Kia ora koutou, Talofa Lava, Ni Hao, Namaste, Malo e lelei - Welcome to Week 1!

Welcome back

I want to take this opportunity to welcome everyone who has returned to College Street Normal School (CSNS) for 2025 and extend a special welcome to our new families who have started with us. It was fantastic to see so many of our learners return to school feeling excited about the year ahead. We started 2025 by welcoming our new team members, new learners and their whānau to CSNS with a mihi whakatau. As always, this was a really special occasion and a fantastic way to begin the new school year. As I have visited classes across CSNS it has been great to see our learners engaged and enthusiastic about what they are learning. There is certainly a very positive atmosphere across our kura! 

New Members of Our Team

During our mihi whakatau, we also welcomed new team members to our kura. 

Amy Lampp joins us in Room 9, teaching some of our newest learners. Amy comes to us from Ashhurst School and we are pleased to welcome her to our kura.  

Sophie McCarthy joins us as a beginning teacher. Sophie was a Massey Teacher with us last year and we are pleased to have you back on the team, Sophie.

We are also excited to have three Massey Teachers join our team for the majority of 2025. Shradha Pradhan, Lydia Bucknell, and Lauren Gifford-Moore will be working across the school for 3 days each week in Room 4, Room 19, and Room 22.  

While Zak Rodgers joined our team last year, we hadn't welcomed Zak formally with a mihi whakatau so did so on Monday. Zak is our school librarian and does a fantastic job making reading and books come alive for our learners.

We are pleased to welcome these team members to College Street Normal School and look forward to them enhancing our school with their strengths and skillsets.

Ko Wai Au?, Ko Wai Tatou?

Who Am I? Who are we? - There is unity in diversity. 

This term we are using the Social Sciences to bring our integrated unit - Ko Wai Au?, Ko Wai Tatou? Who Am I? Who are we? - There is unity in diversity. During this integrated unit our learners will be getting to know each other and building a sense of belonging. They will also be learning about themselves, their classmates, their whānau, their school, and their culture. As always, we will look forward to sharing this learning with you towards the end of the term.

Connect and Share

We are looking forward to continuing our partnership with you, as part of the ‘learning triangle’, to help achieve the best possible outcome for each of our learners. We view the learning triangle to be the relationships between the learner, home, and school. To this end, we are holding Connect and Share sessions on Monday 24th, Tuesday 25th and Thursday 27th February. Information about the Connect and Share sessions, including how to book a session, was sent via Hero on Monday 3 February. If you haven't done so already please book a session with your child's teacher.

Team Only Days

The quote from Aristotle - 'Excellence is Never an Accident' was the theme for our Team Only Day Conference. During the two days our team participated in a range of different keynote sessions, workshops, and activities. We are looking forward to implementing the plans we have for 2025! We were inspired by Rob Nicholl and Kath Murdoch during our two Team Only Days.

Term Dates

TERM 1: Monday 3 Jan - Friday 11 April

TERM 2: Monday 28 April - Friday 27 June

TERM 3: Monday 14 July - Friday 19 Sept

TERM 4: Monday 6 Oct - Tuesday 16 Dec

College Street Normal School will be closed for instruction on Team Only Days, on Friday 30 May and Friday 24 October.