Over the past 2 years, the school has gradually changed its focus to student wellbeing. With staff having to deal with reality every day, next year will see an even greater focus on our student, staff and parent/caregiver wellbeing.

Teachers are coming out of classrooms more and more on a daily basis to support students who have facing their own personal challenges. Yet we are still parking the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. While we are not being funded by the MOE to support these growing needs, we have arrived at a crisis point where something needs to change for all our students at Ngatea Primary School. It also means that we need to review the way we resource our school, including our staffing, and teaching and learning programmes.

The board has agreed to put significant funding into the development of a dedicated learning space that will cater for the rapidly increasing needs of our learners. We will use some of our current furniture at school for the space, while the board has set a further $10,000 aside to resource the space. Staff will be timetabled to the space throughout the week to ensure that we make it a positive space for all our students.

The current Moana Nui learning spaces (at the deck Events Centre) will be used to develop a space that:

• Is healthy, safe and nurturing with positive outcomes for all
• Provides proactive support for students around self-care and positive mental wellbeing
• Takes a fair, empathetic approach to wellbeing issues at school
• Will be flexible in its use/purpose depending on a range of needs and programmes such as:

Breakfast Club; daily check in/out; social skills programmes; reset time; calm space; independent & quiet learning; parental support programmes; before school & lunchtime activities; curriculum based programmes.

All our staff (teachers, relievers, administration, ground staff, IT technician & learning support staff) spent the last 2 days (15 & 16 December 2021) trying to better understand the neuroscience behind the challenges many of our students face, and to draft our own Wellbeing Framework. More work is to be done on this framework, and we will be seeking community input once we have completed the first draft.