Welcome to all our ākonga/students for another school year. Physical Education has an exciting programme operating from the Junior to the Senior school especially during Term 1 which tends to be when we do lots of education outside the classroom utilising the fine summer weather……….(let’s keep our fingers crossed that we get some fine summer weather). Notices with more information will come out in the next couple of weeks.

Year 11 Pilot Physical Education Class

In week two our year 11 Pilot PE class were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend the Hinemoa Water Safety Programme with Te Waiariki Purea Trust. 

This four day course involved visiting local roto (Lake Okareka), awa (Ohau Channel) and moana (Ōhope Beach). 

Over the 4 days students learnt about our local history and natural environment as well as covering an array of water safety skills. 

The key water safety skills covered were, learning how to safely enter and exit the water, correct use of a personal floatation device, swimming and deep water survival skills, rescue tows, hazard identification, river signals, spotting rips and eddies and correct use of kayaks. 

The learning and experiences on this programme (as well as being a lot of fun!) will contribute to a number of assessments throughout the year for these students, as well as providing the opportunity to gain valuable life skills. 

Thanks to Te Waiariki Purea Trust for your facilitation of this trip and to the students involved for your mahi throughout the week. 

Jade Northey
Physical Education Teacher

Reminder

A reminder that all junior ākonga should be in our Navy Blue PE uniform. If there are issues with purchasing this please send them in some alternative clothing (shorts/shirt) in the meantime as we want to protect their actual school uniform as much as possible. We may be able to help provide some gear that has been donated to us so please get in touch. Getting changed also sets our minds to “mahi/work mode” and shows the key competency of self management. Teaching our ākonga to look at their timetable and packing what they need the night before is teaching good habits. Any issues with uniform, please email your ākonga's teacher or if you don’t know who that is, please email me as the Head of Faculty (HOF). DON’T FORGET TO NAME ALL UNIFORM ITEMS for easy return of items.

• HOF - Carolyn Katu (KC) - ckatu@rghs.school.nz
• Assistant HOF - Caroline Beamish (BM) - cbeamish@rghs.school.nz
• Jade Northey (NR) - jnorthey@rghs.school.nz
• Rachael Marjoribanks (MB) - rmarjoribanks@rghs.school.nz
• Jordyn Ewert (ER) - jewert@rghs.school.nz
• Tanya Lee Parker - tleeparker@rghs.school.nz
• Juliet Boone (BN) - jboone@rghs.school.nz

Sports shoes can be worn as long as they are non marking and ākonga are not wearing them around school. We also do encourage a hat and sunscreen to be worn for outside lessons.

If your ākonga is injured or unwell, please email or provide a note and remember that ākonga cannot leave our classrooms to meet you unless they have a pass out. This can be obtained by calling the front office.

PE lessons are twice a week and ākonga also have one period of Health. Some Year 9 students will have the rotation class HAUORA, which is our Year 9 Relationships and Sexuality Education unit. All students in this class will bring home a letter detailing the 5 themes with a brief outline of what will be covered. You can request that your ākonga removed from specific sessions, please contact me if you would like for this to happen. We take a positive view on sexuality as a natural part of growing up and follow the Family Planning Year 9 Navigating the Journey framework.

Thank you for your help with ensuring that PE lessons operate smoothly.

Nga mihi

Caroyn Katu
Head of Faculty