Term 1 Introduction

Welcome to the Fiery Taniwhas blog.

A very happy New Year to you all! I hope you had a wonderful summer break and an exciting holiday with your child/ren. I am delighted to be your child’s classroom teacher in 2017.

A little bit about me:

I am a South African Indian. I was born in Durban. Islam is my religion, which makes me a Muslim. All of my schooling was done in SA. I came to New Zealand in 2003.  My family consists of my loving husband Khalid who is an accountant at Mt. Richmond Special School. I have a two and a half year old daughter named Maira who keeps me on my toes.

When I was little, my dream was to become a teacher.  I trained in SA and taught at a High School for 2 years, I then came to NZ. This is the third school that I will be teaching at in NZ. I first taught at One Tree Hill College. My second job was at Bailey Road School where I taught Y7 and 8 students. I was there for most of my teaching career. This is my third job and it is also the first time that I will be teaching Y5 and 6 students. Although I have been teaching for numerous years, I’m still a student, learning so much from people, and from my students.

Our classroom programme for this term will be as follows:

Unit Study/ Inquiry learning –We begin 2017 with a school wide inquiry unit on how do we express ourselves? What does a successful learner look like?  How do we learn best? The schoolwide Big Idea is: ‘Welcome to my world’. We will be looking at how we can do our best, how our brain works and what makes a successful learner?

Literacy – This term will cover descriptive, recount and poetic writing. Your child will have regular spelling that will need to be completed at home. Grammar and language features will also be part of their learning to support growth in the English language. In reading, the emphasis will be on guided reading to further develop their comprehension strategies. You can help at home by encouraging your child to read regularly. They may borrow books from our school library, public library and they will also receive free Duffy books.

Maths – In numeracy we will continue scaffolding knowledge and strategies for solving problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Students will also be learning and consolidating new concepts in Statistics. The testing of their current knowledge in these fields will start in a few weeks. Does your child know all the basic facts and times tables? Please help by testing them regularly on these.

Health & PE - All students will be required to participate fully in swimming activities this term in order to improve their swimming skills. Swimming lessons will be on Monday and Wednesday mornings and students must bring along their togs and towel on these days. Please encourage and support your child so he/she can learn to value this skill. Ripper rugby will also take place this term.

Homework and research tasks - Please support me in ensuring your child completes his/her homework and research tasks on time. Homework will be sent home every Friday and marked the following Friday. Work that is not completed during class time may sometimes be set as a homework task.

Children should always be attending school and any absence needs be explained with a note from home if you are either unable to contact the school office or by emailing me with a reason for your child’s absence.

All children are required to come to school in the correct Rowandale School uniform. Hats are compulsory in Terms One and Four.

Please read the weekly school newsletter (can be read on the school website or a copy should come home with your child), as it will keep you informed of upcoming school events.

If you have any queries or concerns regarding your child please contact me during school

time or email me.

Yesmeen Rassool
Email: yesmeenr@rowandale.school.nz

Room 21 Year 5/6 Teacher

High Flyers Team