Kia ora koutou e te Whānau

Canterbury Athletics

Congratulations to Matai (high jump), Iris (spints), Bridie and Florence (middle distance) for your participation at the Canterbury Athletics Sports this week. Being selected to represent first your school at the zone sports and then your zone at the Canterbury sports is a tremendous achievement. Not only did these children win at our school sports, they also went on to achieve top placings at the South East Zone athletics sports (13 schools).  Special congratulations to Iris in Raupo. Iris was placed 3rd for 80 metre sprints in the Canterbury Athletics final. We are proud of you all.

Principal's Award

Congratulations to Shia from Totara for being awarded the Principal's Award this week for your positive attitude, resilience and for being a consistent role model of our school values. You are awesome.

Takaroa Athletics

The Takaroa athletics sports were held on a warm day finally up on the grassy. Well done everyone for excellent participation and for showing us those fundamental physical skills you have been practising in the lead up to your sports day. Great job.

LAF Performances

The LAF performances this week showcased some real talent and were a testament to the expertise in the performance arts we have here right in Lyttelton. Our children have a tremendous opportunity to develop in the performance arts and we value the connections we have between school and LAF.

Science Conference

Year 7 students have just finished a two day Science Conference at Linwood College. Thank you to the Linwood specialist Science teachers for planning engaging and high interest science activity for our children and for the use of the specialist equipment in the science labs. We look forward to developing the Science Conference as a regular event on the Aupaki Calendar.

Digital Citizenship 

On Tuesday all students were involved in a workshop at Redcliffs School facilitated by John Parsons to support children's learning about cyber-safety and digital citizenship. This was followed by an afternoon staff meeting and a parent session at 7pm. John is in high demand as a valued expert in this area working with schools and corporates here and overseas - even booked out two years in advance!  If you couldn't attend this week you might be interested in some of these key messages and the links I have shared below.  I know that we are all challenged at times with our children and how we help to support and navigate them through their worlds as they grow. Making good choices and decisions as an individual and a family is more important than ever. The material in the links from John below elaborate further.

Please take the key points interpreted from John's parent presentation as you will. There were certainly some important points made.

• Teach your child to be warm and friendly and have a positive cluster of friends around them. Who they have around them, shapes who they are. Choose to be around people who lift you up not put you down.

• Your online profile is something that future employers will look at.

• John was forthright in his message about being the parent, not the friend. Sometimes parents make the mistake of wanting their children to 'like' them all the time. 

• If you decide to give up your right to parent your child between the age of 8 and 12, then you're kicking your problem into the future.

• John reinforced keeping our children off social media until they are 13 or you are teaching them to create a fake identity. This includes facebook, instagram, tictoc, all of them!

• If you let children have phones (and this can be really valid!), ensure that they have the same boundaries around them that you had for phone calls when we were kids. (eg) You can't be messaging or watching something and eating dinner with your family...

• Put time frames and limits around messaging - no more messaging after a certain time, all family devices off after a certain time - Model that!

• Kids often say "but everyone else has a phone or is allowed on instagram, tic toc or to play R13, R16 or R18 games....etc..." There can be lots of pressure to let kids join something that you're not comfortable with.  John's response to that ..."Well I'm not their Dad, I'm yours and I love you. You're valuable, you're unique, you are loved. You are not going on them until you are the legal age. End of story."

• Social media apps like Tic-Tok can try to turn our young people into a product...the competition to have more and more followers so that they get that dopamine hit for feeling popular...We all need to feel a sense of validation but it is talking with our young people about where we get that validation from...

• Don't let anyone follow you that we don't know ourselves. When in game chat rooms, do not give away personal information about ourselves just like we wouldn't when out in the community, in a park, walking down the street etc...

• Watch out for addiction to technology (wanting to be on it all the time, sneaking up at night to use technology...)

• Watch out for children developing a sedentary lifestyle or not getting enough sleep.

• Kids aren't self soothers anymore and they need to be. Boredom is a precursor to creativity. Let them be bored!

• Allow half an hour before dinner and half an hour after dinner of NO technology.

• On the weekend 1 or 1 and 1/2 hours is an ok amount of time for technology. (this doesn't include tv or movies that you might watch together socially or as a family)

• Become your child's "friend" in any social network environment and have your family become their friend too, make comments from time to time about family times so that anyone who might be dangerous knows that this young person has a strong family network.

• Try to always maintain open lines of communication with children. Do not over react if you see something that alarms you or makes you angry. Our kids can be amazingly kind and loving, they can also be mean. Let them have the right to make mistakes and be forgiven. Share your concerns, and always talk about issues as to how they relate to them and their friends safety.

• Our patch, Linewise, Netsafe and Family zone are useful platforms for helping parents have appropriate filters on technology in the house.

Wellington Camp

Our year 8 children are excited about their final school camp in Wellington next week. The children leave on Tuesday and are back on Friday with an exciting and action packed week of activity planned.

Final Assembly

It was great to see a few parents at the regular school assembly today.  Our next school assembly is the final one for the year!  This is scheduled for Wednesday 16 December starting at 1:30pm. At the final assembly we celebrate the year 8 leavers, farewell any staff leaving and wish everyone well for their summer break. Reminder that because Anne is retiring after 24 years teaching in Lyttelton we are also having an afternoon tea after the assembly in the staffroom for any parents or members of the community who would like to come and thank Anne for her service.

Thank you to Claire Coates and Rachel Williamson

Can I take this opportunity to thank Rachel and Claire for their tremendous support as trustees on our school board.  Claire and Rachel did not stand for re-election and have their final meeting next Monday. I know that thanking Claire and Rachel is certainly part of the agenda next week!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Ngā mihi

Brendan