It has been wonderful to hear the sounds of singing and kids out playing their sports again as interschool sports competitions started this week and our arts programmes started to get into full swing. School is beginning to feel a lot more normal!

I think Intermediates are wonderful places as they provide so many new experiences for children; academically, culturally, socially and in sports. It is a great time to find out what they like as well as what they don't like.

Some of the most important learning your child will do is to win and lose graciously. I have seen and we have all heard of horror stories of parents who become too invested in their kids sports and become abusive towards their own child, their team mates, the opposition and the officials.

Parents play a critical support role in their child’s sporting experiences. A study by McCarthy, Jones and Clark-Carter (2008) investigated the sources of enjoyment reported by youth sport participants and found that positive parental involvement was one of the most frequently reported results by young males and females. This implies that when children in sport perceive parental involvement as positive, they are more likely to enjoy their sporting experience.

Lets all make sure we show the school value of "Respect" whenever we are out watching the students play sports and talk to your child if you see them letting you and the school down.

I mentioned at the start that the school is starting to feel more normal and this is also reflected in our Covid cases. Over the last two weeks we have had very little transmission within our school students. We have recorded many days without a single new student case but we have had 4 teachers away with Covid this week. This will be the last time that I will send out a regular report on our Covid19 situation unless we start seeing an upward trend again amongst the students or if we are struggling to keep teachers in front of classes. This does not mean that the pandemic is over, we will still encourage everyone to continue the health mitigation factors that have helped keep everyone safe to date.

Kind regards

Simon Clarke

Matariki at Tahuna