Amesbury Digest - 17th May 2021

Kia ora koutou,

It was lovely seeing so many parents and whānau attending our learning celebration on Thursday. Our tamariki were very pleased to be sharing their learning with family and friends. I’d like to say a particular thanks to so many parents and whānau who made efforts to talk with other tamariki about their learning, not just their own children. I saw so many adults talking with other ākonga (students), giving them a chance to share their learning, which really helped tamariki (children) whose parents or whānau were not able to come along. This community spirit being shown across the school was heartening to see.

Staffing update

We have a number of staffing changes coming up in the next little while, so it would be good to go through these all at once.

- Kristen Liddell has been on maternity leave since term 3 last year, when she gave birth to her lovely daughter, Isabella. Kristen has made the decision not to return to teaching straight away, and has resigned from her full time teaching position at Amesbury. She plans to stay at home a little while longer with Isabella, and may return to teaching in a part time capacity later in the year. We will be very sad to not have Kristen returning, but we understand her desire to spend more time with family. As a school, we thank her for all of her contributions to Amesbury, and we wish her, Chris and Isabella all the very best.

- We are currently advertising for a new release teacher for terms 3 and 4 this year, which is the role Kristen would have been doing this year if she had returned. This position closes in a few weeks, and we will let you know when the role has been appointed. We will need a release teacher in terms 3 and 4 due to roll growth. Amaria Picard, who currently completes internal release in Koru Hub, along with some teaching with her own small whānau group this term, will be a full time teacher with her own full whānau group from the start of term 3.

- Andy Little has been on parental leave for the first two weeks of this term, after the birth of his beautiful son, Ezra Mylo Little, in the recent school break. He will return to school this week. So far this year, Andy has been teaching four days per week. In Week 5 he will begin teaching full time, and Angela from Koru Hub will reduce by on day to teaching four days each week instead. Our wonderful release teacher, Gina Quintero, will be taking over from Angela in Kowhai each Thursday and working alongside Esther.

- Amesbury School has joined with Churton Park School and Khandallah School to apply for funding for several Bilingual Support Worker roles across our schools. We are very pleased to have been successful in this application, and between the three schools we now have three Bilingual Support Worker roles, one for Arabic, one for Mandarin, and one for Hindi. These roles are designed specifically to support students who are recent migrants and would benefit from additional support in settling in, understanding the NZ culture and accessing the NZ curriculum. The three schools are sharing the roles in ways that meet the needs of different students across our three kura (schools). We have appointed an Arabic Bilingual Support Worker who will be working with a small group of Arabic students at Amesbury School for 5 hours every week. Yamama Abdulqadir, who is also a parent in our school community, has accepted this role, and we are delighted to have her join our team. The other two BSW roles will be largely based across the two other schools.

Pink Shirt Day - this Friday

This Friday (21st May) Amesbury School will be taking part in Pink Shirt Day. This means that all students, staff and parents can wear something pink to school to show support for anti-bullying. Please note that this is not a non-uniform day. Our normal uniform is still generally to be worn, but one or various items of uniform can be replaced with pink items (as many as you wish) to show support in stopping bullying across the world.

This is an international day of support for tolerance and embracing diversity. The story of Pink Shirt Day was shared by one of our students, Raffa, at our recent learning celebration: two students in Canada in 2007 witnessed a Year 10 student being bullied for wearing a pink item of clothing to school. To take a stand against this, they bought dozens of pink shirts and distributed them to their classmates to wear to school the next day. The word got out online and hundreds of students wore pink to school as a show of support. Pink Shirt Day has been celebrated in New Zealand since 2009.

Amesbury School is taking part in the celebration this year, to acknowledge and celebrate the wonderful diversity we have in our community, our country, and around the world. Whilst all people can be the target of bullying, some groups or individuals, such people in our LGBTQ+ community, and people of colour or of different cultural groups, experience more bullying than others. Pink Shirt Day is a way to show support and to encourage our tamariki to stand up for others and support those who need it.

We can do this by wearing a pink item of clothing on Friday, and/or also by talking with our tamariki about diversity in all its wonderful forms. Talking about ways that we can ensure our school and our community can be supportive, welcoming, and inclusive of all people, will help our spaces be safe for everyone.

Here is a link to more information about Pink Shirt Day. We are not formally fundraising at school on Friday, but rather we are showing support for diversity through wearing pink. If you would like to donate as a family, you can do so here. 

Here is where you can buy official Pink Shirt t-shirts and other items, with all proceeds going towards the Mental Health Foundation New Zealand. We encourage people to wear these shirts, or any pink items of clothing, on Friday. 

This is a great link to ways we can all support others by being an ‘upstander’ rather than a bystander - this may be a good discussion to have with your children.

Kia pai tō wiki - have a good week, and we hope to see lots of pink on Friday!

Ngā mihi nui,

Urs Cunningham