Newsletter - WE 12/03/2021

Tena Koutou Achiever of the Month This month our achiever of the month is a young lady who exemplifies our school value of Excellence. She applies herself to each and every classroom task and as a result has simply outstanding academic results across the board. Well done to Sophia Manifold for her hard work and efforts each and every day.I must also give an honorable mention to Bryce Scarlet who competed in EVERY athletics and EVERY swimming event at school in our recent events. “Mr Caverhill”, as he is becoming known, is certainly racking up the points for his Whanau in the early stages of the year. Well done to you Bryce!I must also thank Ms Sopp for a fairly herculean effort organising and reorganising a marathon of sporting events around the Level 2 restrictions. This is by far the busiest time of the year for our primary sports coordinator and even shifting one event can be a pretty tough ask. Let us hope next week’s duathlon in Hanmer and the PCT challenge can go ahead as planned.Over the last week we have unfortunately caught a few of our students vaping on school grounds. Smoking and vaping are both not permitted on school grounds at ANY TIME and it is disappointing to hear that the equipment for this often comes from parents at home or that the student has parental consent to do so when they are clearly underage. There is also a suggestion from the students I have spoken to that retailers are not taking the mandatory steps to check when students are buying such things which is against the current law. Vaping has been promoted as the “healthier option” to smoking, however there is a growing body of research that suggest this may well not be the case at all. Indeed vaping produces a number of dangerous chemicals including acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde. These aldehydes can cause lung disease as well as cardiovascular (heart) disease and they also contain acrolein, a herbicide primarily used to kill weeds. Students caught vaping at school will of course be put through our school disciplinary system with smoking cessation education as required, as they would be for smoking. However, on this matter I see the only good and complete response is a community response where the retailers withhold such products from children and parents monitor such behaviour. Together we can help our students to make healthier choices.At our teacher only day on Monday we were so fortunate to have two of our ex-students come to present to us on their experiences coming through Amuri now they have moved on and had time to reflect on their experience. This was a wonderful experience for us as educators and they outlined their positive memories, what led them to success and areas we could work on for the future. One thing that truly resonated with us all was the students reporting a feeling of belonging, of teachers knowing them as individuals and not just being another number. We like to think that is part of who we are as a school so it was great to hear that from those that matter the most. They have also given us some pointers for improvement too and such feedback is invaluable for our continued improvement. Have a great weekend and go Team NZ! James GriggsPrincipal

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Meet the Teacher 2021As advertised in our newsletter please see times below for our Primary school meet the teacher evening on Tuesday 30th March. Please note this is not a 1-1 session with teacher. It is a time for the teacher to introduce their programme to you, answer any questions as a group and outline expectations around homework etc. You will as ever receive an invitation for 1-1 parent teacher conferences in term two and as ever we encourage you to make an appointment with your teacher at any time to address concerns.- 3.15-3.30 - Te Kooti Mrs Johnson- 3.35-3.50 - Te Kooti Mrs Van Den Mewre- 3.50-4.05 - Room 3 Miss Kirsten Allison- 4.10-4.25 - Room 4 Miss Phoebe Sopp- 4.30-4.45 - Room 5 Mrs Alannah Moke- 4.50-5.05 - Room 6 Ms Charlotte Campbell- 5.05-5.20 - Year 7 & 8 in Room in Te Kooti Mrs Emily Shaw, Mrs Charlotte Baldwin and Mr Adrian Black- 5.25-5.55 - Year 9 and Beyond in Te Kooti presentation Mr James Griggs.Please call the office if you have any questions.Kia Kitea ToikakaJames GriggsPrincipal