Talofa Lava everyone, We have been very busy here at Sara Cohen School. Our students have been focused working on their programmes and goals and we have had a very settled couple of weeks. It’s been great to see the amazing work that all the teachers have been doing with our students.

We are still working through our Collaborative Learning Plans (CLPs) with each class taking a week to complete their meetings. Thank you to all of the parents and students that have attended and to all of the staff involved in organising them. We will take the information that we get from these huis and use it to support the development of goals for our students. Goal setting is one of the most important processes that takes part at school. When goals are correct and appropriate then students' programmes will be correct and appropriate. After the CLP’s teachers and therapists work together to shape these goals.

I have had Danjela Malobabic shadowing me for this week. Danjela is the Principal of Beverly Public School in Toronto, Canada. She has been in classes, sat in meetings and observed how we operate as a school. Danjela’s school is a specialist school and has 77 students (Sara Cohen has 56). We have found loads that our schools have in common and it has been a very beneficial experience. Later on in the year I will go to Toronto and shadow Danjela for a week.

Thank you to all of our community who came out and had dinner with us on the 20th of February. It was a lovely evening and really nice for people to meet and talk together. We hope to have more of these opportunities to meet and greet later in the year.

Work continues on our Riselaw Road site and the plan is that the ‘pad’ will go down from next week. Once this is laid the steel framing will go up very quickly. The contractors expect that it will be a watertight shell by the start of the winter. Once this is completed they will begin the ‘fit out’.

I have attached our strategic plan that has been adopted by the Board of Trustees. The two strategic goals are that will guide our annual plan are;

● We Learn Together

● We Belong Together

Please take the time to read through the strategic plan. It’s only a one-page document.

Please read the upcoming holidays that are attached to this newsletter. There are a few public and local holidays coming up.

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend

Regards

Matt

Special Olympics Otago Secondary Schools Athletics event, being held at The Caledonian Ground, Dunedin on Wednesday 27 March 2023

Whānau and friends welcome to come along and support our athletes

Sara Cohen School Fun Athletics Day at the Caledonian Sports Ground

Friday 5th of April starting at 10:00am

All Satellite and Base classes will be attending this event

Whānau and friends welcome to come along and support our athletes

Scholastic Book Club - Issue 2 

Closes Wednesday 27th March 2024.  Thank you for your support!

Term Dates 2024

Term 1

Wednesday 31st January – Friday 12th April

• Waitangi Day – Tuesday 6th February
• Otago Anniversary - Monday 25th March
• Good Friday – 29th March
• Easter Monday – 1st April
• Easter Tuesday – 2nd April

Term 2

Monday 29th April – Friday 5th July

• King’s Birthday – Monday 3rd June
• Matariki – Friday 28th June

Term 3

Monday 22nd July – Friday 27th September

Term 4

Monday 14th October – Tuesday 17th December

• Labour Day – Monday 28th October

Mānuka have had a fabulous start to 2024.

Our topic this term is Kitchen Chemistry. We have been learning about what type of reaction we get when kitchen ingredients are added together. The favourite activity so far has been making hokey pokey.

This week our literacy focus has included learning about Seaweek and how we can look after our oceans.