He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! What is the most important thing in the world? It is people! It is people! It is people!

Kia ora whānau

I hope you all had an enjoyable term break. 

We have a jam-packed term ahead with lots of great things planned throughout the school. I'm really looking forward to our tamariki doing Tu Meke on Tuesday afternoons.

We have had two athletic practises this week already, gearing up for our Athletics Day on Friday the 27th of October.

We are also providing more things for our tamariki to do during lunchtimes. Mrs Harris is offering a Lego club in her class. I will be taking students up to the tennis courts on Tuesdays, and Mr J and Mr Glen have been putting up more nets for our students to play pickleball / padded tennis.

Teacher Only Day

We had a very successful Teacher-only day, facilitated by Sarah Hopkinson from Cognition Education who has been working with us all year in developing and designing our Local Curriculum. 

On Monday we worked on creating our school's guiding principles, these are the principles we want to have for our tamariki, they will shape the way we do things at Pukerua Bay School. 

Aretha Harris had a go at drafting a visual depiction of these principles.  

Open Evening

We would like to invite all our whanau whose children will be in the senior school next year, Years 5-7. 

We want to let you know more about what things look like in the senior end of the school, and the opportunities we want to offer our tamariki.

The open evening will take place on Tuesday 31st October, 6-7 pm

After school care

I have continued my talks with the Skids group to provide afterschool care at Pukerua Bay School. Things are progressing nicely.

I have been in contact with a number of families to gauge their interest, it seems it will be a viable option and hopefully, it will grow in time. 

If you are interested in before-school care with Skids can you please let us know, as this could also be an option moving forward?

I am waiting for Skids to send me a survey for the community. Once I have received this I send it out and we can get things moving. 

I will keep you all informed as we move forward. 

Hero

We continue to develop our new school management system - Hero

The software is secure, easy to use and brings together all school-related information in one place.

We are excited about the features that Hero has to offer families.

This will allow parents and caregivers to:

• notify the school if your child is absent or late
• respond to school notices such as surveys and trip permission requests
• read and comment on posts relating to your child’s learning
• view information on your child’s progress and goals
• read and comment on school notices sent to the class or groups your child is part of
• view school term dates
• view a school calendar of events
• navigate to other school-related web pages
• customise your account by adding a profile image
• select how you wish to receive notifications

Staff will continue to upskill themselves in using Hero this term. 

In 2024 staff and students will be posting rich content to our Hero software and we are looking forward to sharing this with you to include you in your child’s learning journey.

Learning posts combined with curriculum information and goal-setting will form an online report designed to build year on year so that over time you will have access to written posts, images, videos, work samples, and helpful resources all in one place.

There is an incentive for all whanau to connect their smartphone to Hero. At the end of term 4, all whānau who have connected to Hero will earn Kura tokens for both, Unity and Responsibility for each child in the family who goes to Pukerua Bay School!

Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori is hopefully offering this programme again. It's called ‘Takitini’ (meaning to be unified, to be a collective, to have a shared direction).

This is a whole-school-whānau-community approach where they will provide the resources, the programme and the pūkenga (tutors) to teach within school communities.

These courses are free to our community. This would require a number of participants including staff, BOT, whānau etc to commit to the 20-week programme.

Key Points:

• Provider: Kāuru - endorsed by, and in conjunction with Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa and Te Atiawa

• Programme Name: Takitini - Catering to NPKA alone

• Hours:120 hours over 20 weeks

• Level: My understanding is that they will be catering for a number of levels, to suit each school and their whānau/community

• Venue: School

• Participants: 30 people at each venue - consisting of staff, BOT, whānau members of staff and whānau of ākonga.

• Each pūkenga has the capability to work during the day or evening as negotiated.

• The goal is for a number of 2024 cohorts to continue this 20-week programme in 2024 doing the appropriate level of te reo Māori.

If you are interested in doing this programme, please contact me so I can see who is interested. If you could also let me know what day and time would suit you best. 

Have a great weekend everyone. Go the mighty AB's!!

Chris Els

Tumuaki / Principal