Principal's Report

New Entrant / Year 1 parent afternoon

It was lovely to see so many families at the open afternoon for our junior students on Wednesday afternoon. We really appreciate the support from everyone and your involvement with your children’s learning journey. 

Matariki Breakfast

We are looking forward to seeing many of you at our Matariki breakfast next Thursday morning. Our te reo Māori extension group have been busy practising for this event and they are excited to share a small Matariki performance with you. If you haven’t let the office know yet if you would like sausages for breakfast (either vegetarian/gluten free or regular, please submit your order by clicking on the link below:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CAbXolDWYD09XNqqx6iw3j7k9lCU3lYArBCy8SiA1Eg/edit

Remember that if you are keen to have a look at the night sky that morning, you are welcome to come along at 7:00 a.m. for an astronomy session. If you have binoculars, you could bring these along to help your viewing. Mirko Harnisch will have a couple of telescopes set up for people to look through as well. This part of the morning is weather dependent, but we are hoping for clear skies!

Parking Outside School

Please remember that we need our students to be safe coming to school and leaving at the end of the day. It has been extremely disappointing over the last week to see a number of parents making very poor parking choices on Jeffery Street. Please DO NOT park in the school archway or on the corner of Jeffery Street on the yellow lines. This is incredibly unsafe for our students. Our local police constable has issued a number of warnings to drivers over the past week and has let us know that tickets will be issued for further infringements. He is also encouraging parents to send in photos to the school office of drivers parking on yellow lines or in our school driveways. These will be passed on to the police for follow up. 

Thank you for your support in keeping our students safe. We can change parking behaviour if everyone commits to this.

Parent Feedback on Parking

I have received several emails over the past couple of weeks from parents who are concerned about the way some parents are parking. Here are some thoughts from two of them.

Email 1:

Firstly, I acknowledge that pick-up time is stressful for everyone involved, especially for parents who work outside the home and have time limitations that prevent us from being at school at 2.30 PM. Myself included. 

This being said, the lack of spatial awareness is quite concerning among some drivers, considering the general premise that everyone parking around the school between 2.30 and 3 PM is there for one reason only - picking up our children from school. The time would not be a problem, if people parked with more consideration. There is plenty of space for everyone, and problems occur when people take three parking spots. 

As a concerned parent, may I kindly request the school's help in educating parents on sharing and being considerate when parking. Here's a video on How to do parallel parking - Driving lessons with AA Driving School. 

I hope you can help with this, and let me know if there is anything I can do to assist the process. 

Email 2:

There was a car parked on the yellow lines at the bottom side of the school yesterday, on the corner of Kinvig Street. The car was putting all other road users and children at risk.  No consideration for anyone else, just herself. I just felt it was really disappointing given all the work you and the school have been doing around road safety.

Parking Solutions

The Dunedin City Council have created a Walking Time Zone map for our school (a copy is attached below). This map highlights places you can drop children off safely so they can walk the last part of their journey to school. Parking slightly further away and taking five minutes to walk is another solution to the parking problem.

Office Contact

Janet Crombie will be working in our school office from Monday 24 June until Wednesday 31 July while Jenny Larson is away on an overseas holiday. We wish Jenny all the best while she is away.

Have a lovely weekend.

Ngā mihi nui

Pauline Simpson
Principal