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Welcome
 
Photo by John Kane

Jude Irwin - Acting Principal

Mandy Aldridge-Neal —

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

What a fun day today is with the Book Fair Character Day! It is fabulous to see all the costumes and dressed up pupils and staff. Thanks to Judy Collins in the Library for coordinating the Fair, and Kim Wilson for organizing the activities and competitions. Days like these are the ones memories are made of.

Teachers have been working hard at completing assessments and reporting over the last few weeks. You will be looking forward to receiving the reports on Linc-Ed at the end of this week. There will be learning conferences early next term, only for parents who feel these are necessary after receiving the reports, or with some concerns to discuss.

We are pleased to announce Margot Crawford and Jenny Macartney have accepted the teaching position in Koru for the rest of the year in a job-share role. This means the pupils in Koru 3 and the other Koru pupils, will have consistency in their teaching team for the whole year. We have been lucky to have Margot and Jenny on board with all their knowledge and wealth of experience teaching.

Good luck to all the pupils taking part in the winter sports tournament this Thursday. Thank you to Mandy Aldridge-Neal and Joon Hong for organizing this, and the wonderful parent-helpers who have turned up on cold days for sports practices at lunchtimes. We know our pupils will do us proud at this event, and will give of their best efforts.

Yesterday some teacher aides and parent volunteers had a training session with Betsey Sewell in our new Literacy intervention programme in school, ‘Agility With Sound’. We will have another training session next Tuesday afternoon at 2pm for those who can make it. I am really excited to have this up and running for the beginning of Term 3. There is no doubt that this phonetic approach to reading and spelling will be helpful to many of our struggling learners.

Mandy Dempsey was in school again on Monday teaching in learning hubs, and then we had a professional development staff meeting on the digital technologies. This is an exciting addition to the New Zealand curriculum, and our teachers and pupils are excited by the possibilities.

The term is coming to an end, but we still have a lot of things happening right until the last day. Have an enjoyable winter break during the holidays.

Kind regards,

Jude Irwin