Another busy fortnight has passed and the school holidays are now on the horizon which is an incredible thought! 

Students continue to be actively involved in a wide range of activities across the school with each day seeming to bring on new learning challenges to conquer and successes to celebrate. Congratulations to Rylee van Dijk who recently won the Year 6 Category for the West Cluster Speech Competition with her speech ‘Why English is a Crazy Language’. Rylee now goes on to represent the Cluster at the WBOP Speech Competition in Week 10. A wonderful achievement Rylee and all the very best for the next competition.

Well done and thank you to Andrea Lockett who has worked so hard to prepare our choir group for the Tauranga Music Festival. The massed choir sounded wonderful and our choir looked very smart on stage. The individual item for our school was ‘Rockin Robin’ and they sang this beautifully – a proud moment indeed.

Our Year 5 and 6 students had an eventful day last Friday as they competed at the West Cluster Winter Sports Tournament; the sports being Touch Rugby, Netball, Soccer and Hockey. A special thank you to Tatyana Duffin, Natasha Edhouse, Tim Stanley and Ian Woodfield for their preparation and organisation to ensure the day ran smoothly. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the wonderful parent support that was in place for the event, this support with transporting, coaching and managing the teams is vital and we so appreciate the efforts made by our families.

On that note I would like to thank and acknowledge the many parent helpers who give up their time to coach and support our wide range of sports teams, whether it be summer or winter sports. Their time, expertise (and patience) is hugely appreciated and doesn’t go unnoticed. Thanks also to Kaye Barnett for all the work she does promoting and organising the sports teams across the year. It is wonderful to see so many students (and parents) involved in out-of-school sports and great to see our turf so widely used before, during and after school.

A number of our Tall Poppy students are involved in AIMS Games this week with Tauriko School being represented in Cross Country, Gymnastics, Trampolining and Table Tennis. This is an amazing opportunity for our students to be involved in inter-school competition on such a large scale. Thanks to Maree Logan for her organisation and preparation for this annual event.

Book Week is quickly approaching and there is a range of activities happening in school next week as part of this annual event. Please check the flyer for daily details and do remember to come in and visit the Book Fair that will be set up in our School Library; there are always lots of great books to purchase. Our PTA is once again working with the community to subsidise 50% of each book purchased for our library. This means that for every book you purchase for the library you pay 50% of the cost of the book and the PTA pay the other 50%. Families are acknowledged inside the front cover of the book for any library book purchases they make. Thumbs up again to Tauriko School PTA.

Teachers are continuing to love using the library as a venue for staff meetings with the professional learning focussed specifically on the Tauriko School Inquiry Journey and thinking; in particular thinking tools and skills we believe our students need as part of 21st Century learning. Ensuring we have both a bi-cultural and environmental lens consistently throughout our Inquiry curriculum is also part of the review and development process.

Thanks to our caretaker Darren who continues to ensure our school grounds are presented to a high standard. The newly planted Titoki tree near the central concrete area certainly looks right at home.

We now have new neighbours in the adjoining orchard. The BOT wish to advise the community that the orchard is no longer organic and therefore has a different spraying programme. The orchard will notify the school of any spraying which will be done outside of school hours from 4.30pm and during the weekends.

Our Tall Poppies class head over the hill to the Intermediate Sports Camp at Totara Springs for the last week of term. With over 20 different codes they will definitely be challenged to compete to their absolute best as they represent our school with passion and pride. We wish them all the very best and look forward to having a daily update from them.

As this newsletter 'goes to print' we have a hangi down and nearly ready for eating, thanks to the tireless efforts of Helen Guthrie, Jo Te Whaiti and their team. In classes students are learning about 'all things hangi' - protocols, process and language. A wonderful community effort for all involved.

All in all another fantastic fortnight at Tauriko School – well done to all of our learners who consistently model our school values of Respect, Excellence, Innovation and Integrity.

Lisa Rose
Acting Principal