement, feedback and assessments.

You can claim your donation contribution from the IRD.

Recently, the school office emailed invoices to whānau through KINDO, this email would have come from donotreply@thegrowthcollective.co.nz

If you have any questions, please email the school office office@pasadena.school.nz . Your donation is greatly appreciated. 

Hero

At Pasadena, we use Hero as a platform for reporting absences, accessing notices, and real-time reporting. Real-time reporting involves using digital technology to help connect parents and whānau with their children in more timely and on-demand ways. It focuses on student successes as well as explaining next steps in a regular and up to date manner. Students have an active role in the process where posting and reflecting on their learning is integrated into classroom programmes.

This term you can view:

• Real-time reporting posts in Reading/Pānui, Writing/Tuhituhi, Maths/Pāngarau and the students current Specialist area e.g. Art, Technology, Food and Nutrition or the Performing Arts

• Samples of student work/evidence, student comments, teacher comments as well as next learning steps

• A Unit of Inquiry and Physical Education post

At the end of Term 2, you will also be able to view:

• Achievement measured Against End Of Year Curriculum Expectations in Reading/Pānui, Writing/Tuhituhi and Maths/Pāngarau

• A general comment written by the teacher

• Participation in school activities

Each time a post is available for you to view/comment on, you will receive a notification via the Hero mobile app (if you are logged in) or via an email if you log into Hero via web browser. We highly encourage parents/caregivers to interact with posts by writing a comment! You can do this by clicking on ‘write a comment’ under the specific post.

If you are yet logged into Hero, please follow the step by step instructions found here

Christine Abercrombie

Assistant Principal

How do we communicate at Pasadena?

• Newsletters: 3 times a term on a Wednesday

• Class Newsletters: sent at the beginning of each term, outlining the classroom programme and events for the term

• Parent Weekly Sheet – A "what's on" email to parents. This identifies all of the activities that are on in the upcoming week

• School App – click on https://pasadenaint.apps.school.nz/share/ to download. Here you can find the daily notices, contact details for the staff and the school diary of events. 

• School website www.pasadena.school.nz  – information regarding the school, calendar of events, staff emails and detailed information regarding the school

• School Facebook page Facebook

• Teachers email – email addresses can be accessed on our school website staff email addresses. 

• Office email – office@pasadena.school.nz 

Student Assessment 

Over the next few weeks (and continuing throughout the school year) students will be completing a number of different assessments. One assessment, in particular, is e-asTTle tests. E-asTTle is an assessment tool, developed to assess students’ achievement and progress in Reading, Writing and Mathematics or in Pānui, Pāngarau and Tuhituhi. E-asTTle provides teachers with information that can be used to inform learning programmes and to apply teaching practice that maximises individual student learning. It is a great tool for helping students understand their progress and for involving parents in discussions about how their child is doing/collaboratively forming next learning steps (results/pathways will be shared at Student-Led Conferences later on this term). Alongside e-asTTle testing, a number of formative assessments also occur to provide crucial information about what students understand and what they need support with. This includes observations, discussions, questioning, self-assessments and activities completed. A focus for Pasadena continues to be sharing student’s current achievements, next steps and learning progress with caregivers and whānau in a timely manner using a digital platform called Hero - more information about this will be provided over the term and at our Assessment Evening on Tuesday 19th March.

Immunisation Programme

The School-Based Immunisation Programme is run across Aotearoa NZ, and is led by Starship Community Health at Pasadena Intermediate.

The immunisations available through the New Zealand National Immunisation Schedule are:

• Tetanus, Diphtheria and Whooping cough (Boostrix) for all Year 7 students

• Human Papillomavirus (HPV Gardasil 9) for all Year 8 students

Our Starship Community Health Nurse will speak to our Year 7 and then our Year 8 students about the immunisations on Monday 8 March.  Following this, students will take home a consent form, we ask that all students return the form back to the school office indicating whether or not they will receive their immunisation at school.

HPV (Year 8) immunisations will take place on Thursday 4 April and Thursday 17 October, while Boostrix (Year 7) immunisations will take place on Thursday 25 July.

Upcoming Events

Community Notices