Kia ora koutou katoa. Today is the last day of the term and the mid-point of the year. At the parent/student/teacher meetings this week, I know many of you have talked about what your child has achieved this half-year and what their goals are for the second-half. These goal setting times are important in ensuring we are all clear about what learning needs to take place. For me, today is my last day at school until Term 4, with Term 3 being a sabbatical term for me. While I am really looking forward to the study and travel I will be doing (I finally get to see my daughter and granddaugher in Singapore), I will miss the daily contact with staff, students and families here. This school is a very special place and one that feels like family. I do know that things here will continue to move along smoothly, with Sara Baker and Nicola Hewitt as Acting Principals during this term.

We have been looking at our local curriculum and the needs and wants of our community. This will be a long process and one that will involve the voices of our community, our students and our staff. We have started that process by meeting with a cross-section of parents in our school community on an individual basis, and will continue these conversations next term. We have the support of some external facilitators in this process, and we thank those we have spoken with already and those we will speak with next term. We are a school of continuous improvement and are passionate about meeting the needs of all individuals.

As you know, in the past few weeks, we have been trialling the new lunchtime routine Play, Eat, Learn. We have gathered feedback and have found some positives in that there is less litter, fewer lunchboxes left outside, and children are more settled going back into class ready to learn. One thing we were told is that some children are quite hungry at 12.30pm so while we are going to have this new system in place for Term 3, we are allowing more flexibility around children being able to have part of their lunch at that time if they want to.

Recently we have discovered that some parent emails have not reached the staff member they were meant for as they have ended up in our spam folders. This mainly affects Hotmail email addresses. Can I ask that if you email someone at school and do not get a reply within a few days, that you make contact again via a phone call? We do not want you to think we are ignoring your email as communication is so important.

This afternoon is the whole-school assembly, led by the Year 6 team, and will start at the earlier time of 2pm. All of you are warmly invited.

I wish you all a relaxed and enjoyable holiday time together.

Ngā manaakitanga

Sue Cattell

Principal