Kia ora and welcome to the new school year.

It feels as though we’ve been back for ages but in actual fact we are only up to Day 4. It was lovely to see everyone back last week – we only had a few missing on the first day.

Welcome

We welcome Miss Harriet McGowan teaching in Totara with our Year 5 and 6s this year. As mentioned last year, Harriet has been teaching at Oamaru Intermediate and she has made a positive impact on our school already.

We also welcome our new students:- Hydee Edmonds-Heke, Ryder Meredith, Kinley Meredith, Luka Hansen, Zahrajaan Haydari Afshar, Zeinab Rahimi, Rashay O'Donnell, Arin Majhi, Kapish Bhiwagade, Althea Trinidad, Makere Taare Pao-Toleafoa and Chance Green.

Bell Times

Our bell times have changed this year. The beginning and end of day remain the same so it shouldn’t impact on you as parents. For your information they are below:-

8:55am – 10:45am    First learning session – we start every morning with school karakia

10:45am – 11:15am  Morning tea

11:15am – 12:45pm  Second learning session

12:45pm – 1:00pm    Lunch eating

1:00pm – 1:40pm   Lunch play

1:40pm – 2:55pm   Third learning session

Duty

Teachers are on duty every breaktime. We start duty at 8:30am and ask children not to come to classes or be on the playground before this time. They can wait outside the hall until they see the first duty teacher go out. If your child has an issue at breaktimes please encourage them to see the duty teachers – they wear high vis and carry cellphones so they can get support if necessary.

New initiatives

This year we are starting a new programme involving the students slowing down and meditating. This is called Pause, Breathe, Smile – you may have seen it advertised on tv as it’s supported by Southern Cross. School will be closed to students on Friday 26 February as staff receive training to deliver this programme.

Staff have already been to a training day in teaching Writing before school started this year, as well as continuing our learning about Maths. We are eager to put all we’ve learned into practice.

Cultural Group

We have Cultural group tutors who come and support us once a week with this programme. The whole school attends for the first hour and then they work with the Kapa Haka group for the second part of the session. This is for Year 4 and up due to the sophistication of the programme and words.

Junior Kapa Haka

We would love to have a tutor come in to work with our Juniors for a different group. If you have skills in this area, or know someone who does, then please ring or email the office at office@bishopdale.school.nz, or you can text the school cellphone number 021 718465.

Absences

If your child is sick or away for some other reason we legally need to know. Please text the office or ring – preferably before 9am. If we haven’t heard from you then we will ring you but this can take some time to make contact with everyone. Thanks for communicating with us.

Free and Healthy Lunch Programme

Of course this year has started with our Free and Healthy lunches programme – a trial for 2021 supported by Ministry of Education. This is a new programme for everyone and, as such, is going to be a work in progress. We appreciate everyone’s feedback – especially the positive – and encourage you to work with us to support this programme in the school. As you can appreciate there is a lot of work involved to get this right from the caterers, to the freight company, to delivery and rationalisation at school. Then we have the eating, the rubbish, the different menus and the communication with all parties.

We have tweaked this slightly to allow those children who want to eat their own ‘top-up’ at 1pm. We have already lengthened our lunchtime so we now have 15 minutes eating in class followed by 40 minutes playtime. This means that those who choose to can eat in their classroom at 1pm, after eating the healthy lunch provided, and eat from their own lunchbox. We also have a longer morning tea break which is slightly later than last year so the children can have a good morning snack. We usually have some fruit available, and we always have muesli bars and trail mix packets available as well at morning tea time.

Parent Night – Tuesday February 23 – 5pm

An advance notice that on 23 February at 5pm we will be holding a parent information night. Each teacher will give a short 15 minute presentation on the way their classroom operates. They will repeat this twice to give everyone a chance to listen. Mrs Mc will also give a presentation – repeated twice - as to our school expectations and programme.

We are going to provide a free sausage sizzle so dinner will be catered that night. There will also be alternatives to sausages for those who cannot eat these. We may need to ask some parents for recommendations as to what else we can provide.

Mihi Whakatau

Yesterday we held our mihi whakatau to welcome onto our place our new students and staff. Thanks to those who were able to come and take part. It’s a small but meaningful time.

New Tables

We have been lucky enough to purchase two large outside tables. This gives you a chance to wait outside the classes at the end of the day and catch up with each other. The students will also be able to work at these during the day if the teacher lets them, and also gives them somewhere else to sit if they want during breaktimes.

School Picnic - Wednesday 10 March

We will be walking to a local park on 10 March as a school for a fun picnic. We will be able to transport our school lunches as normal using cars. It would be great to have parents come along as well to help us cross roads, etc. Put the date in your diary.