Our new Board of Trustees appointments are now official. We were so fortunate with the high calibre of nominations and we are so appreciative of all those who voted.

With eight nominations you were spoilt for choice. Congratulations to these successful people: Craig Matheson, Lucy Mathewson and Leigh Wotherspoon.  A very warm welcome to the Board of Trustees for the next 3 years.

To those who missed out, thank you for your time and interest to apply and I am sure there will be other ways that you can support our school in the future. The new board members officially take up these positions tomorrow. Fendalton School’s Board of Trustees works with the 18-month rotation and so these new members join Emily Flaszynski as chairperson, Emma Bradley and Tom Parsons.

Again, we would like to acknowledge the commitment and efforts from Matt Butterfield, John Wright and Candy Zhang who did not seek re-election.

Last Thursday, I was fortunate to have Ella Robertson from room 17 as ‘Principal for a Day’. This was an auction prize from the PTA Quiz Night and it creates a lot of interest throughout the school. One of Ella’s responsibilities was to write a little contribution to the newsletter. Ella did a superb job in this role and it was a special day for her and myself.

“On Thursday I was ‘principal for a day’. It was really fun with Mrs Saunders. We went to visit lots of classrooms and gave some children birthday cards. With my class I got to take the roll. It is a great job.” 

Ella Robertson

Community consultation is part of NZ school life and we do try and do this in a variety of ways. At present we have the Health Curriculum survey underway and we do encourage you to read the draft and answer a few questions in the survey. It closes on 19 June. Draft FOS Health Curriculum Health curriculum survey

We are also planning 2 opportunities to participate in a world cafe approach consultation which is informal, informative, fun and also great to network with other parents. We are running this twice hoping the different times will enable more parents to participate.

“Authentic learning for children and what is important in the curriculum now and in the future” is our topic.

• Wednesday 19 June 9.15am in the staffroom. Morning tea will be served.

• Early next term- Tuesday 24 July 7.00pm in the refurbished space. Wine and cheese will be served.

Please RSVP to Helen Jolly for either occasion helen.jolly@fendalton.school.nz

We have had lots of involvement in environmental activities this term. We have our environmental curriculum as part of the CRT programme with Rebecca Dalton and we also have a lunchtime club lead by Amanda Williamson. All of this support has helped with caring for our school environment. Last week we had all of the year 3 children taking part in World Environmental Day and they went to Jefferies Park for a major clean-up supported by the CCC Keep Christchurch Beautiful team. Yesterday, we had Mary visiting from ‘Orchards in Schools’ programme, she was teaching children about pruning and caring for our trees. The trees are doing well behind rooms 10 and 11 so do take time to check how they are growing. We do treasure our lovely school environment and our wider community and we also want to establish a genuine care for our environment with all of our children.

One aspect of our environment that we are pleased to announce, we are fitting a new gate to the Waiwetu Street entrance. We have a temporary solution until the new ones are installed next week. Thanks for your understanding if you use this entrance.

Ngā mihi nui

Raewyn