O ā mai oulou? How are you all?

This week is Samoan language week where we have an opportunity to celebrate our Samoan students, their culture and language. The theme of the language week is Poupou le lotoifale. Ola manuia le anofale (Strengthen the posts of your house, for all to thrive). This means to make the house strong, stable, safe and beautiful to cater to the needs of the family within. In a sense this is what we try to do in school for all our students and in this context for all our Samoan and other Pasifika students – making this school a strong and safe place to celebrate their identity and the beauty of their culture and language so our students thrive. When we know our students well, our relationships are strengthened and learning happens.

During the week there have been daily challenges for staff and students, Samoan language lessons delivered by the students, and panipopo and koko (hot cocoa and coconut buns) even delivered directly to my office! How lucky are we! We have Ms Maria Lemalie, Ms Angie Sisifa and our Samoan students to thank for these events and treats.

Talking about building houses, we have begun our engagement with the Ministry of Education leading into the start of our school rebuild. This week we attended procurement meetings for Quantity Surveyor, Architect and next week Project Manager. The days have been very interesting and enjoyable with good open discussions and we thank the Ministry for involving us so openly in these decisions. The project is a significant one with all the school to be redesigned and rebuilt bar the Performing Arts Centre, the gymnasium and the Visual Arts block (which will be refurbished). Master planning begins in July and we cannot wait to begin the first phase dreaming process as we try to maximise the beauty of our site and the river running through it.

I hope any of our families affected by the flooding at the start of the week are safe and sound and that, like the fale above, your houses stood strong and stable through the worst of it. We know for many of our farmers and rural families there is a long road of recovery ahead and our thoughts are with them.

Fa’afetai lava

Christine O’Neill