We welcome you back to the 2018 school year, share some strategies we will be using to keep your child ‘cool at school’ in the upcoming days, update you on our communication systems and give you a few reminders to make the start of the year run smoothly.

Kia ora koutou

Welcome back to the 2018 school year. We hope you have had a restful and enjoyable break.  We have been working hard to plan for an exciting year ahead. It was great to see all the smiling faces come through the gate this morning (including our parents).

We are off to a HOT start to the year. Predictions are that temperatures will rise to 30ºC+. To ensure we all ‘keep cool at school’ we will be monitoring the conditions for our students and staff. We are in the fortunate position to have all rooms air conditioned, so conditions will be kept comfortable. Children will be permitted to stay inside the classrooms during lunchtime on these really hot days. We will be reminding all children to have water breaks, and when they are outside to take breaks in the shade. Please ensure that your children have hats, water bottles and that you have applied sunscreen prior to coming to school.

Communication 

We use many strategies to keep our parent and wider community informed about happenings at our school. Generally, we use the same forms of communication for all our announcements so it is a good time to ensure you know about these as they are able to give you the latest information about the events and happenings at MPS.

Our communication methods are:

1. SCHOOL NEWSLETTER: Our survey last year told us that many of you use this form of communication to keep up-to-date with school happenings. These are sent out fortnightly or when we have upcoming events we need to inform you about;

2. MPS SCHOOL APP: This can be downloaded from the app store and is available for Android and iPhone users (search for Mt Pleasant School in the app store). This allows you to subscribe to different groups you are interested in and to receive alerts as soon as they are sent out;

3. EMERGENCY TEXT ALERT SYSTEM: This is a text system provided free by Spark (through one of our ex-parents) that allows us to send a text to all the people who have subscribed. You do have to subscribe by sending a text to: Text MTPL to 570. Once you have subscribed you will receive back a text confirming this. If you are not sure you have joined, you can send the text to subscribe and it will tell you if you have already. We only use this system in case of school closure or in an emergency;

4. PARENT EMAIL TREE: on enrolment, we ask for contact details. As part of this when you provide an email address, this is added to our parent email tree. This is probably the most used form of communication. If you wish someone else in your family to receive these emails as well, just call or email the office and Carolyn will make sure they are added.

5. TEACHER EMAILS: these come directly from our Student Management System and allow teacher to contact individual families or the entire class or team. This is not connected to the Office email list.

6. MPS WEBSITE (www.mtpleasant.school.nz): this is still a great way to keep up-to-date with all the happenings and events at MPS.

7.  SCHOOL CALENDAR: This can be accessed in several different ways:

• Use THIS link on your web browser.

• Add us to your Google calendar or calendar app using THIS link. 

Attached to this newsletter is the MPS 2018 School Events calendar. This contains most of the significant events throughout the year and we hope this helps keep you informed. This is up-to-date, but additional dates will be added (we are still awaiting some dates for Aupaki Kahui Ako events). We will send home a paper copy with each student today.

Dogs on School Grounds

Many of you will have noticed the new "No Dogs" signs we have installed on our school gates.  The dog owners among you will be pleased to learn this does not apply to school families on pick up and drop off. However, due to a significant amount of dog faeces regularly being left on school grounds we needed to take action to keep our grounds clean for our children.  

THIS link takes you to an article we published last year outlining our dog policy and the expectations we have around the behaviour of dogs and their owners on school grounds.

Just a few final reminders for the year...

• If your contact details have changed, we ask that you call Carolyn in the office to let her know. We can then ensure you receive the communication we send out.

• We ask that all students wear the correct school uniform. If you are unsure of the guidelines, they can be found on our school website HERE. This is about fairness and having pride in your school. We thank you in advance for your support regarding this.

• Please ensure your child brings a school hat and water bottle. We also suggest applying sunscreen prior to coming to school. Each classroom also has a supply that students can apply if required.

• We ask that parents contact the school if their child is going to be absent. You can call the Office and leave a message or use the MPS App to notify us of this.

• If you are going to be away on a holiday during term time please notify the office and the class teacher. The best way to do this is via email at office@mtpleasant.school.nz

We look forward to a very productive and rewarding year for all our students, and to working with our parent community to make Mt Pleasant an inclusive and welcoming school.

Kia pai tō rā

Chris Nord