Tēnā koutou katoa

What an exciting week we have had! Te Wiki o te Reo Māori has seen our students and staff speaking more Te Reo and learning more about this official language of our country. The posters some students made were out in force as we proudly stood outside our gates on Tuesday, raising awareness of the language. A great app we have been using at school is Kupu, which uses the camera on your mobile phone to tell you (in Māori) what an item is. This is a great way to learn how to pronounce those everyday items, which we can use to help normalise the use of Te Reo in everyday language.

Literacy Week has been a great success also.We have had some amazing authors come and share their wise words with the students, and also the staff. The staff had a great session after school on Monday with Stu Duval, who gave us some good tips on how to get great writing from our students. The book swap on Wednesday was a hit, and many excited children came with their books to swap for other books. On Thursday, we had the book character costume day which was a lot of fun, with such a variety of costumes and colour. Thank you for taking the time to put together these outfits. A huge thank you to Nirelle Armstrong, our Literacy Leader, for organising and coordinating all the events, and to Susan Jury for having our Library being such a hub of the school, especially during this week.

Please take extra care when you dropping off or picking up your children from school. Safety at the school gate is an ongoing priority for us, and we do notice that when it is wet weather, in particular, the behaviour of some drivers, quite frankly, is dangerous! If you must pick up your child by car, please park a street or two away and walk. A good umbrella and raincoat work wonders, and even if you do get a bit wet, you will soon dry out. Stopping a car in the middle of the road for a child to run up to and jump in is not ok, and neither is stopping on yellow lines. We care about the children in our school and do not want them injured in any way.

A reminder that if you live out of zone and have preschool children who are due to start at our school in the coming year, you will need to complete a ballot form for the upcoming ballot. Unfortunately, we are not able to accept children who live out of zone if they have not been in the ballot.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Ngā mihi nui