What was on at Ficino School in Term Three?
A new era at Ficino!
Ficino Preschool welcomed its first students through the doors on Wednesday 28th September. The site was earlier blessed by local kaumātua before being officially opened by local MP, Paul Goldsmith. The Preschool is currently accepting applications – should you wish to tour the site, please register your interest at www.ficino.school.nz/tours.
It takes a village… Ficino’s family focus
Ficino School places great value in involving parents and the wider family in a child’s educational journey. We believe this is an important aspect in helping children to reach their potential. This term our students were excited to welcome their grandparents to the ever-popular ‘Grandparents Day’. The opportunity to showcase their classrooms, art work and performance skills was one that was seized on eagerly by all students who had guests attending the morning event.
A child’s first day of school is an important milestone, perhaps as much for their parents as for themselves! In recognition of this, we held a New Entrants Parents Evening at the beginning of Term 3. This ‘orientation’ offered an opportunity for new parents to meet with each other, and for the Class Teacher to talk generally about how their children’s first couple of weeks had gone.
Good works assembly
Students from across the school took the opportunity to showcase special work they had produced in the classroom throughout the term in our ‘Good Works’ Assembly. The assembly highlighted a number of aspects of the School’s special character with children variously sharing beautiful writing through stories they had authored; giving uplifting recitation pieces they had learnt by heart; and demonstrating their innovation and focus with some original artworks they created.
Academic Achievements
Ficino School’s strong mathematical abilities were again apparent with their students’ impressive performance in the local Mathex competition. Teams of Year 6 students were pitted against students from 27 other area schools, with one of our teams placing third overall with a score of 85%! Their “bronze” status was especially pleasing given they were competing against a mix of leading private schools and local state schools.
Physical Endeavors
The importance of ensuring our students are physically fit and healthy is a key tenet of our School philosophy, while allowing them to build character through self-discipline, fair play and competition. Ficino students have kept the cold at bay this term by staying active with regular PE lessons and participation in a variety of school and inter-school sporting competitions.
Two teams recently competed in the North Island Primary School Ski Championships against 89 other teams from throughout the North Island. The Ficino Icicles skied their way bravely through the course to place second overall, with several individual skiers placing in the top 20 for their Giant Slalom efforts.
‘The hall is alive with the sound of music…’
This term saw over 90 entries into our school-wide Music Competition. With over 75% of our students learning an instrument, we were recently treated to pre-graded and graded performances across a variety of string, percussion and wind instruments. Voice was also used, with several students singing a cappella in the competition. Students are taught by several classically trained teachers and instructors, and privately.