Kia ora koutou,

It has been a very focused week at school, with a purposeful and settled atmosphere across all three of our learning hubs. One kaimahi (staff member) commented earlier this week about the buzz they could feel as they walked in - lots of people working on different things in a very focused way.

Feedback from our School Board meeting

We had our first School Board meeting of Term 2 this week, and it was great to spend a good amount of time talking through the student achievement data and attendance data from Term 1. At the end of this term we will be half way through the year, and we will send out a summary of the achievement data and the attendance data for the year so far.

The Board reviewed a number of policies at the meeting, as this is a standard part of our meeting agenda. As a school we have a set of school policies and procedures that are reviewed every two years, except for a small number of annually reviewed policies. The full set of policies can be found here on the policies page of our school website. This page has quick links to some commonly read policies, and a link to the full list of policies.

One of the policies reviewed at the meeting on Wednesday was our physical restraint policy. Schools are now required to ensure that their community knows about their policy, and is aware of the key aspects in it. Our restraint policy can be found here. All kaiako (teachers) and any kaimahi (staff) who may be in the position of needing to hold a student for any reason will be completing the Ministry online restraint training next week; all kaiako across the motu are required to complete this training by the start of next year.

Restraint can bring to mind forceful handling of a person, but it covers a very broad range of actions. The general definition of restraint is to restrict the movement of another person. At school this may look like stopping a child's movement in an appropriate way if it looks like they are going to hurt themselves or another child, or stepping in front of them if they may hurt someone else in some way.

As a school, our behaviour approach is to work with individual students to de-escalate any situation and help them to remain calm and safe. Knowing our students well is a key part of this approach, as this helps us to identify the signs of an escalating event and work with them in ways we know helps them to de-escalate. For any students where there is a higher likelihood of them being involved in a crisis situation, our team works with the student’s parents / whānau to develop a plan for managing situations where physical restraint may be needed.

If restraint is used in any way with your child you will be informed as soon as possible on the same day as the event. The Ministry of Education is also informed of any situation involving restraint.

Finally, we had a number of parent focus meetings coming up this term. These meetings are where parents and whānau can meet with me and other parents to connect and talk through any key issues or questions they have regarding school. We have already held meetings for year 6, 5 and 4 parents and whānau, and this term we had meetings scheduled for year 1, 2 and 3 whānau. Unfortunately, I will be unable to hold these events at the moment, due to the ongoing primary principals’ strike (see here for more information). Hopefully we will be able to reschedule these focus meetings very soon.

Kia pai te rā whakatā. Hei tērā wiki, see you next week.

Ngā mihi nui, 

Urs Cunningham