Dear JCS Whānau

We are delighted to announce the appointment of an additional teacher who will be joining the growing Manu learning team, taking a new New Entrant class which is to open at the start of Term 3. Teangi Glasgow has seven years of teaching experience in Christian primary schools. She is a mum of three teenagers and the wife of a pastor. Teangi has particular interests and strengths in visual arts as well as in helping students who find learning difficult.

An additional relocatable building will be arriving at JCS within the next Term. It will be located next to the changing sheds and the current PE and gardening sheds will be moving to the fence line next to the shipping container. It will comprise of two learning spaces; one will be used for a classroom and the other will be the new home of our ESOL department. A new storage shed will be purchased and put up along the fence line behind Kererū class. Access will be from the far end of the deck. This shed will be used to store Perceptual Motor Programme (PMP) equipment which will facilitate the recommencement of the very valuable PMP programme.

Thank you for all your support for our Open Day. Of the visitors to our school, many came from word of mouth and are friends with people who are already in our school so thank you for spreading the word. Our students, once again did us proud, as they confidently and astutely shared their learning.

Yesterday we had a very positive visit from the Education Review Office, (ERO) team, they too were very impressed with the students they spoke to. The kapa haka performed outstandingly. ERO are using a new model, moving away from an events-based approach to walking along side schools in a three-year journey to help support foci for improvement. These are taken from the school’s strategic plan. We are in the process of forming our progress goals with ERO.

I am sure many of you have heard about the hatching of chicks at school. The chickens have gone to the Thomson household to grow a little more. When they are ready, they will be returning to school to the new and improved chicken hutch build by Mr Channing. We are looking forward to collecting daily eggs again at JCS.

Last Friday evening was a momentous time as we had our first community event for a long time. On behalf of the Parents Association, I would like to extend our sincere thanks to those who helped to make it all happen from packing goodies bags to hosting rooms for the movies to be shown in. I would also like to thank all those who supported this event by bringing your children to enjoy a night of fun with their friends. We look forward to more community events in the coming months. Parent partnership is one of the pillars of JCS. When this works well it is a powerful mechanism to help nurture and support our young people to become all that God intends them to be.

Yours in His service

Sandra Bosman