Kia Ora Koutou Katoa, Talofa Lava, Malo e Lelei, Ni Hao, Anyoung Haseyo, Konichi Wa, Gruetzi, Guten Tag, Bonjour, Ola, Hello.

As the end of the Term approaches I would like to thank the whole community, staff and students for a wonderful Term 1 for 2019! I think you will all agree that the Term has been full of a myriad of learning opportunities for all our students, plenty of successes for each and every one of us and a time to get to know the great new students and their families who joined our school this term.

All students across the school learnt about aspects of Waitangi Day at the beginning of the year and at the moment they are exploring aspects of ANZAC Day. This supports our students to learn more about themselves as New Zealanders and appreciate aspects of their local and national history. All teachers have enjoyed teaching Te Reo across the school and it is great to hear our students using their Reo occasionally in conversation. This supports the community's wish that our students know who they are and "stand strong in their identity".

We had a group of students visit us from Shohei Junior High School and share different aspects of Japanese culture with us for the day. Our students shared different aspects of NZ culture too. This was Global Citizenship in action and such a wonderful day.

Students have enjoyed specialists from Sport Bay of Plenty coming in to support staff in providing learning in netball and hockey. We have enjoyed whole school swimming sports at the Greerton Pools, students have represented our school in Western Bay of Plenty swimming for Year 5 & 6, Tall Poppies swimming competitions and one of our Tall Poppies, Georgia Barnett, has gone on to represent our school in the Bay of Plenty swimming champs.  A group of Year 5 & 6 students took part in the Top Schools competition at Gate Pa School, several of our students attended the Aspiring Future Athletes days here in Tauranga and Year 3 - 8 students all took part in a variety of school camps.

Our Tall Poppies programme is one we are very proud of and highlights this term have been Camp, Mindfulness for Year 7, Yoga for Year 8 students, the GRIP Leadership conference for Year 8 students, A "Who Am I" presentation, Swimming Intensive at the Toi Ohomai pool and Technology at Tauranga Primary. 

We have a lot to celebrate this term and we are looking forward to a great Term 2 with more great learning for students. We are excited about our biannual whole school production - Robin in Da Hood , our whole school training for and taking part in Cross Country down at Waipuna Park, National Young Leaders Day for our Year 7 & 8 students in Hamilton and the BOP Inter-school Amazing Race for Year 5 - 8 students. Our Tall Poppies also look forward to being involved in E-Pro8 competition and inter-school Literacy Quiz. We will, of course, also celebrate our huge focus on leadership across the school with our annual leadership week at the end of Term 2.

So... rest up over the next couple of weeks, recharge your batteries and we look forward to seeing everyone back at school ready for what promises to be another great term of learning and growing as people at Tauriko School!