Kia Ora, Talofa Lava and warm greetings,

A big thank you to all families who voted in our recent BoT elections. To have 10 candidates and a significant number of families who voted is healthy for our school. To those parents who were unsuccessful, thank you so much for putting your names forward for the BoT. Congratulations to Tim Bateman, Craig Latimer, Benjamin Scott, Glenys Williams and Geraldine Wilson who were duly elected to our BoT - I look forward to working with you.

In the last newsletter I spoke about students making good choices online. Unfortunately, a small number of students aren’t heeding our advice or our teaching. In recent times, we have been dealing with students who have been using their phones to film others without their permission, some students have been sharing their passwords or giving personal details of their “friends” to others and one or two have been using social media to start rumours about peers. Whilst we are talking about a small number of students, their actions often impact many students and adults. All of these behaviours are inappropriate and for the most part have been occurring outside of school hours, however, the fallout is often played out at school. Please, please talk with your child about making wise choices with their devices, talk to them about what they are using their phones for and or if they partake in online games or social media, know and understand what they are up to.

A big thank you to the team at ProTranz for their support of Cobham. They help in many ways at Cobham with rubbish removal and have just made a bike trailer for us to use for mountain biking and on school camps.

Teachers are currently busy writing mid-year reports and these reports will be made available on Linc-Ed on the last day of the term, Friday 05 July. About 18 months ago, the government announced the abolishment of National Standards. There were aspects of the national standards that we liked and some components weren’t useful. We have decided to keep the assessment of students against the national expectation. The mid-year report will make statements as to the likelihood of students meeting or exceeding the national expectation which are:

At the end of Year 7, the expectation is for students to be working at early Level 4 of the New Zealand Curriculum.
At the end of Year 8, the expectation is for students to be working at Level 4 of the New Zealand Curriculum

In addition to comments on your child’s progress in reading, writing and maths, you will be able to read about how your child displays our school values and there will be samples of their work to date. I do hope you find the mid-year reports of use.

All the best to those students in the Chorale who will be representing Cobham at the North-West Music Festival next Wednesday night. Miss Chilvers has high standards of the Chorale and we anticipate another memorable performance. I know a number of parents have purchased tickets and I do hope you enjoy the evening.

Congratulations to the 27 students who were confirmed in the Canterbury Primary Schools’ Music Festival for 2019. We have 17 students in the Senior Special Choir and 10 who are in the music groups. Again well done those selected, thank you to the parents who support their children in music endeavours and we look forward to watching these students perform in term 4.

Trials for AIMs teams are in full swing and we expect to name successful students and teams before the start of next week. Obviously not all students will make the teams and this is part of learning. We do talk with students about resilience and overcoming things that don’t necessarily go their way and do hope that you can reiterate these messages at home.

Our Year 7 students are busy working away on their Science Fair projects. The Cobham Science Fair is now scheduled for the end of the first week in term 3 and more details on how you can view the exhibits will be provided in the next few weeks.

Ngai Tahu iwi has nominated NumberWorks’nWords as an accredited provider of Maths and English tuition for children who are registered and are eight years or older. These children are entitled to apply for a grant which provides one term of tuition, valued at $470, per financial year. Forms can be downloaded from the Ngai Tahu website, or can be requested from the school office, or by contacting Kimberly at NumberWorks’nWords Burnside by phone 358 7917 or email burnside@numberworks.com Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

Open Night is scheduled for Tuesday, 23 July, the first Tuesday of Term 3. Again we would appreciate you sharing this information with friends and family. Enrolment forms for 2020 can be completed online from now, just follow this link - https://forms.linc-ed.com/?school_id=3323. Online enrolments are preferred or hard copies of enrolment forms and our prospectus are now available from the office. Enrolments close on 30th August. Please adhere to this date to avoid disappointment.

The Community Dental Service will be providing dental care for children enrolled with our service during the upcoming school holidays. The clinics will offer treatment and relief of pain sessions by appointment only. To make an appointment please contact our Call Centre which operates between the hours of 8am and 5pm, Monday to Friday throughout the year.

The following Dental Clinics will be open during these school holidays:

· Northcote Clinic, 24 Tuckers Road, Casebrook

· Hillmorton Clinic, Hillmorton Hospital, Sylvan Street,

The clinics will offer appointments between 8.45am and 3.00pm for school-age and preschool children requiring treatment.

If your child has dental pain as a result of an accident please contact your dentist in the first instance.

To book an appointment at one of our clinics please: call 0800 846 983

Or email commdental@cdhb.health.nz

Take care.

Ngā mihi nui,

Biodegradable Plastic