What an incredibly busy term it's been, especially preparing for our Taiopenga Festival! Our children looked beautiful and sounded amazing. Although I wasn't at Taiopenga this year, I was able to watch them on Live Stream from Ōtautahi. A huge thank you to our tutors and staff for the hours of practice that go into preparing for the festival. A special thank you again to our support staff who ensure our tamariki have their costumes all sorted for the dress rehearsal and then again for the festival!

End of Term Assembly

• Nevaeh Waiariki-Katuke is the winner of end of term Aroha Draw and $100 voucher this term! Well done Nevaeh, very well deserved.
• Congratulations to our students who have followed out AROHA expectations and received  their Aroha Badges.
• Our children who received certificates and praise for attendance this term are: Ezekiel Stevens, Jahkaiza Edwards, Ila-Jade Edwards, Lucas Powell, Jacob Rakei- Aupaau, Treyvaughan Rakei, Jack Henry, Piper Quinn and Abel Palenski.
• Congratulations to all of these children who managed to attend kura 100% this term!! What a huge achievement during the winter months!!
• Our two tamariki who spun the wheel to win lunch with the staff today are Maysen Clark and Sukhman Brah. Congratulations!!

School Disco

Thank you to Whaea Laura and Whaea Shelley for organising our school Disco last night. We had an amazing turn out and raised a huge amount of $967.00 dollars towards the end of year Leadership celebrations.

What a fantastic effort on the second to last day of the term!!!

Thank you also to my amazing staff who helped out with the hall preparation, clean up and supervision. We had a lot of very happy tamariki who enjoyed the glow sticks, food, drink and dancing with their friends. There were some amazing character dress ups too! Thank you to our families and whānau who helped to support this fundraiser, we couldn't have done it without your support!

New Board members

We had our first School Board meeting on Wednesday with our new Board. The Board members including myself are: Selina Gray - Chairperson, Saraya Holt, Karla Kirikau, Jason Brown, Gemma Stevens (all parent representatives) and Leah McPhee who is our new staff representative. Thank you to each person who has volunteered to govern our school on behalf of our Tauhara whānau. It is a very important job that aims to support our tamariki, whānau and staff. They also make decisions about our school property, the curriculum, staffing, health and safety and policies. So, thank you again to our Board for giving of their time, energy and expertise to ensure Tauhara Primary School is the very best it can be.

Increase in school funding and staffing for 2023

You may have heard on the news about Equity Index Funding. This is a process that the Ministry of Education has implemented to replace the decile rating system of funding for schools. This has been favourable for our school with an increase in funding and staffing to support our tamariki beginning in January 2023. We will work closely as a Board, to ensure the increase in funding reflects the needs identified in the Strategic Plan to support our children and our learning environments.

Property improvements beginning in November 2022

We have several property projects that will begin in November. Our project managers WSP, will work with the school and contractors to begin the following projects.

• Special Education Bathroom - this will replace the old SWIS room located at the end of B Block to support our tamariki who need extra care.
• Renovate Room 11 to include another small office within the space so that our whānau are able to meet privately with our Learning Support Coordinator teachers and staff when discussing support for tamariki
• The enlarging of the Junior Deck area outside of Room 6 an 6A with the inclusion of white aluminum sliding doors. This will increase the outdoor learning space for our junior children.
• We are also having the internal painting completed for the Reading Recovery room and the Resource Teacher of Literacy room during the Christmas break.

Enjoy the time with your whānau and be safe during the holidays

Ngā mihi maioha

Tracy