Kia ora koutou

Welcome back to the start of term 3. Hopefully you all enjoyed a relaxing two week break and managed to spend some quality time with your children.

I have spent the first part of this week at the New Zealand Principals Federation Conference in Rotorua. This was an excellent opportunity to connect with other principals including ex Shirley Primary School principal Sylvia Fidow and other principals from Bluff to Whangarei. I managed to listen to some excellent speakers including Dr Michelle Johansson and Jason Swann on Maori and Pasifika education and also Audrey Tan around mathematics education.

We are hoping to have a new Social Worker in Schools in place for the middle of the term. We are also trying to engage a counsellor who we hope to also have in place mid term for the rest of the year. If you are interested in your child being involved with either the Social Worker in Schools or the counselor please get in touch with either myself or Jo.

Hopefully everyone is managing to book in for our Student Led Conferences to be held on August 17 and 18. These conferences are an excellent way to celebrate your child’s learning and progress to date so far this year. Please take the opportunity to spend time in the space with your child to celebrate and engage in conversations about their learning. Please remember to book in for a 10 minute appointment to talk to your child’s whānau teacher about their progress and achievement.

We have a new sign on our front gate. Please remember that this is a staff only car park. We are very fortunate that we have a parent car park at the back of our school and plenty of street side on and around Shirley Road.

On Friday morning we held our termly mihi whakatau. It is wonderful to hold this each term and to welcome all the new children and their families to our school and community.

Ngā mihi nui Alistair Sim (Principal / Tumuaki)