Tēnā koutou katoa

It has been wonderful to see the sunshine a little more in the last two weeks and finally get some field play space back into action.

A busy couple of weeks have passed with CAIMS winter tournament, ICAS exams, speech competitions Bandquest, Cantamaths, and the ski trip all ticked off for another year and our legendary ski camp out this week. Thanks to all the staff and volunteer parents involved in making these happen for our students.  Basketball season is drawing to a close and I would like to thank all our awesome volunteer coaches for putting in the time and effort at training and each Friday evening.  

It was wonderful to host our visitors from Chita Middle School in Japan last week with our students standing tall and welcoming them to our kura.

I would like to thank one of our parents, Selwyn Sharma, for rescuing some old chairs that were destined for the dump and recovering and reconditioning them to now be a stunning addition to our library. Thanks so much for your time and skill in support of our school.

The new class block is still ahead of schedule which is great news and we still await the completion of the sports courts and playground in the near future as the weather improves.  As a school, we are considering the future of landscaping around the school and how we can establish something to be proud of into the future. In the biography of Sir Heaton Rhodes by Geoffrey W Rice it states that when the school was established in 1948 "Heaton (and many others) expressed a wish that the many mature species trees planted by his father should be retained." and that they all "fell victim to the saw, one by one".  

Our redevelopment has also seen the removal of some trees to make way for construction and we believe we have an obligation to address this over time, replant the right trees in the right places as various stages of the project come to an end and areas become accessible once again.  Moving forward we are looking forward to establishing our trees with a vision not for 6 months time, but for the distant future. We have some fantastic guidance on what to plant within our cultural narrative and some passionate people on our staff /student body and Board to make this a reality and perhaps bring a little of 1947 back to life.

This may be a passion for you? You may have skills and advice in this area that we need? You may have contacts to help us to source the trees or know of a fund we can apply to? If so, please contact me as we would love this to become a community project that we share together over the next few years and create something we can all be proud of.

Finally, in addition to those heading out to the Koru Games we will finish the term with our whole school production so look out for tickets on sale soon.

Hei konā mai

James Griggs, Tumuaki/Principal