Welcome to 2003. This page will act as an archive outlining the events that are on at school. It is in chronological order so the recent info is at the bottom!
The last event of 2002 was our end of year production of Shake Ripple and Roll. It was a hit. It is a big undertaking and I would like to thank the staff and parents that did such a great job getting it all together. Every year is a highlight from
1997 Windust, 1998 Starblaze, 1999 Valley of the Voodons, 2000 MUD, 2001 Windust, and 2002 Shake Ripple and Roll.
The kids performed amazingly. It is neat to have ex Toko kids in the band and taking care of the lighting. Check out the gallery for the great pix.

Playground
We are getting a new playground. It is to be installed on Friday the 14th of February. It has been made possible by the work of our awesome fundraising committee.
Today the 5th of February we had a working bee at school to prepare the site. Many thanks to the great group of parents that turned up to lend a hand. We also cleared and radically pruned much of the garden along the roadside! Parents that help out in this way make an enormous contribution to the successful ioperation of the schoola

Beach Day Friday the7th of February
This has turned into a biannual event. Every second year all the school visits the Beach Ed program at Fitzroy Beach. This year were split into two groups, year 1 to 4 and year 5 to 8. The children have a spread of activites all based around water safety and sun safe and although it was planned as an important part of the schools health and PE program I think that we will look for something different next time. I was thinking that a walk along the coastal walk may be a good alternative and then a swim.Check out some cool pix in the gallery.
Sadly we had an accident this day. Anica-Lee fell from playground equipment during the lunch break and surely broke her arm. The best thing to do was to ring the ambulance!
Again parents made it possible by offering to transport the children so on behalf of the children, thank you.

Methanex Festivart
Congratulation to James, Martin, Tom, Jacqui and Brendon for having their art selected for the Festivart Exhibition starting on Friday the 28th Febraury in New Plymouth. Actually, we could have sent a whole lot more, but you may remember that many were on display at Urban and the others weren't finished!

Family Pool Night 22nd Feb
It was a perfect Stratford evening in at the TSB Pool on Saturday night. Although you may say the turn out wasn't great, twenty families had a good old time and the kids had a ball.

Monday the 3rd of March
Stanley, Midhirst and Toko Schools' met at the TSB Pool in Stratford and children competed within age groups. Events included: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and then relays. Over the day children accumulated points through their involvement and here are the age champions: (I'll get the missing names asap.)
Year 4 Ethan (Toko) Simone (Midhirst)
Year 5 Henry (Toko) Reagan (Toko)
Year 6 Izaak (Toko) Kelly (Midhirst)
Year 7 Holly (Toko) Richard (Toko)
Year 8 James (Toko) and Louise (Toko)
So the children did very well competing to the best of their ability.
Many thanks to all the folk that assisted with the smooth running of the day. Visit the gallery for a few pix

Friday the 14th of March
The Mayor of Stratford was at Toko School on Friday to officially open our new playground. It was a low key affair, but the kids certainly had some fun and the staff too had a turn on the new playground! Many thanks to our Mayor for coming up to School and making the ceremony just that little bit official. It should be noted that the Taranaki Electricity Trust had a large part to play funding this new facitlity, putting in $10 000. Our school fundraising committee were responsible for raising the additional $5000 required to put the playground in place. Many helpful parents added their input ensuring that it was a success.

Saturday the 15th of March
What do teachers do on the weekend! Well this weekend Richard, Jan and Cathy were at school along with teachers from Huiakama, Turatura, Mahoe, Belmont Acadeny and Kaponga Schools'. Many thanks to Kim and Brian for running an excellent day, focusing on developing thinking through the integration of IT into our programs. Another outcome of the day was the germination of the idea to apply for entry in to the ICTPD for Central Taranaki Schools.

Saturday the 22nd of March
The appointments committee had the unenviable task of interviewing applicants for the scale A position soon to become vacant with the departure of Mrs Bell! Well I think we have come up with a great replacement! Welcome to Toko School Miss Julia Hobby. Julia has been working at Ngaere School foir the last two years. Welcome aboard Julia

Tuesday the 25th of March
Jan and Richard went to an environmental education day in New Plymouth. It was an interesting day. We reviewed our level of envirnomental education and have looked forward to units in the future. Worms worms worms!

Bruce Hammonds was at Toko School for a morning on Thursday. As usual Bruce had great ideas. His visit is part of self review for 2003 and Principal Appraisal as well. We looked at many aspects of the curriculum. Importantly whole school themes which encompasses certain curriculum areas,(traditional theme areas of Art, Social Studies, Science, Technology) and combine learning styles and multiple intelligences sort of gelled into one. Every unit of 3,4 or 5 weeks would have four key learning experiences. Each activity would have a different emphasis re learning styles and multiples intelligences.

Friday the last day of term 1
The end of term assembly was a really good one. Each class presented a item and it was a great finish to the term.

I've been working on developing the school themes. We decide on what are important cross curricula themes. These themes are what we see as important for our children to understand and live successfully in tommorrows world.

Term 2
Prep is upon us! Over the first week, and the last week of term 1 children have been developing their business plans. On Thursday we had our first session with the childern actually in their businesses, setting up. We have two banks this year which is an interesting new idea. Perhaps there is nothing like a bit of competition. Prep is a really exciting project. More info on PREP try this link.

Thursday the 1st of May
Ann Radford was at school and the topic once again was developing formative assessment practices within the school.
We are generally looking at having our learnng intentions clearly displayed in class along with the success criteria too. Clearly then we can give specific feedback to the kids.

May 9th
Both Graeme Phillips and Joy McLean have been in classrooms discussing differing aspects of the mountain with the children in Room 1 and 5.

May 14th
Prep Open Day. We had approximately 30 people at school, teachers and students from all over, on Wednesday for our Prep Open Day. We are quite near the beginning, Week 2, so although there was not alot of product around the children's businesses are well organised and operating well. All in all this was really positive for our kids. The feedback from ou visitors was very positive too. Hope everyone found it worthwhile.

Monday the 26th of May
Jones Cup Netball and Rugby competition was held today in purrfect conditions! It really was an excellent day. Eastern District schools combined and put in stong teams, as well as Midhirst School, and Toko. This year Douglas and Stanley Schools also combined with ED. Lots of great action today for all the kids involved and lots of great fun too.
Here are the results:
Rugby
Junior Rugby Winner ED Green Runner Up Toko Gold
Intermediate Rugby winner Midhirst Runner Up Toko Gold
Senior Rugby 1st Equal ED 2 and Midhirst.
These teams had 7 points each, 13 tries each and when they played it was a draw!
Netball
Junior winner Toko Gold Runner UP ED Sparkles
Intermediate Winner ED Stormers Runner Up ED Black
Senior Winner ED Speedies
Runner Up ED Stingers
A huge thank you to the referees and umpires, coaches and PTA who all combined to make a memorable day!

David Hill Author
Room 5 had the pleasure of an hour with David Hill down at the Stratford Library. This was part of a Nestle Wrriting Competition.We are embarking on a 500 word story writing competition. Davids literary advise to the children was to 'steal', of course referring to ideas and moments that occur and then use them in our writing. It was aan excellent time and Iwould like to thank Mr Hill for such an excellent hour.

Room 3 alsoo went to the town library and had an excellent visit with another artist and illustrator. A few children were selected for the illustrating work shop and this went off very well indeed.

Market Day
We had ourFirst Market Day for 2003, and I am pleased to say it was as good as any we have had! Room four's performance was again a highlight. The children did very well. The actual Market was great. It is a very busy and exciting event with all the wares on display and of course for sale.We had a good selection of parents here too even though this time they had no purchasing power. Next time, we will have the foreign exchange counter of the Banks open and parents are welcome to spend up!!

Methanex Mathgematics Spectacular
For the last three weeks in Room 5 the children have been involved in mathematical investigations. This is an important aspect of the level 4 mathematics syllabus. These went up to the Taranaki wide competition held at Yarrow Stadium. We entered three categories this year. Year 7 group investigation, Year 8 group invewstigation and Year 8 Maths in the work place.Congrtatulations to:
Katie and Chris who won the Maathematics in the work place with a great investigation focused on their PREP banks!

Congratulations to Zoe and Zach for their win in the Year 7 group investigation. Their investigation focused on the area of news versus advertising and comparing mens and womes sports in the Daily News.

Congratulations to Liesl and Kristina who investigated different ways of making an ellipse, then how to work out the area of an ellipse.
Highly commended went to:
Kasey and Kelsi investigating tangrams
Tom, James and Martin investigation the power crisis
Sam and Jeffrey for who could eat the most chocolate!
I was really pleased with this overall outcome and I believe it is well worth the extra effort involved.

Oral Language Assessments
Well Sheridan Hickey from the New Zealand Speech Board has been and gone! She was in the school for three days , individually assessing the 80 children that have been invlvled in the oral assessments. Sheridan had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the childrens work, and praised the time and effort that had obviously gone into the presentations. The actual results of each child's work will be known soon, with the presentation of badges, for either Distinction, Highly Commended, Commended, Pass (or sadly fail)

End of term 2!
We've had our second market day and I hope you enjoyed it. Isn't it fasinating! Check out video on Prep page it's worth the download time!
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany thanks to our hardworking staff for an excellent term!

Principals Conference
Richard was away for the last two days of term at the Principals Conference held in New Plymouth. It was great!!!I appreciate the opportunity to go. Many great speakers focusing on the art of teaching.

Term 3

Welcome back! I hope everyone is refreshed and ready to roll.
Puke Ariki
Tuesday the 22nd the whole school went by bus up to our new museum, Puke Ariki. The children had an excellent time . In adddition we walked from the Windwand to Fitzroy Beach. The junior school walked to the rocks and also had a neat time. Many thanks to the parents that assisted on the day

Wednesday the 30th
We had Joy McLean from Doc at school on Tuesday the 29th of July. Joy talked to the children about our new outdoor clasand sroom. DOC have donated trees for us to plant. Joy is an ex parent and funnily enough the photographer from the Press was an ex student.

Thursday the 31st
Room One had a great time today with the play group. They went to a great little show as part of their current unit. Thanks for helping with the transport!

August sometime....

Ever had your hard drive with your site on it go down! Well it's not much fun!
It was rather ironic that on the day that we had a little article in the paper all about the web site was the same day things went astray. Anyway if you want your 'stuff' back it up!
Many thanks to Lansnz for helping out so much after it all. Cheers
Perhaps the upside is the purchase of a tape back up real soon.

The McLeod Shield has been all go. Girls beat Mangatoki 18 to 9 and then St Patricks 15 to 10. Sadly the boys went down to Mangatoki is a really close game. Our coaches Cath and Glen are again awesome!

Visitors to the school include:
Ann Radford re formative assessment
Bruce Hammonds re good practice
Sue Crichton re assessment data


August 17th
We have been doing an awesome early Toko unit and many thanks to Mr Brian Chainey who came to school and spoke to Room 5 re the early Toko days. I think the little picture gallery we have organised is worth sharing and will have a great little link soon to all the neat pix.

August 27th
Mcleod Shield and Hurlestone Shield games continue, with Toko winning against Matapu and St Patricks. The girls however, went down to Kaponga, boys had a nice win in a close game. Quarter final games looming at beginning of September.
Basketball season came to a close on Friday the 29th after 16 weeks of Bball!
New Bball tops have been ordered and will be all go for the beginning of the 2004 season!

Richard has come off his classroom time on Friday the 29th as well. Welcome back Mrs Savage into Room 5.
Heritage Trail boards mailed to Wellington Friday the 29th as part of a DOC competition. Who knows!

September and Netabll and Rugby
Our girls got into the semi final against ED at the TET centre. The girls ended up getting pretty well beaten! We are still proud of their efforts. The boys had a good time, played their best. Congratulations to both teams and thanks to the coaches too!

The ED girls ended up beating the Kaponga team in the final. Awesome ED.

Heritage Trail News
Awesome news you guys!! As you probably know we sent off some amazing kids work to Wellington. In the end we have won a NZ wide competition run through the Department of Conservation!! In fact they were so good that the they put them into the senior category and WON first equal!!!
Congratulation to Ryan and Tom for winning and Kelsi and Louise for winning!
The school gets $250 worth of school books, and the individuals will win a total of $500, to be shared equally.

Classroom Face Lift
Room 3 is getting a new lick of paint over the holidays! Plus a nice new computer stations at the back of the room!

Term 4 Wednesday the 8th
Things are on the go! Calf and Lamb day coming up.Lots of work for both the PTA and Fundraising Committee.
End of year Production preparation including scripts for Room 5 and the whole school learning the songs.
Weekly swimming has started in town once a week.Thanks to our parent helpers.
The environmental committee met this week with representatives from many organisations to discuss our "outdoor classroom:"
Sounds like this is making good progress.
Plus the schools library has a renewed library program, along with the purchase of $1000 worth of new books. Many thanks to the Fundraising committee)
All in all a rather busy start to the term.

Congratulations to Bradley, an ex Toko pupil who is now the student rep at Stratford High!

16th of October
Many thanks to McDonald Real Estate. They have paid for 15 new rugby jerseys for the school teams. Mat came to school on Friday and presented them to the children. They look great. Check here.

Kids for Kids concert Friday the 24th of October
Well done everyone. It was a great show and if you knew the Toko kids they sure shone. We were really well positioned, smack bang at the front! A big thank you to Mrs Trueman and Miss Hobby for getting the kids performing so well.

Congratulations to Zoe , she was placed second at the Toko Lions Young Speech makers Competition.Other children selected to represent the school were, Martin, Ryan and James, and Katie. A top effort by all the children, but clearly Zoe's had that something special.

6.11.2003

Rex Hendry from the Department of Conservations was at school today to give the "cheques and certificates to the children that won the Young Historians Competition! Awesome. The library has $250, and a subscription to National Heritage magazine.

School Camp Monday the 10th to the 14th
Room 5 had a great camp between the 10th and 14th of November. We went to Rotorua and basically did it all!
The rest of the school also did something different! It was a Pioneer Week. Check out the pics in the gallery.

Pioneer Week
Back at School all the children had a wonderful week. They all visited Tawhiti Museum and Pioneer Village.The kids made candles and had a dress up day as well. A big thanks to all the parentss involved.

Speech Finalist
Congratulations Zoe for competing so well in the Rotary Speech competition on Thursday the 20th

Site Award
It was great for the school site to be recognised recently. We won a TKI web site award. Cheers!
Production practices are in full swing! This year we are putting on another show!! It is called Snow White and the Seven Asiders! Dates are: Community Thursday the 11th and Friday the 12th. Hope you can catch it. If not check out the gallery for a few pix!

Decemebr the 1st Athletics Day
Congratulations to all the folk involved in putting our school athletics day. Many thanks to to the teachers and pupils of Midhirst School and Stanley School. You guys were great and were great ambassadors for your schools.

Age champions for the day were!

Website Award December 2nd
We have won another web site award! WOW. Not first or second, but one of eight runners ups! We are one of the 'Coolest Websites" !

December the 3rd
Martin and Ryan, Zoe and Kelsi went up to Douglas School on the 3rd and competed in the annual Amy Smith tennis tournament. Well congratulations to Kelsi and Martin, they won the boys and girls competitions. A great result as there were some other really good tennis players there from local schools. I think the tennis tournament we are running at school had something to do with the childrens success, but both are playing tennis competitively on Saturdays!

December the 12th
We held our end of year concert at the Toko Hall on Friday night. It was I am happy to say an excellent night. Quite honestly the kids rose the extra few steps required to turn it into something really special.
A huge thank you to the school staff of Toko. Everyone was involved in a variety of ways and in the end we again have achieved a very memorable event. All part of the complete Toko Package! Hope to have a few pics in the gallery for you all to look at early in the holidays. Louise was chosen to receive the special book award for all her efforts! Well done Louise.
It seems appropriate that the first comment on the "Events page" was about last years production, Shake Ripple and Roll. Seems we have come full circle!

Tuesday the 16th
Leavers Morning Tea
Today we farewelled 13 fine students. They all said a few words at the farewell and remembered best times etc! The children spoke very well and in return received a gift from the BOT of a fine dictionary! We all shared a very nice morning tea , many thanks to the PTA. A special mention to Lana who was unable to be at the farewell.

The Year 8's then left school after signing dictionarys and just a tear or two! Actually a water fight was planned at the neighbours.
All the rest of the children went to their new classes after the farewell morning tea. Then a very nice surprise as not one but two Mr Whippy trucks arrived at school and we all shared a rather nice treat. A

Feedback on this page would be welcome. The attempt is for this to be a bit of a diary of the school year. Could be interesting reading in the future!