Kia ora koutou

Gail's downsize of her role for three months will take effect from the middle of next week. We will have a new receptionist starting. Her name is Helen and she is also from the UK. We will miss Gail hugely! She has been such an integral part of setting up Amesbury School and I know that over the next few months we will discover all the little things she does to keep the school operation running smoothly that we did not even realise she was doing. However, even though she may not be seen on site every day, you will still hear from her. She will still be emailing out invoices, receipts and account information etc. 

Gail, thank you so much for all you have done for the school. We are so appreciative of your incredible hard work, loyalty, huge capability and commitment to the school. We will miss you, even though you will still be around.

A big thanks to all those who attended the community evening last night. It is often an effort to get prepared for a community evening (I always suffer a few nerves!) but it always feels so good when we are together. I love the fact that our community evenings provide an opportunity for parents and children to do activities together as well as meet new people. 

I also appreciate the opportunity to share some of our thinking and the ways we do things with parents. I understand that what we do is so different from traditional schools and it is hard for parents to get a handle on it all. Our huge online network of information which the students seem to be able to traverse easily, is one such example. Parents often don't know where to begin to find out what they want to know. 

I hope those who attended found the sessions useful. Even raising more questions can be helpful - because at least you now know what questions to ask. We are aware that we need to offer these types of sessions more frequently and perhaps with less time constraints. The question of videoing information about the school and its thinking was raised in one of the sessions last night. This would definitely be a sustainable solution and one we have talked about frequently - we just need to do it.

 Enjoy the rest of this week.

Arohanui.

Lesley