Tēnā koutou katoa

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa

What another beautiful week on the Coast! The weather and the people have all been fantastically welcoming! Thank you to everyone who has introduced themselves to me and said hello!

Some of you may have seen the article in the Grey Star about my first couple of weeks or so being “crazy busy”? Well that has been true! This term my goal is to meet with all of our teaching staff individually to really try to get to know them and find out what they are most proud of in terms of Grey High and what they are working on this year in terms of quality teaching for our students. It is heartening to talk to our teachers and attend meetings where there is real excitement around creating a fantastic learning environment for all of our rangatahi.

Last week we put on a morning tea for our teacher aides, Annette Jones our Supported Learning Head of Department, Shelly Chapman our other ORS teacher and Miriam Rees our Learning Support Co-ordinator so I could meet all of them and find out their roles. What an amazing group of people. They work so hard at supporting our young people both in and out of the classroom and we really appreciate them. We are also having a morning tea soon for the rest of our support staff to give them an opportunity to meet up with me and let me get to know them.

As well as meetings we had our first full school assembly on the Thursday. As I sat on the stage with our four student leaders - Clark, Alyssa, Ella and Reuben, the hall was so full. The students kept on coming and coming and it was great to see! I did also manage to get to meet some students during the rest of the week and get into classes which I will continue to do in the following weeks.

On Saturday for Waitangi day a number of staff attended the pōwhiri at Arahura marae. What amazing buildings and what an amazing location! It was a real honour to be there. I especially loved listening to Paul …. the editor of the Grey Star explaining all of the place names around our area. Again, I would like to thank Ngati Waewae and Joe Mason who is part of the tangata whenua for making us feel so welcome.

This week we have a Health and Safety course on Tuesday and Wednesday. This is a very worthwhile course as it works with our students to support them to keep themselves and others safe now and in the future in not only work situations but in day to day life.

On Friday I am attending the Trades Academy Pōwhiri for our new students participating in Trades this year. I am so impressed with what the Academy offers in terms of courses. Tania Washer and her team do a fantastic job liaising with all of the schools on the Coast and all of the providers. What amazing opportunities for our students.

Then of course we have the Coast to Coast. Good luck to Clark Fountain and Fin Brown who are in the two man two day Greymouth High School team, and to Callum Brown who is doing the Mountain Run!
Thank you to the PTA for organizing the fundraising events which helped to get these guys there!

I met with our hard working PTA this week. They do such a great job fundraising for all of our students. They meet once a month and the next meeting is the 10th March at 7pm in the staff room. They would love more whānau to join them to support our school and community. If you are interested, please contact office@greyhigh.school.nz for more information!

Ngā mihi

Samantha Mortimer