Week Three

Board Update - 2025 Term Dates

The dates for the 2025 school year have been confirmed by the Board this week. There is an adjustment to the end of year finish date that was put out in an earlier newsletter. This is to allow for a Teacher Only Day during the year, which will be made up as an extra day at the end of the year. 

The confirmed dates are:

Wednesday 29 January - classrooms open for stationery drop off between 12:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Thursday 30 January - first day of school for 2025

Tuesday 16 December - last day of school for 2025

Teacher Only Day Monday 11 November 2024

As you may be aware, schools in New Zealand are preparing to implement new mathematics and english curriculums from the beginning of the 2025 school year. In order to help prepare teachers for these changes, all schools in New Zealand are required to hold a Teacher Only Day in Term Four 2024 focused on the new curriculum. Our school will be meeting with teachers from Portobello School, Broad Bay School, Macandrew Bay School and Grants Braes School on Monday 11 November for a professional development day on the mathematics curriculum. This is an important opportunity for our teachers to explore the intent of the new curriculum and look at how we can support all our students to be successful in their mathematics learning. We appreciate the understanding of our community when we need to participate in these days. 

We look forward to sharing more with you about the curriculum changes and how they will benefit our children. 

Ukelele Jam

On Thursday this week, our ukelele group attended the annual Ukelele Jam at Tahuna Intermediate School. This is always a highlight of the year for these children. It was great to share with other schools and to make wonderful musical memories together. 

South Zone Athletics

Next week we have a strong contingent of children attending the South Zones athletics day. This is another great opportunity for our students to participate and excel in something they love. 

School Swimming

Next week our Rākau senior team start their Term Four swimming lessons. They will be followed by the Māhuri Team swimming later in the term. We are fortunate to have a fantastic well maintained swimming pool facility to use, along with professional instructors to take our school swimming lessons. A reminder that the cost of the swimming lessons is paid for through your school contribution donation. If you have not yet paid this, we would really appreciate your contribution being paid this term. A huge thank you to the vast majority of parents who have already made this contribution. We really appreciate being able to offer these opportunities to our children. 

New Zealand Teachers Day

This week, we celebrated and acknowledged the outstanding work our teachers undertake for our children. We held a special assembly on Tuesday, organised by some of our senior students, to show our appreciation. I personally want to acknowledge the work our teachers do each day in ensuring our children are happy and successful learners.

Ngā mihi

Pauline Simpson

Principal