We finished our last year with the Kings Games – and I am still waiting on some exiting photos. I had a quick glance at all the fun and saw water being squirted everywhere, beds being stacked and boys smiling and having fun.
Kirsten will give me a list of sponsors soon, I know Bunnings Warehouse again pitched in with great support and supplies of materials.
Consent from all sides: Fun! Fun! Fun! (Saw some wet teachers, too…)
I have really enjoyed this busy, exciting and successful year for the PTSA .
The Pink Bag collection held in June was well supported by the school community, it is an easy fundraiser and I suspect it will become an annual event. The two years of Pink bag collection and other PTSA fundraisings events have raised the funds required for the gymnasium basketball scoreboard. This will be installed over summer.
We continued with the provision of 2 scholarships – The PTSA academic scholarship was received by Matthew Woodfield and the PTSA Musical/cultural scholarship was received by Alex McAdam. Congratulations you both.
We have paid $1000 towards the upkeep of the Heatherly from funds raised last year.
Our first “Kings Karnival” was held in September – a combination of a games circuit and the usual fair idea of stalls and entertainment that proved to be a great success. The day was filled with fun and excitement for all ages from face painting and ‘Little Flick’, to chocolate wheel, Moo Poo, and tombola raffles to auctions, to jaffa whacker and exciting King’s Games to bargain hunting fun at the stalls. Combined with good food and coffee prepared and served by our boys and school parents and the wonderful entertainment from our musical student band ‘The Sleeves’, this was a recipe for a good time.
We were overwhelmed by the support for the Kings Karnival from parents and businesses. I enjoyed meeting a lot of new faces throughout the year. Over 70 parents pitched in, from baking to sorting to selling goods and we got support from over 100 businesses in various ways with ANZ and Bunnings Warehouse being our Gold sponsors. All this contributed to a final fundraising sum of over $16.000 dollars which the school will spend towards the purchase of a classroom set of I-pads.
I would like to thank all those parents and businesses. It was such a great feeling of community spirit out there amongst our Kings High School parent body and the greater South Dunedin business area.
I also need to extent this thanks to:
– The school office people who were super helpful and smiley, thanks Cursey, Sue, Rhonda, Pam and Leonie.
– The teachers – from Mrs Sandra Sharma for her marvellous poster design, Jo Harford for her PR support, Duncan McLean for lending us his kitchen experience and his boys on Saturday, Sue Kim to put notes up on the website and the technology department for the use of their equipment and of course Darryl Paterson our PTSA link who got bombarded weekly with emails especially from me and others and managed to organise his moo poo raffle.
– The Students: Tyrin Tutaki gave me hope for a positive next generation – he has organisational talent and is not afraid to follow a vision: he managed to get several top notch students to help. Cameron for all the sound system set up, ‘The Sleeves’ provided us with great entertainment and the solo artists on the day who braved the stage alone.
– The ‘Old boy’ Warwick Larkins, who opened the Archives and had about 300 visitors he said – great to hear.
– The PTSA Team, who was behind the Kings Karnival from day one– well done team, I cherish your company.
Lastly – thanks to Kirsten Anderson (I do need to mention her) – she had a vision with the King’s Games and went for it. Shame that the second round of games got rained off on the day of the Karnival but Kirsten promised to repeat later this year.
As part of our role, the PTSA members have also assisted at school functions throughout the year such as open nights and prize giving’s. These are always enjoyable occasions and are a good opportunity to meet with teachers and parents in a more social setting.
Christiane Funnell
Chairperson
Books For Students With Dyslexia
It was a great thrill to receive funding to buy books which were suitable for our students who have dyslexia and problems with processing text. This is an area of the library which receives heavy usage and our boys who struggle to read tend to choose little books which may not be suitable for their needs. I was after books with engaging covers which had mass appeal, so that the students do not have the stigma of choosing a ‘little kid book’ and which other students think looks cool, but which have text within them which makes the book easy enough for them to read and not too many long hard to decipher words. I consulted with Chris Panther who is the RTLB here and who runs the reading programmes with these same boys and she lent me a book about dyslexia which enabled me to better choose these resources. So this is what I purchased: Lots of Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates and Timmy Failure books. These books have lots of cartoons to illustrate the stories. They are very cool right now. War stories in easy to read format. Many war stories are too hard to read for boys and yet they are always something that the students are interested in. I sourced some which have short stories which are engaging and which are manageable for those who struggle with reading. Andy Griffith books. These are perennially popular, the just series. The Tree House series and other Andy Griffith books are borrowed not just by those with learning needs but by many students in the junior school. A real favourite with strugglers. Funny and a little bit rude. Several Barrington Stoke books, printed on cream paper which makes them easy to read for dyslexic students. These are a tricky buy because they are very British and often not very relatable for our students, but I managed to source some which are great. Two series of James Patterson Books. James Patterson is one of the world’s most popular authors with a passion for helping non-readers get reading. I purchased the whole series of I, Funny books and also the Middle School series. These books have huge appeal because they are funny and look like big books but are very easy to read. The Amulet series of Manga/Graphic Novels. We have discovered that students who struggle with reading love Manga and Graphic Novels. We already have quite a large collection but I bought new copies of the particularly popular Amulet series which are engaging and easy to read, the pictures help tell the story and dyslexic students like the capital letters and speech bubbles. The David Walliams Books. This British author writes amusing and sad books which our boys love. They again look like big books but are printed on cream paper and in user friendly font and are easy to read. I bought 2 copies of Edge books. These are action adventure books written by well known authors such as Chris Ryan (whom many of our older boys read) and they appeal to those who want action but who want a small book. Also several stories which have engaging covers and mass appeal but simple text. Some non-fiction of high interest and a new copy of the most popular book in the library for beginning readers, The Recruit. At the same time as buying these books with the grant I also purchased books for these students from the general library budget. I wanted the students to have access to as many books as possible. The books for these students have been kept in a separate box in my office and are only available for the students with dyslexia and reading struggles at the moment, but in a week or so will be moved into the general collection but kept separately so that the students can find them easily. I would like to express my gratefulness for this donation, and I can assure you that the students have been enjoying your donation a lot. The idea that there are new books, especially for them has really appealed to the students. Below are some photos of the students using the books and also the collection of books which were purchased. These are the books spread out on the table. You can see there is a large variety! Below the Highlanders read the books with the boys during peer reading.
Oh it is exciting. The community is coming together for an event that King’s High School has not seen for 15 years. The South Dunedin Branches from Bunning’s Warehouse and ANZ came to support the King’s Games and this is just wonderful. But a lot of smaller businesses pinched in so Xerox printed all the letter drops and A4 and A3 posters and Stationary Warehouse subsidised the A2 posters. Phantom is displaying them within the next 2 weeks around Dunedin. Thank’s Guys you are helping us getting the word out.
Fundraised Money Spend in 2013
The PTSA had another great year organising a variety of fundraising events and some success in grant applications and providing some support to families in time of loss.
At the beginning of the year we purchased a bus for Kings High School using the funds raised over the last few years by the PTSA and the school.
The Funds raised from University beef study and Pink Bag clothing collection are ear marked towards the funding of a new gymnasium scoreboard proposed for next year.
The successful grant application to the Southern Victorian Charitable Trust provided us with funds for new Robotics equipment . Our school team have competed successfully in the national robots competition over the past few years.
Support from The Dunedin Casino Charitable Trust, book sale funds and gold coin donations from Big Picture movie night will be used to buy special books for the peer reading which provides extra help for students with different learning needs and creates more fun and interest in literature.
The funds we raised this year were used to add a second scholarship (an academic one) in addition to our annual sponsorship of “The King’s High School PTSA Music/Cultural Scholarship”.
Thanks you all for your support.
Movie from James Redford
We had some great discussions following movie at the PACT:
‘Could it be Dyslexia’ on Wednesday,
September 25th at 7.30pm,
Thanks for everybody attending and thank you Grocery King for supplying us with the refreshments after the movie.
Here are some more links if you have any questions re dyslexia: Dyslexia Foundation New Zealand
Kings High School Open Night
Thursday August 8th
7pm at the Performing Arts Centre
Information Evening
One of our students house burned down in June. Just a quick word to our main supermarkets in South Dunedin and they immediately helped out with vouchers.
Thanks Countdown and Pak’n Save.
Kings High School PTSA 
