Kia ora koutou katoa. What a fabulous week we are having with Our Week of Words! The guest authors we had visit, Vasanti Unka (author of books such as I am the Universe and Who stole the Rainbow?) and James Russell (Dragon Defenders series), were amazing and the students learned so much from them. The costs of having these authors come from the Activity Contribution most of you paid at the start of the year, so thank you for paying this.

Hearing real authors like these speak, are certainly crystallising moments for many children. The book character parade yesterday morning was fantastic also, and a huge thank you for spending the time to create the stunning outfits we saw. The staff also had fun dressing up (I am now attached to my Batman outfit), with a special mention to Rebekah Williams and Letisha Griffiths who dressed up every day this week. Their classes loved it! There was also a huge turnout of parents to the parade, thank you for supporting this.

The Book Fair has been a great success also, with many families buying books for these upcoming school holidays. It has been a real joy to see the children’s faces light up as they find a book they really want to read. The enthusiasm is contagious and has spurred me to read something for fun, not just the professional reading I usually do. Again, thank you to those who have supported this, as the profits go straight to our Library for more books. The Book Fair finishes at 3.30pm today.

We had a wonderful turn out to the parent-teacher-student meetings on Wednesday. It was a great opportunity for both teachers and parents to discuss the children’s learning and where to next for them, and the feedback has been so positive. We do value the home-school partnership so please keep communicating with us. The term two reports will come home next Friday, 3 July, the last day of term.

We are now in the period of Matariki which is observed this year from Rāhoroi 20 Pipiri (Saturday 20th June) until Raāpa 15 Hōngongoi (Wednesday 15th July). Further in this newsletter is an article with links and activities to share with your families and whanau.

We are constantly monitoring our students’ online safety, and as a school, we have procedures in place to help with this. To help you at home, we want to share these 7 steps that Netsafe say are really important for all parents to be aware of and actively monitoring. They say that It isn't enough just for schools to educate around cyber-safety, it has to be reinforced at home as well. Their 7 steps for parents are:

1. Understand potential risks, challenges and sometimes illegal behaviours

2. Learn about their child's activities

3. Explore for themselves the technology their child uses and know what they are doing online

4. Agree and set expectations as a family on what to do online

5. Teach basic online safety concepts

6. Model the behaviours you want to see your child use

7. Plan what to do if things go wrong

For further information, please check out their website: Online Parent Safety Toolbox

Next week is the last week of the term. We break for the school holidays on Friday 3 July at the usual time of 3.00pm. A reminder that as the first two days of next term, Term 3, are professional development days for the teachers, school starts on Wednesday 22 July for the students.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Ngā manaakitanga

Sue Cattell

Principal