‘E ako ana, ā, e tipu tahi ana tātou’ - Learning and growing together.

Kia ora Koutou

Thank you to everyone who responded to our recent community survey. We were delighted with the overwhelmingly positive responses and appreciative of feedback on areas for growth.

Following the survey, our focus areas are:

Reporting children’s achievement to parents

We feel that Covid has impacted significantly on the ability to communicate with parents/whanau in person. Although we continued with our regular emails and newsletters, etc, parents haven’t been able to pop in as they did prior to Covid. We weren't able to have the face-to-face parent/teacher meetings, interviews and daily catch ups. We are also in a transition phase with assessment and reporting, as we move to HERO ‘real time’ reporting which is a major focus area.

A reminder that parents are welcome to contact teachers at any time regarding their child’s learning.

Issues around friendships/relationships/ bullying

We completed an anonymous survey across the school earlier this year in which children indicated that there were limited bullying issues throughout the school. The information was used to inform follow up actions and interventions. We intend to redo the survey this term to ensure we have an accurate representation of any issues. We are constantly talking about our Values and giving children strategies to deal with bullying issues. Every day in the EDay book there is a message related to these concepts. The philosophy of ‘Play is the Way’ focuses on relating to others positively, standing up for others and treating others as you would like to be treated. We are very quick to deal with any issues as we become aware of them and keep parents informed of concerns. We appreciate parents letting us know of any concerns as they arise. This area continues to be of high priority throughout the school.

Acknowledgement of Cultural Identity

We are guided by our Resource Teacher of Māori and have done for a number of years. We have a strong Māori programme including Mahi Tahi. Te Reo Māori is integrated into teaching and learning at East Taieri. Kapa Haka has a high profile across the school. Staff are undertaking PLD in the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum which is being introduced and all of our Inquiry units have Māori perspectives woven into them. We value the input that our Māori whānau have at East Taieri, especially Te Wairua o Opotea, the group run weekly by Jess Thompson for our Māori students. We plan to work closely with our Māori whanau as we plan for the future.

RESIGNATION OF JOLENE CASEY

The Board received a resignation letter from Jolene Casey who has decided to pursue her career with New Zealand Hockey after taking refreshment leave this year. Jolene's resignation takes effect from the end of this year. As well as being an excellent teacher, Jolene has left a sporting legacy at East Taieri, taking sport and PE from strength to strength over her 24 years at the school, creating amazing opportunities for students, developing outstanding programmes and introducing new initiatives, making sport such a valued component of the curriculum. Jolene's superb organisational skills were reflected in the success of any event or competition that she organised. Jolene's introduction of the school's Sports Academy has benefitted so many students, many of whom have gone on to achieve great success in various sporting areas. We will be holding a farewell for Jolene at a later date to recognize her outstanding contribution to East Taieri School.

TAIERI SCHOOLS' ATHLETIC SPORTS TUESDAY 1 NOVEMBER

Best wishes to all competitors who qualified for the Taieri Schools' Athletic Sports taking place at Memorial Park on Tuesdaty.

Ngā mihi nui

Jennifer