We are certainly getting closer to our rebuild after years of waiting and it was wonderful to share the final design of our rebuild last week with our community. Thank you to all who came to the sessions. We will try to have opportunities for the plans to be viewed through this term but sadly we cannot offer another time with the architects to explain the design.

A lot of planning and time is being put into the process of how we keep everything functioning well through the rebuild. It is fortunate that we have enough spaces to ensure quality teaching and learning is maintained. There is a lot of organisation occurring to ensure a smooth transition of spaces for next year. During the summer holidays the demolition of the village, the old blue block of spare rooms and rooms 18 and 19 will come down and the build will begin in term one.

We have confirmed our staffing for next year and sadly we have a few teachers leaving for new positions, and with the borders open we also have some wanting to travel.

• Carolyn Silby has accepted a position working for Hero.
• Lisa Stanbury who has been on study leave is expecting her first child and will be on maternity leave.
• Olivia Draper and Gina Lily have resigned to move to different parts of NZ and also have plans to travel overseas.
• Olivia Hogan who has been in a fixed-term role is also making plans to travel.

All of these teachers have been very valuable to our team and while they will be missed we certainly hope their future plans go well for them. Each one of them has very exciting times ahead and we are delighted that these opportunities are happening for them.

The staffing and structure of the school will be as follows for next year.

Composite classes were introduced for many reasons in years 3 and 4. Our tight zoning requirements impact our staffing entitlement and the number of children for those classes meaning we had five classes across the year groups and not six. This is also the case for the senior school next year.

However, there is a raft of very positive reasons why composite classes are a preferred option in the majority of primary schools. Teaching and learning is not about your age but more about your stage as a learner. Some parents sometimes believe that their children are being disadvantaged in some way if they are placed in a composite class but as we have experienced this year this is certainly not the case. The key to understanding composites is realising that growth is determined in stages and not magically by age. Although a child might be chronologically older or younger - their maturity, social needs, academic needs and behaviour are uniquely their own.

There are actually many advantages, the key one being the relationships established between teachers and learners. By working with the same team of teachers for 2 years each child has well-established relationships. Even within the same class, children will be at different levels. NZ teachers are trained in identifying this and teaching to the diversity of needs and learning styles.

The year 6s will still have all their leadership opportunities as we appreciate the importance of these for setting them up for moving on to intermediate schools.

While spaces are reduced we have plans in place to ensure we still offer all of the extracurricular opportunities so itinerant music and the extension opportunities will still be available.

The PTA Halloween Disco was a sellout last Friday. Thanks to the PTA for all their time and organisation. They had the hall looking fantastic and then had to have a very fast cleanup because the hall was hired out for another group later in the evening. This is why we have worked so hard to get a hall of our own as this is going to allow us to offer so many more activities for our tamariki and community without the restraints of the CCC hall. The disco raised $2000 for the PTA which added to it being a very successful event.

It was wonderful to have athletics on Tuesday for the seniors and for years 4 to 6 for the competitive events. Thank you to all who came and helped and supported this event.

Tonight we have our choir performing in the Christchurch Music Festival at the Town Hall. We wish them well with their performance. Special thanks to Natasha Littler who has led this choir.

Next week is Show Week a very special time for Christchurch and we have the year 6 classes heading away to their camp at Wainui and Read, Feed, Speed on Thursday to add to all the festivity of this week. It should be an exciting week for all.

Ngā mihi nui 

Raewyn