Kia ora whānau

It has been a big term despite a number of the usual sport and other events being postponed or cancelled.

With sport, the Friday evening basketball competition has gone ahead under Alert Level 2 with the finals tomorrow night. Last week many of our students were involved in the Canterbury AIMS Tournament. See more information about this in this newsletter. Well done to all students involved and the whole Heaton team. It was a very busy week with 6 teachers attending a Wellbeing Conference and the Rotary Speech Preliminaries being held here. The korfball competition also went ahead.

Unfortunately, the annual Cantamath competition was cancelled due to Alert Level 2 number restrictions. However, Rachel Bates organised a staff versus students Cantamath competition which was held earlier this week. There were 3 staff teams and 6 student teams. One of the staff teams came fourth which was a great achievement given the extremely high skill level of the Year 7 and Year 8 teams. Congratulations to the Year 8 A team for their convincing win. Jarrad Brown created a very well crafted “miniature” trophy based on the normal Cantamath one which will be proudly shared between the 4 boys in the winning team.

We have begun the transition processes for Year 6 students starting as Year 7s in 2021 and our Year 8 students moving to secondary schools.

In Term 4, there will be an opportunity for Year 6 students and their families/whānau to have an interview with one of our teachers.

You will see as part of this newsletter, an update from the Board of Trustees, about the refurbishment/rebuild of our school. Unfortunately, as with a number of other schools, we are not being provided with anything like the amount of funding needed to truly provide for present or future learning and social needs of our students or staff in an engaging, culturally responsive and healthy environment. The BOT is vigorously pursuing ways to gain a significant increase in funding. As stated in the BOT report, any offers of support or guidance would be appreciated.

Thank you to all our families and whānau for your support this term. Our students have been settled and happy, displaying considerable resilience and positivity in these uncertain times. If there was ever a time for partnership and kindness across all areas of our community it is now.

My best wishes for a very relaxing holiday with your children and we look forward to all the excitement that Term 4 brings.

Ngā mihi

Andrea Knight, Principal