Ngā mihi o te rā, greetings to you all.

We had a great end to the penultimate week of the first term, with our school discos causing fun and laughter in the hall. Much singing, dancing, eating of pizza and yes, sliding on the floor, was done by all, and it was lots of fun. Huge thanks goes out to all of the parents (and older siblings) who helped out on the two events - we couldn’t manage this without you and we are really grateful. Special thanks to the disco planning team of Jemima, Hannah and Gail, especially the marvellous oversight from Jemima. Lots of careful thought and preparation went into both discos, and you all provided a fabulous social event for our tamariki. Thanks to all of our whānau for supporting the event and sending your tamariki along. We will update you with the final tally once we have completed a full count of all the takings, but we have certainly raised well over $1,000 for our year 5 and 6 South Island camp, helping us to keep the cost of the camp manageable for our families. Thanks for your support.

Staffing update

We are pleased to share the exciting and wonderful news of Emma and her partner, Nik, that they are expecting their first child in September. We are delighted for them both, and we wish them all the very best at this exciting time. 

Emma will begin her parental leave in Week 4 of Term 3, and at this point Rachel Hosnell will take over Emma’s whānau group for the rest of the school year. Rachel is our hub release teacher, and is very familiar to all Pōhutukawa ākonga. She has been working with Emma’s whānau on Thursdays each week when Emma is on release, and she is becoming increasingly familiar with the ākonga in her group. Rachel will attend the student conferences with Emma next week, so she can meet the whānau of Emma’s group, and by Term 3 it will be a very smooth transition for her to take over as whānau teacher. We will then appoint a new release teacher in Pōhutukawa to take over Rachel’s current role.

Building update

On Monday building work will be happening around school, because we missed the feeling of being a construction site from last year! Sections of cladding on our original learning blocks (Koru, Harakeke, and the main school office area) were damaged to some degree in the Kaikōura earthquake. The damage was not significant or a risk to anyone, but the cladding does need to be replaced in some areas.

The replacement work will happen one section at a time, with the project team moving slowly around the main blocks one wall at a time. Once they are all completed, all exterior walls except our new Pōhutukawa building will then be painted. We expect this project to take approximately a term, and be finished in late June or early July.

This work will begin on Monday with the exterior wall of the school hall that faces out onto the car park. Please be aware that the car parks directly in front of the hall will be out of action next week while the scaffolding for the first section of work will be erected.

And so we head into our final week of the first term. It has been a busy and very full term, with lots of fabulous learning happening. I’m off to Australia to catch up with my whānau on the Gold Coast in the first week of the holiday break. They promise me that is still warm enough to be using the pool while I’m over there, but I admit to being a little sceptical about this. I’ll wait and see! I hope you all have nice plans for the term break, and we look forward to another great term after the break.

Kia pai te rā whakatā - have a lovely weekend and enjoy time with whānau and friends.

Ngā mihi nui, 

Urs Cunningham