“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” – Mary Kay Ash

Kia ora Whanau

I hope you all had a great Labour weekend. On the teacher's only day staff started to plan our next steps for actioning our strategic goals and initiatives as a school. We are excited and looking forward to implementing our plans so we can provide a variety of opportunities for our tamariki at Pukerua Bay School. Below is the one pages of our strategic plan to show what we want to achieve.

School Fencing

As you would have seen we currently have temporary fencing up around the school. Due to health and safety concerns, the Ministry has given the school funding to fence the school. The new fencing should take place mid November, all going well. We will have fabricated fencing along Rawhiti road as well as gates at all of our entrances. On the southern and eastern end of the school, we will have the mesh fencing either replaced or repaired. Wooden fencing will be erected at the back of Rawhiti and behind the PE /Caretaker block.

Property

I recently had a meeting with our project manager, architect, and builder about our property work. They aim to start mid-November, all going well. We are hoping to start with the Te Motu toilet block, this will be a full refurbishment of both the boys and girls toilets. We will then move on to the Wairaka block, the work will go up until May 2021. There will be disruptions, but we are trying to keep it to a minimum with all demolition work being done before the students start back to school in 2021.

CCTV Cameras

I would like to inform you that our surveillance cameras operate 24/7 and not just during school hours as previously stated.

As a school, we do not view the cameras at any stage unless there was an incident that occurred and we are able to obtain the footage. Footage remains for approximately a month before it’s wiped clean.

We have also taken steps to ensure the safety of all persons in that only two people have access to these cameras. These would be the only persons to view any footage if it was deemed necessary.

I also want to report that although we still have vandalism that occurs in the school from time to time, it has dropped significantly since we installed the CCTV cameras. It’s interesting to note that the vandalism that now occurs, is where we do not have any cameras installed.

Classes 2021

We are currently working through classes for 2021. This is a long process with all staff involved so we can make informed decisions that are in the best interest of the child. We endeavour to keep our teachers with a cohort of children for at least two years. If you want to discuss your child/ren's placement for next year, please do not hesitate to contact Christine to book an appointment with me.

School Dates

Term four is always a busy term with lots happening, especially towards the end of the year. Please check all the dates around school events so you can diarise these ahead of time, in particular for our year eight students who have lots of things happening before they finish their Pukerua Bay journey.

Kete Aroha's

Our year eight ketes are now up in the school administration area. We will be adding student photos to the kete’s shortly. If you want to share or write something and put this in a child's kete, you have some time to have a think about what you want to share, write etc... and we strongly encourage you to do this. The Kete's are handed out at the year eight leavers' assembly which is held in the final week and are wonderful memories to cherish for our leavers.

PB4L

We have done a lot of work around PB4L (positive behaviour for learning) and it is great to see a large percentage of our tamariki displaying these values on a regular basis. We continue to put up visuals around the school to reinforce and remind our tamariki of our school values. We use data to drive our systems and processes to help with our behaviour learning framework. Andrew will give you all further information around our data gathering in the next newsletter.

Athletics

We are looking forward to athletics next week and seeing all our senior school students participate. If you are able to come and support your child that would be great. Please see the article around this event for further information.

On a final note it's been two years since I took up this position and I feel privileged to be leading such an awesome school.

Chris Els

Tuamuaki / Principal