From the Principal

Some of you may have noticed or be aware that we have had cladding around some classrooms and our hall area removed. This is the beginning of a cladding and window replacement at school. But like all building projects in my experience, a multitude of other problems emerge. This is the case. It appears there have been leaks over the past 47 years and now the damage must be repaired before the windows go in and the new cladding applied. We are doing our best to support our staff and students in these rather uninviting spaces as the work continues.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have met with a group of parents to talk about the Health curriculum and with our Pasifika whanau to share the developing school charter and school direction. Our Pasifika student leadership team lead the conversations at this event and did an outstanding job of sharing their vision for their learning and cultural identity.

Some of the parents at the health curriculum meeting expressed some concerns at the nature of the Relationship and Sexuality education content. Our teachers have closely aligned this teaching and learning programme with Ministry of Education guidelines. We have developed a programme that is inclusive, acknowledges diversity, shares important information in a timely and age-appropriate way but we are mindful that all our students are in different places with their understanding of this curriculum area.

The overview of the programme and an outline of our overall health curriculum is on our website under Information.

While we are mandated to teach this part of the health curriculum, your child is not obliged to participate. If you would like your child withdrawn from this teaching and learning programme, please let your classroom teacher know and other arrangements will be made for your child.

I will share a Google form with the community at the end of the term to gather some feedback on our overall health curriculum – what to keep, what to stop and what to add.

Transition processes into our school and preparation for transitions out have started. Our community is well versed in these processes and indeed well known for our good practice.

The closing date for 2024 year 7 enrolments is August 31st. It will be interesting to see if we sustain our very healthy student population – one of the few intermediate schools in the Wellington region that has sustained its students’ roll and is indeed growing!

I hope many of you will make it along to our Celebration of Learning evening in week 9 of this term. All our students have been working on the histories and stories of our place, our community. We hope to share some of this learning with you at this event.

Nga mihi nui

Angela Lowe