Kia Ora

The 2019 school year is now underway, those long hot summer days where no routine or the demands of life are a distant memory. I am really pleased to report that we are fully staffed in all the roles we have. Not only that, we are fully staffed with great people who are keen to be part of a learning focussed organisation.

Over the next few weeks we’ll publish some short bio’s of our new team members, in the meantime if you see a new face wandering around the place, please feel free to introduce yourself. We have had two new support staff begin or about to begin with us in the next few days. Reece has joined us as our new digital wizard. Reece is our onsite support for all things digital. He’ll also be running various elements of our digital platforms, including social media and our website. Alongside Reece, joining us next week is Sally Andrew. Sally will be our new Barista extraordinaire. You will see Shotz opening longer. And now that we have all our systems setup, will be helping Emma with teaching the children how to run a small business. Exciting times ahead for Shotz.

It seems far too early to be announcing changes to our teaching staff, however there are a couple we know about and so thought we’d let you know for later in the year. Miss Adele Gardyne has tendered her resignation for the end of the term. Adele is going to be moving further south and supporting her fiancé in his new police career. Mrs Amy Snow whom many of you will know already will be moving into Adele’s role from term 2. Some of you may have noticed that our very own Godzone champion, Mrs Emily Forne isn't competing in this years event as she will be taking maternity leave later in the year. We are seeking someone to cover her role over the next couple of months. We wish Adele and Emily all the very best.

Growth, building and those things…

I understand since the articles published in the newspaper last week some people are wondering what is happening around the continued growth of the school. Shotover has always been master planned to have a roll of 800+, this number was refreshed when the planning was completed for the stage 2 build and that is where the 900 number comes from. The growth trend shows little sign of slowing and so we with the Ministry of Education are working to plan, to design and build additional capacity. So the large mound that was removed during January is the first stage of this. All going well construction will begin in late May.

A casual glance at our bike shed in the morning will tell you that biking to school is very popular. We think that is fantastic. In fact we made plans last year to extend the concrete area and install more stands. The original plan was to have this operational by the time the term began. However, as many of you can attest to getting concrete poured in a timeframe you wish is hard work. So all going well, by the time you read this that pour should have happened and we will have additional bike parking space by next week. Please note that this won’t have a roof, the budget doesn’t quite stretch that far.

The three Hapori are hosting a family BBQ over the next week. These are great opportunities to meet other families from the Hapori your child is in. It's also a great environment in which you can meet the mentors and get to know one another.

Ka kite

Ben Witheford

Principal