Happy Valentines Day and it is also our Heart Children Mufti Day. Thanks for your support with this as we have a very local connection with this charity - thanks Jasmine, Jason and Hudson for sharing your story with us all today :-)
Wai Swim - Tomorrow is our final Wai Swim day. Our huge thanks to the instructors for their hard work - hopefully you will be able to see the fruits of their labours at our School Swimming Sports on Friday 1 March! Your activity fee pays for the 9 lessons your child has received as part of the Wai Swim Programme :-)
School Camps - Our school provides a school camp experience in Term 1 for your child/ren. The Tutahi Tatau team will have 4 nights at Hanmer from 19 to 22 February. The Aniwaniwa team camp overnight at school on 4-5th April and our little Teoteo team have a one day excursion planned to Willowbank on Monday 25th February. These activities provide excellent opportunities for teachers and students to form positive relationships that we can drawn on over the year to come.
School Financial Statements - these were sent home last week. Thank you to those people who have been able to make some payments already - this really helps with paying for things like Wai Swim and camp bookings etc. We are more than happy if you would like to set up an AP. Our school bank account details are on our website or you can contact the Office.
Whaea Jenny is away on sick leave for the next few weeks for surgery - we wish her a speedy recovery and look forward to her return in Week 8. In her absence Dale Thomson and Debbie Constable will be joining the Aniwaniwa team :-)
Pause Breathe Smile - this is the Mindfulness programme we teach at Leithfield School. Teachers are trained in this programme and last year families were also given a special opportunity to learn about the programme through an on-line module. Please find attached an update about the programme and opportunities for you as parents to engage with the Mindfulness work your child/ren are doing.
Attendance - Part of our school responsibility is reporting against attendance both to you and to our Board and ultimately the Ministry of Education. Our school has a target student attendance of higher than 90%. The Ministry of Education outlines attendance rates as follow;
Acceptable 95% = 10 days (2 weeks of school missed)
A concern 90% = 20 days (4 weeks of school missed)
Critical Concern 85% = 30 days (6 weeks of school missed)
Very Serious 80% = 40 days (8 weeks of school missed).
An interesting statistic - if your child misses one day / fortnight of school for various reasons, by the time they reach Year10 they will have missed a whole year of schooling.
Absences do have a significant impact on a child's learning - please be mindful of this.
As part of our attention to attendance, please expect that you will receive a letter from us when your child's attendance dips below 90% in any one term. Please also do not ask me for permission to take your child out of school in term time - I am not able to grant that. Please also do not ask teachers to provide work for your child when they are absent - their responsibility is to those children who are attending. Thanks!
News from Puketeraki - for those of you new to the school, you may not be aware that our school is part of a Community of Learning called Puketeraki. It is made up of 17 schools from View Hill to Broomfield and includes Rangiora High School and many of our Early Childhood contributors. The staff at these schools are building collaborations to work for improved outcomes for all our learners. This year there is some work happening to help build a Puketeraki Learner Profile that describes our desired outcomes from preschool through to tertiary/work. Your views will be sort as part of this work so look out for this opportunity shortly :-) Some of you will also be aware that I have been appointed Lead Principal for this community commencing July 2019. This means I will be out of our school at various times and Rob will be Acting Principal in my absence. Rob is also involved in the Community of Learning as our Within School Lead Teacher (until July 2019) and Sue Graham is an Across School Lead Teacher (working Mondays and Tuesdays for the CoL) so our involvement with this community is significant - because we believe in its potential to make a positive difference for all our learners :-)
2019 School Strategic Plan - at its meeting on 27 February the BOT will be looking to confirm its annual plan for 2019. A copy is attached. If you have any feedback on any part of the plan, please don't hesitate to send it through to us :-)