Newsletter 17th August 2005

Students will attend three lessons over a three-week period starting on 29 August. Raukawa Trust Board, Pacific Family Education and Community Health Waikato (Public Health Nurses) will provide the programmes. The people working with the students have all been trained to cover Sexuality Education in schools and there is a prescribed programme for them to cover. This is included below.

Class teachers will be in attendance during lessons. Parents have the right to withdraw their children from the programme. For parents to do this, please fill in the slip at the end of the newsletter and return it to school prior to the programme starting. Parents are also welcome to sit in on the lessons. The timetable is outlined below.

Parents have chosen which health provider they wish their children to attend (Raukawa, Pacific Family Education and Community Health Waikato (Public Health Nurses). This was done last week. If you have not done this please do this immediately by sending a note to school with your child.

Sexual Development Education Timetable

Monday	29 August	Year 8	Girls	1:10 - 2:05
			Boys	2:10 - 3:05
Tuesday	30 August	Year 7	Girls	1:10 - 2:05
			Boys	2:10 - 3:05
Monday	5 September	Year 8	Girls	1:10 - 2:05
			Boys	2:10 - 3:05
Tuesday	6 September	Year 7	Girls	1:10 - 2:05
			Boys	2:10 - 3:05
Monday	12 September	Year 8	Girls	1:10 - 2:05
			Boys	2:10 - 3:05
Tuesday	13 September	Year 7	Girls	1:10 - 2:05
			Boys	2:10 - 3:05

Sexual Development
There can be a cultural perspective to the teaching of sexual development by the Maori and Pacific Island Health providers. The content of what can be covered is outlined below. Contraception, sterilization and abortion are not covered.

Focus 1: Growing
        Objective     Students recognise that the rate of growth varies considerably and can relate to this personally.

Focus 2: Changing
        Objective     Students discuss some of the changes associated with puberty and they recognise that the changes that they are aware of in themselves are to be expected at their age. To include not only physical changes but emotional and intellectual.

Focus 3: Getting Used to Physical Change at Puberty
        Objective     Students relate the physical changes they are aware of to the internal changes that are also taking place during puberty and feel more confident in using conventional terms to describe some of these.

Focus 4: Periods, Erections and Wet Dreams
        Objective     Students talk about the cyclical nature of periods in girls and about erections and wet dreams in boys and discuss how to cope with these.

Focus 5: Managing Pubertal Change
        Objective     Students to discuss managing pubertal change which includes anxieties they may have, who to talk to and where to get additional information. Year 8 only.

Focus 6: Forming Daily Routines
        Objective     Students learn about the need to take care of the body’s changing needs at puberty.

Time Allocation: The sexual education aspect of sexuality will be taken over three, forty five minute sessions and will be co-ordinated so a level of the school will be taken by all health providers at the same time. Boys and girls are to be taken separately. It will be necessary to combine some of the focus areas or even to split a major one into more than one lesson. This is up to each health provider to organise but must be managed within the time allocation given.

Apart from “managing pubertal change” there will be a repeat of the Year 7 content in Year 8. This is necessary as many of the Year 7 students will not be mature enough
to absorb the information or it will not be meaningful to them when the lessons are taken in Year 7.

The school Truancy Initiative involving the school, police and Tokoroa Truancy Service is underway. Thank you to parents who phone in and let us know that your child is going to be absent from school. Last week only thirteen letters were mailed out to parents. This is a marked decrease in the usual number of parents who don’t advise us. Although this is a very small number, we would like to see the numbers reduced.

Our school Cross Country will be held at school on Thursday (tomorrow). Last year we trialled it at school and have decided that for a number of reasons, school is the best venue. Parents who have had a long history with the school remember it being “The Lake Race” around Lake Moananui. The course was then changed to Matarawa Park and we now have it at the school.

The Cross Country will start at approximately 1:00 p.m. with the order of the races being: Junior Girls, Junior Boys, Senior Girls and then Senior Boys. There will be approximately twenty minutes between races.

We would like all students to participate unless they are sick or have an injury that prevents them from running. This is a House competition and students gain a house point for starting and another point for finishing as well as additional points for the top twenty placings in each division.

The School Council is organising a mufti day for this Friday. It will cost the students $1.00 to come to school in mufti.

The High School Open Days for the Year 8 students will be Friday, 26 August for Forest View High School and Friday, 2 September for Tokoroa High School. All Year 8 students will visit both schools.

Contractors have started work on an upgrade and extension to our staffroom. It is planned to have it completed by early in Term 4.

In a previous newsletter Mr Hopkinson and Mr O’Rourke pointed out the success of our teams on the field at the Waikato Intermediate Schools Rugby Competition. The school received a phone call from the co-ordinator of the day to congratulate the boys on their excellent behaviour and that they were the only team to clean up litter in the grandstand. It is these small but important examples from our students and staff that is giving our school a high reputation, not only in Tokoroa, but the wider Waikato area.

The Tokoroa Intermediate Kapa Haka group have had a busy week. Last Thursday they performed at the Tokoroa Life Care Rest Home. The children practice for two hours every week and were pleased to be able to accept an invitation to perform for the rest home residents. The group sang a variety of waiata and the boys performed a very vigorous haka, all of which were enjoyed by the elderly audience. On Saturday night the group went to Papa O Te Aroha Marae and performed for the Te Reo Maori classes of Te Wananga O Aotearoa.

September 25th to 30th
October 2nd to 7th
Beginners to Advanced
Activities include – Horsemanship, learning to jump, games on horseback
Adventure rides over 400 hectares of farmland
10 years and up
Your horse or ours
Ph. 07 3236457 or email www.tuiglen.net.nz