Newsletter Term 1 Week 4

NEWSLETTER TERM ONE 2024

Kia ora koutou, nau mai haere mai!

Term 1 – and the sun is shining! I hope you are all finding time to enjoy our Raumati/Summer – it has been quite the improvement on last year.

We are super busy – and that’s just how we like it. The first few days we have spent with our tamariki, have focused on building relationships.

COMMUNICATIONS:  There are some very important messages in today’s newsletter. What you will notice is that we are responding to a lot of the feedback we received when we engaged with you, our whānau through our community consultation process in Term 4. Communication was one area that came up more than once, some saying we don’t do enough and others saying we do too much SO we have made some streamlining decisions and over the next 2 newsletters will share with you how it works. If necessary we will continue to review and modify but we do rely on your feedback to know what is working well and what isn’t.

TEACHER ONLY DAY/STAFF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:   In Week 5 we have the opportunity to work with Angeline McDonald, the co-creator and facilitator of the Mana Potential Framework which has a focus on behaviour change based on equality, dignity, mana, and potential of all people. She is a highly regarded facilitator and we feel very fortunate to have been able to secure her to work with us. In order to do this we will be having a Teacher Only Day on Tuesday 27th March. School will be closed for instruction on this day and we will send out regular reminders. Thank you for your support with our ongoing professional development as staff. This framework compliments our restorative practice approach and we know we will learn so much from the time we spend working with Angeline.

WHĀNAU PICNIC IN THE PLAYGROUND:  Monday 26th March we have a Whānau Picnic in the Playground event planned. This will be the perfect opportunity to meet not only your child’s kaiako/teachers but all staff as we all see ourselves as collectively responsible for the learning journey of your child. On this afternoon we encourage you to pack up a picnic, chuck in a blanket, and come on down to the school anytime between 3pm and 6pm. There will be activities planned, plenty of time to chat, and maybe even a Ki-O-Rahi parent/student challenge if you are up for it! If you don’t know how to play this awesome game, come along and learn – our tamariki are awesome teachers!

EVENTS IN AND AROUND THE RANGITĪKEI:  Various events and activities are happening around our rohe this term and we encourage you to get your tamariki involved. Busy active children become busy active adults – so they say. We have included posters of these events in this newsletter and they will also appear on our facebook page.

It’s great to be back and I look forward to catching up with you or at least sending out a friendly wave from my road patrol duty! 

Kia pai te rā, have a great day, Kim Gordon, Tumuaki.  

SUBSCRIBE TO APP GROUPS 

Di has refreshed this and named each group with 2024 so you know it’s relevant and up to date. You will all need to join the groups specific to your tamariki.

This has important notices for either the whole school or specific groups eg: Bus Students, Sports, Cultural, Hubs, etc that you can join according to what your child’s involved in.

Many notices or reminders go out via the APP so it is an important tool for parents to be aware of what is due eg: permission slips and dates for events offsite, transport required etc. This is also an efficient way to provide absence notices.

In many cases, parental permission may be given via the app as well.

UNIFORM EXPECTATIONS

Our uniform and the way we wear it is connected to our PRIDE values. Taking PRIDE in our kura and our appearance as well as acknowledging the necessity to be sunsafe sits behind our decision to introduce a Bulls School Bucket Hat as a part of our regulation uniform. This has been an expectation since the beginning of 2023. Hats are available online or in-store for $20 and they come in 2 different sizes. Once you have yours PLEASE clearly name/label it. Matching 175 potae to 175 heads is much simpler when they are clearly named. 

Due to the weekend’s power surges our school pool pump has been fried. We are doing our best to get this sorted ASAP. Until then our swimming pool is unfortunately out of action. 

Kapata Manaaki – we have had a big clean out and there will be some school resources going into the Kapata Manaaki over the next few days such as dictionaries and atlas’s. Please take what you need.