Welcome back to Highfield School and a new and exciting academic year.

Last Monday we held our school powhiri. It is wonderful to have so many new students and staff and I hope they enjoy their special time at Highfield School. During my welcome I talked to the students about our school vision, ‘Together we soar to new heights’. In particular I focused on the word ‘together’. As we start our new year it is imperative that we make this journey together. That we support one another together, look out for each other together, encourage and motivate our peers together and ensure we are always working together.

Under our current RED setting Highfield is ensuring we continue to provide as many opportunities as we can. This includes sporting, cultural and academic. It is imperative that we focus on a balance to help our tamariki’s health and wellbeing. Currently we are planning a whole school duathlon. Allowing all students to experience swimming and running and we hope to run this during week 4. Highfield has established a COVID response team and we are working through the many different scenarios and protocols to ensure we are able to swiftly follow simple processes to keep our whānau informed and our tamariki and kaiako safe. Remember our aim is to continue with face to face learning. Thank you so much in advance for your cooperation and being flexible. Having our whānau off our school site is not perfect for a school community, but it does help us to minimise close contacts and exposure.

Our kaiako are busy developing their knowledge and skills of structured literacy. This will be fantastic for tamariki and whānau and will develop a consistent approach throughout Highfield. I will be sending out more information about our progress, purpose and how whānau can help at home.

I hope you have all managed to log on to HERO and can now access the community feed section. Teachers will be using this regularly to communicate with their families and eventually add work to the site for their students. Please look out for the teacher's introduction video on Monday 14th January and the question and answer session on Wednesday, this is instead of meeting the teacher.

During Term 1 our school focus is Health and PE and part of our PE programme is swimming. Highfield are extremely fortunate to have a school swimming pool and all teachers will be providing swimming lessons and water safety. Therefore, swimming is a vital part of our Term 1 curriculum. Our expectations are that every child will bring their swimming togs and towel every day and are expected to participate in this lesson. Like all curriculum subjects there is not an opt in or opt out policy. If your child is unable to swim for a medical reason, please provide this letter so your child can be excused. Remember that we are all working ‘together’ to build resilience in our tamariki and encouraging them to participate and grasp all opportunities is important for future growth, development and success.

We are so proud to be part of Highfield School and we want to continue to build a great and supportive culture.

Nga mihi

Stuart

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