Kia ora koutou, greetings to family and friends of our school,

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the devastation in the North created by Cyclone Gabrielle. Our wishes and thoughts go out to whānau in the North who are affected by the storm. As a school | kura we will plan in the coming weeks what we can do to support those impacted. Kia kaha (stay strong).

Union action

The collective agreements for teachers across the country are currently in negotiations. Depending on how those negotiations play out there could possibly be industrial action. We are currently aware of proposed industrial action for the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) or secondary teachers in the form of a strike. The date that has been outlined for strike action across the nation is the 16th of March 2023. This will impact the running of Year 7-13 classes. We have been told this industrial action will be confirmed by the 13th of March at the latest.  We have been able to effectively manage these disruptions in the past. We will post our plan for this day in the next newsletter to inform you of this plan.

School Policy

East Otago High School policy and procedures are available on the following website:

eohs.schooldocs.co.nz

You will be required to enter a username and password which is the following:

• Community username: eohs

• Community password: responsible

School Docs is an organisation that provides an online policy and procedure service for over 1750 primary, intermediate, secondary and area schools.

When you log into the site you can access and participate in policy reviews held each term. Look for the "Current Review" tab at the top of the page and follow the very intuitive instructions. We encourage all of our parent community to contribute to the review to ensure our policies and procedures align with practice and remain relevant. This term we look to review:

• Student Attendance
• Enrolment
• Uniform / Dress Code

Last week we had 11 students competing in the intermediate and secondary competitions of Challenge Wanaka. All the students competed exceptionally well in sweltering conditions with some students earning podium finishes.

Ollie O'Connell - 2nd in the individual Year 8.

Abigail 3rd in Otago, 4th overall in the under 19 women's.

Flynn O'Connell and Hamish Smith 3rd in the Year 8 team.

Well done to all competitors and a big thank you to Mrs O'Connell and Mrs Croucher for their support of the event.

Our annual Athletics day was also held last week in very hot conditions. Well done to all students that participated and thank you to the parents that helped on the day.

This week our Year 7/8 students are attending their annual camps. Our Year 13 students visited Camp Iona Thursday to deliver the peer support programme and some Year 12/13 Outdoor education students visited both camps to deliver some adventure based activities as part of their course.

Next week the Year 9 students will be attending the Glenorchy camp. Let's hope this great run of weather continues into next week for them.

Nga mihi nui

Marcus Cooper

Principal (Tumuaki)

East Otago High School