Newsletter Term 3 Week 10

2022 Term 3 Week 10

Kia ora koutou,

Here we are in the last week of term. It’s hard to believe how strangely this year began, and how reasonably normal Term 3 has felt. We have had our share of illnesses which we have always accepted as a normal term 3 afflictions. We have been able to find relievers most of the time and we have been largely able to provide uninterrupted teaching AND get to some events that have been postponed or canceled for the past few years. At the Year 7 & 8 quads yesterday some of the organisers were busy trying to recall how we used to do things! It’s been a while!

Board of Trustees updates: We have had our first hui as the newly elected BoT. It was great to be able to get to know each other and go through a whistle-stop induction process in order to be ready to rock at the next meeting planned for October. Term 4 will be very busy and part of the Board’s role is to consult with our community about our goals and aspirations as a school in order to write our strategic and annual plans.

BSSG: Following on from the great success of the last few fundraisers the BSSG has made the decision to support a big school-wide initiative for 2023. This is huge and we can finally share this initiative with you. It has been in the pipeline for a long time (2+ years) and the BSSG has helped us to launch it with confidence. See the information below to find out what has me so super excited!

Sunsafe – Term 4 & Term 1: As a sunsafe school we introduced a hat as a part of our uniform compliance at the beginning of this year. These are now a compulsory part of our uniform from Term 4 onwards. We also have supplies of sunblock stationed around the school and encourage teachers to utilise shady spots for reading or working outside. When playing or participating in sports, the hat will be expected so please help us to keep your child sunsafe this summer.

Staffing 2023: As previously shared, the makeup of classes will look different in 2023 due to the size of year groups and the spaces we have available. We are now working on staffing and will be certain to let you know once we have all necessary positions filled which teachers will be where. We will also be welcoming back Megan Syme – her year of study leave will be completed in December and she will rejoin us and bring with her a new vibrance for Te Reo Māori that we are all looking forward to prospering from.

Have a safe and happy holiday, enjoy the longer days, and hopefully, some dollops of sunshine and summer begin to show up for us all.

Ngā manaakitanga, Kim Gordon – Tumuaki. 

POU TĀHŪ

As part of Pou Tahu’s firewise programme we were lucky to have Braden Hammond come in to talk to us about his job and what is involved. He was impressed with the amount of safety knowledge we already knew about being safe around fires. A highlight for our tamariki was being able to see him as he showed us what his uniform involves and how he breathes with his helmet on!

Kiwileles

Mahi mīharo to the Bulls School Kiwilele Group for their mahi ka rawe at the Rangitikei Kiwilele Jam. Thank you to our awesome family members for coming along and joining in. Our tamariki sang joyfully, performed proudly, played the uke passionately, and participated enthusiastically.

Congratulations to Peatalita and Alex for being awarded the ‘Ukulele Honours Awards’ for their commitment to attending practices and enthusiasm towards practicing and playing their ukulele and William for winning best dressed.

Readers Amnesty

• We rely on our readers to support our students on their reading learning journey. We also rely on the support our tamariki get to continue the process at home.
• We try to facilitate this by sending children home with readers to practice or solidify learning.
• It might be difficult to comprehend but we need literally hundreds of books to be able to do this well. And herein lies the problem.
• Each reader costs on average $8 and we buy them in sets of 5. Then we require about 10 different titles at each level. In structured literacy alone there are 7 levels, with levels inside the levels!
• We are literally talking about a huge investment!
• When copies don’t come back from being sent home or come back in a state that makes them unusable we can’t use them as teaching tools.
• When the sets are depleted, we can no longer use them with groups of students in class, and on and on it goes.
• By sharing this korero with you we hope to be able to put a real figure, both in terms of the cost but also the teaching aspect to encourage all of our tamariki and whānau to return books each time they go home and to take really good care of them as one of their important tools of learning.
• When we find ourselves having to make the decision not to send books home, we know we are not supporting the home-school learning journey partnership, but we also know that the learning journey of many can be impacted if we continue to lose books.

We set you a challenge to make a pile of any books that might unearth themselves over the holiday break and drop them back, no questions asked.

Lunch in School

The Ministry provides free healthy lunches daily, you will need to provide morning tea and a water bottle for your child. Please let the office know of any dietary requirements, alternatively, you can opt-out of the Lunch Scheme by contacting the office and then provide your own healthy lunch. 

If you have any second-hand uniform you would like to donate we would greatly appreciate it.

Please drop off at the office. Thank you.

Term Dates 2022

Term One Mon 2nd Feb to Thur 14th April

Term Two Mon 2nd May to Fri 8th July

Term Three Mon 25th July to Fri 30th Sep

Term Four Mon 17th Oct to Thur 15th December (confirmed)