Kia ora everyone, I hope that everyone had a great weekend! Hopefully the weather comes right again for us soon, we have had some lovely warm November days so far this month! I can’t believe we are already in Week 5, and so much to do before the term/year is over, as well as making plans for 2020. I can tell the next five weeks are going to fly by!

Last term the BOT shared their revised building/property plans going forward for Ōhoka School. Some of the key points from this communication were;

• Rooms 7, 8 & 9 were to be demolished/removed and replaced with two prefabricated buildings from the University of Canterbury - to come from our school’s property budget.

• Current student numbers meant that we are only entitled to 7 teaching spaces (we currently have 10)

• Rooms 7, 8 and 9 will still be ‘rationalised’ (removed) over the christmas holidays, but we are no longer entitled to new purpose built classrooms until our student roll grows.

• We now have to to think creatively about classroom spaces for 2020 (without using the STEAM Lab again which didn’t work so well for our Year 5 & 6 students this year).

You may now be wondering where are we at with classroom spaces for 2020? We are committed to ensuring that all teaching teams in the school have spacious and flexible teaching and learning spaces to meet the needs of the students. We have been working through how this might look, ensuring the students’ best interests will be at the core of all our decisions.

Considering all of the above (and wanting to avoid the use of the STEAM Lab again). We have decided to temporarily relocate the library to the STEAM Lab and make better use of the library space, and another adjacent space, for students in the meantime. The current library space is one of the school’s newer spaces and has excellent acoustics, lighting and flexibility. We think that this is the best short-term solution while we wait for new spaces!! When thinking about using this as a learning space, we needed to consider who are the best students to have in this space; age/stage appropriate (particularly because these students will be adjacent / sharing toilets with our younger Weka students) and making sure we keep lower student numbers. With all this in mind, we have decided that our Year 3 & 4 students will be moved to the current library and Room 1B space (adjacent to the library) next year, with Amy Parish and Zoe de Groot. The students will be working across two lovely spaces and we see this as the best solution going forward. I know that many of you will have questions about how this will look for your child;

• What will the student numbers be in these two spaces?

• What will the learning look like during the day?

• How will both spaces (library and 1B) be used?

• How will the noise levels be managed?

• Will my child still have the one kaiawhina teacher?

We would like to invite you along to information sessions, on Monday 18th November (next week) at either 3.15pm or 6pm. This will happen in the library. You will hear from Amy, Zoe and myself about how this will look for the students in 2020 and answer all your questions. We really want to make sure everyone feels really reassured that students will continue to have an excellent education. We pride ourselves on being a school that has taken a conservative approach to modern learning (no large numbers of students in huge spaces), and rest assured that this has not changed or our intention, and our priority is to have happy and challenged students, in great spaces with our fantastic teachers. If you find you can’t make either session, please do pop in and see me and I can talk you through it, and answer any questions.

Classroom Spaces 2020

Te Pōkai Weka - Rooms 2, 3 and 4 (no change)

Te Pōkai Kākā - Library and Room 1B

Te Pōkai Korimako - Room 5 and 6 (where Te Pōkai Kākā are currently)

Te Pōkai Kārearea - Room 10 and 11 (no change)

Last week was Jenelle Tocker’s last week at Ōhoka School before she headed on maternity leave. This was one week earlier that expected as Jenelle required some monitoring up at the hospital late last week and over the weekend. Rest assured that Jenelle and baby are all healthy and well and she’s in the best place possible regarding her care at the moment. She was disappointed that she didn’t get to say goodbye to her students and families, but we know that she will be back to visit next year with her baby. We will keep everyone posted on any exciting developments over the next couple of weeks. We wish Jenelle and husband Dave all the very best.

We welcome Liane Smith to Ōhoka School who is covering Jenelle's maternity leave until the end of this year.

Next week our Year 8 students are off on their Wellington leadership trip. They are going to be enjoying a city experience; parliament visit, Mt Victoria walk, swimming, cable car, Te Papa, Treasury Museum and Weta Workshops. They are away Tuesday - Friday with Karina and myself, as well as some super parents. Many thanks to all those who have helped with fundraising through our pizza lunches. We wish the students the very best time!

Many thanks to those Year 5-8 parents who have completed the Outdoor Education / Camp survey that was sent out last Tuesday. We really value your input and your thoughts, it’s all very helpful. If you haven’t already done so, please complete this, as we are wanting to share the findings with you, and consider any changes that we may need to make. First impressions from the survey results is that a couple of small tweaks will need to be made to our existing programme.

Wishing everyone a super (short) week. Enjoy your long weekend.

Kate