I feel that 2022 has been a challenging year. Covid has continued to have an impact, the wider health and wellbeing of our community has been under stress and optimism and energy seems low. The holidays will be a welcome break.

This is our last Hail newsletter of the year. It celebrates all the interesting things we have done in recent weeks. School has continued to be an engaging and busy place thank goodness. 

The end of the year brings changes to our school. After a long settled period of staffing there are a few teachers moving on in 2023. 

Julia Jones, our foods teacher will be working much closer to home at Plimmerton School, leading their specialist teaching team. Di McKenzie is going to be our new foods teacher and lead our own specialist team here.

Nima Pemerika is going to teach in Porirua where her expertise as a teacher of Pasifika students will be highly valued.

Aaron Cope has accepted a position at Raroa Intermediate as he expands his teaching experience and practice in intermediate middle year schooling.

Ian Svela is staying close to us but in 2023 will be the DP at Rewarewa School - a wonderful opportunity for him.

Billy Miskimmin will be a student at the Wananga in Otaki studying te reo and tikanga Maori for a year.

Brie Jessen Vaughan is taking a break from the classroom and will begin the development our creative arts curriculum, while providing release for many of our teachers.

Alison Koeck, our lead teacher in the Learning Hub, has been awarded an Educational Psychology internship with the Ministry of Education.

I am really proud of all these teachers who have gained confidence, expertise and experience at our school and are now adding value to the new places and spaces they will be in next year.

Nearly all of these positions have been filled despite the nationwide shortage of quality teachers many of us are facing. 

In mid January an email will be sent to the family of every student attending our school in 2023. This email will identify the teacher, the room and invite them to make an appointment for Getting Connected days.

As the year draws to a close I would like to thank everyone who has paid their Tech fees and their school donation this year. The tech fee helps provide high quality resources for our specialist teaching programme and the donation helps us provide extra teachers, more teacher aides, digital equipment, our much valued counsellor, library books and support for students. Thank you.

I wish you all a safe and healthy holiday break. I feel some warm summer weather would be welcome too.

Nga mihi nui

Angela Lowe

Principal