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Welcome to our first newsletter of 2024. Our Year 9s have had their first day with our staff and our student leaders and we hope that they had a great time! We started with our Year 9 pōwhiri led by Matua Joe Mason and it is a great way to start the year in a positive way.

My key messages from the pōwhiri

I love being principal at this school. We have amazing staff, we have amazing facilities and we have amazing students and I am very happy and excited for all of you to join us.

We want all of you to have a fantastic year 9 and beyond with us. You are now all part of Grey High and yes things will be different from primary school but that is ok you will all find your feet and we will support you to do so.

There are so many things to get involved in and we would love it if you give them a go. We have lots of different sports teams, clubs, drama opportunities - you name we probably have it and if we don’t send me an email and we can look into it.

Our ARCH values of akoranga (learning), respect, community and hauora (wellbeing) are at the heart of everything and you are going to find out more about them in mentor and class times.

I’m going to finish with some advice so listen carefully

1. You are now a Greymouth High School student. This is an opportunity for all of you to have a fresh start and let us get to know the best you.

1. We want you to enjoy your time at high school and as I said before get involved in lots of different things. But all of us have high expectations that you will demonstrate our ARCH values in everything you do - in class, around the school, on trips and out in the community and we will work with you to support you in this.

1. If you have any worries or questions or problems please find a staff member or a peer support leader you can talk to and if you can’t find someone send them an email. You can even email me and I will help too. When we know there is a concern we can help you sort it. That’s very important as I said we want you to enjoy your time at high school.

1. Finally, surround yourself with good people. Your friends should be the people who look after you, support you. Remember that 'Your vibe attracts your tribe' - if you want great friends be a great friend

Thank you to Susan Smith and Bretty Lomey for running our Student Leadership training. They are an awesome group of young people and we are very excited to be working with them this year!

I also want to thank Jayne Wheeler and her team for organising our course confirmation over two days. They did an amazing job and worked really hard to find solutions for all of our students.

Staff

As I said at the end of last year we have been very fortunate to employ the following two teachers to join us in 2024.

Nick Secker who is a local from Blackball. Nick completed his second teacher training placement with us in Science earlier this year and we are very impressed with him.

Sarah Kemp will be joining the Health and PE team. Sarah trained in the UK and has a strong interest in Outdoor Ed as well.

Other staff members

Lisa Johnson has been employed as a full time reliever but in Term 1 she is joining the HPE Department. This is until Julia Durston, our new HOD Health and PE and TIC Sport arrives in Term 2. Julia is originally from the UK but has taught in many places, including NZ, and is currently in Brunei.

Lauren Evans is rejoining us in the classroom as well as continuing to lead on attendance at GHS.

IMPORTANT DATES 2024 - more information to come. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Instagram pages for updates.

Wednesday 7th February

First day for all of our students at school. We are very much looking forward to catching up with everyone on this day.

Phones at school update

As you would have heard our new Government has decided to implement a new phones in schools policy. We will be spending time during Term 1 creating a new policy for GHS using Ministry of Education guidelines.

Until this time we will continue to use our Phone Responsible Use Procedure

Aim

To minimise disruption to learning within class time and to improve the hauora and achievement of students.

Procedure

Grey High prefers student phones to be kept at home. If a parent/caregiver judges that a phone is needed and a student brings a phone to school, these phones are not the responsibility of the GHS staff or board and no liability is accepted.

Students will be required to sign a phone responsible use agreement (RUA). Students without a current RUA are not allowed to have phones at school and their phones will be confiscated, stored at the Student Office and returned to the student in the case of use in class or the parent/caregiver in the case of harassment/bullying. Students who breach their RUA will be given one further opportunity to comply, which will be noted on Kamar, then further breaches mean their RUA will be cancelled.

Students with a current RUA in place will have access to their phones before and after school, at morning mentor time, interval and lunchtimes, and in the event of an emergency the teacher can issue phones to students.

As the teacher greets students at the classroom door, students will either place their phone(switched to flight mode or off) in the box provided or in their bag. At the end of the lesson, students will be allowed to collect their phone from the box. Chromebooks should negate the need to use phones for a learning activity but if they are needed for a specific task (eg taking photos, not general listening to music) then this is at the discretion of the teacher.

If a parent needs to get in touch with their child then this should be done by contacting the school office or at break times. Parents should not try to contact their child during class times.

Consequences for breach of procedure

If a student has not handed in their phone and it is used in class then the phone will be confiscated for the remainder of the day. In this case, the phone will be taken to the school office, labelled and stored until 3pm for collection by the student. This will be recorded in Kamar and parent notified. One further breach will result in the RUA being cancelled ie student loses permission to bring phone to school for that term.

Confiscation means an instruction from the teacher, delivered respectfully, for the student to hand their phone to GHS staff. As soon as is practicable, the phone will be stored in the Student Office for collection by student/parent.

Enjoy the long Waitangi weekend

Samantha Mortimer

Principal Greymouth High School

Tumuaki Kura tuarua o Māwhera