It seems like only yesterday I welcomed our incoming Year 7 students to Casebrook Intermediate, and our Year 8 students back as the senior students of our school! Now we’re already halfway through the school year, and our students are well engaged around the many opportunities that our fine school offers.

Casebrook Intermediate continues to ‘lead the way’ in our community, with a number of our externally recognised ‘best practices’ being integrated into the broader school community; Will Stribling has been selected as a PB4L Facilitator (Positive Behaviour for Learning Facilitator), to help support other schools for a few days each term, in recognition of leading our successful Casebrook R.E.P Values programme. Nick Leith has been asked to speak at a training session for the Advanced Literacy Learning Programme. This is an outcome of Nick’s involvement for the last three years that has resulted in the development of the Casebrook Writers Programme, and has also included the filming of our programme in action. It is a great recognition of what has been achieved. Lydia Muschamp has been selected to be the Assistant Conductor for the Junior Special Choir for the Christchurch Music Festival later this year. We are very proud of her achievement, and we know Lydia will be excited about this opportunity! Thanks to Nick, Will and Lydia for their professional commitment to their roles and our students.

We recently called for parent nominations for our Casebrook Intermediate Board of Trustees, and as a result can now confirm our succeeding board:

Rhys Williams - Board Chair, Helen Rutter - PTA & Community Partnership, Lynda Smart - Treasury/Finance (co-opted to the Board), James McShane and Trevor English – Property/Health & Safety, and Dianne Hutchinson – Policies & Procedures/Personnel. We also welcome Will Stribling back to the board as our elected Staff Representative.

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank both Simon Britten and Juliana Rae for their diligent contribution to our School Board over the years. Both Simon and Juliana decided not to seek nomination this time, and we will subsequently miss their fine contributions to the governance of our school.

The second half of 2016 will prove to be a busy one, with many sporting, cultural, and performing arts opportunities planned for our students. This includes a group of students who will be travelling to Japan later this year, together with a contingent of students from Cobham Intermediate. With a successful trip last year to China and South Korea, we can be confident this cultural experience will be the trip of a lifetime for those students, staff and parents who will be travelling.

As always, I would like to sincerely thank our proactive PTA, and all those parents who go above and beyond to help support our students to realise their chosen opportunities. Without this support some things would be difficult to make happen!

I look forward to seeing more of you across the rest of the school year.

Best regards

Rhys Williams – Board Chair