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Photo by Maungaraki School

PRINCIPALS MESSAGE

Caro Wills —

Relationships

Welcome!  Hard to believe that another week has flown by, and we are halfway through Term 1 already! It has been another busy week. The last two weeks our staff and students have been focusing on the HEART value: RELATIONSHIPS.

We believe that RELATIONSHIPS are at the root of a successful education, and by ignoring or bypassing their importance, it becomes impossible for schools to achieve their educational and developmental aims. We can look at student success as a tricycle - with the three tyres being the school, their whanau and themselves - each of these tyres need to be connected, and inflated (heard and valued) for the tricycle to be able to move forward. If one of the tyres is deflated, the tricycle can’t move forward as effectively.

Focusing on developing these relationships between home and school, students and teachers and peer interactions is playing an important part in creating the culture of care, kindness, respect we are becoming proud of here at Maungaraki. It is so crucial in helping our students develop their sense of identity and how they learn best too.

Our teachers take special care in developing these relationships, and finding out about the students in their care. This is an ongoing focus, but is especially important at the start of the year. A lot of time is spent getting to know the students' learning styles and where they are in terms of their knowledge, abilities, and potential. More importantly, it also means getting to know their interests, personality, and background. For our teachers, this body of knowledge opens up the possibilities of growth and dramatic learning opportunities (and ties in beautifully with our Hauora and Engaged HEART values!)

Some of the things we have been doing to celebrate relationships between home and school are our recent Whanau Lunch in the Kakano syndicate, the HEART camp held by the Koru syndicate, Information evenings and our upcoming goal setting evenings. There are other syndicate trips coming up and another HEART Leadership camp early next term for our Fern syndicate. We also have our ongoing Buddy Classes which work together, and our senior students leading various activities across the school to support other students or teachers. All of these things contribute to the wonderful feeling of whanau that is growing across our school.

Our Intermediate Fern syndicate has been working hard at developing, observing and creating opportunities for displays of student leadership. There is a new Student Leadership structure in place, which has been deliberated over by many of the staff, voted on by staff and students and will be announced at Assembly on Friday. The new structure reflects our values, the importance of connection and relationships and in demonstrating the values that our community hold dear. We are excited about what this can grow into, and can’t wait to begin working with our Leaders and the wider Leadership Academy.

Our Graduate Profile is almost complete now too, with a progressive profile for each area of the school. These will be shared with you at the student-teacher interviews in Week 8. This will form part of our new Charter, which will also be available once finalised in the next few weeks.

Once again, thank you to all of you for your support of us as a school. We couldn’t do this without you, and our connections and relationships with all of our community and whanau are valued. We look forward to continuing to develop these during the year.

Nga Mihi Nui
Caro Wills