Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora, Hello, Talofa, Mālō e lelei, Bula, Hola, Fakaalofa atu, As Salam Alaykom, こんにちは, Hallo, Hoy, હ લ ો, Hē leu, Mauri, न म त, Ola , Chum reap suor, Kumusta, Nihao, Xin chào.

Kia ora koutou

It is great to be back for Term 3. I took the last week of Term 2 off and combined it with the school holidays, and travelled to Costa Rica. This was to visit my brother and his wife who have lived there for the past ten years. It was great to catch up and we also travelled with my parents which made the experience even better. A big thank you to the Board of Trustees for allowing me this leave.

Farewell to Lea Brickland

At the end of this week we will say farewell to Lea Brickland. Lea has been with us for two and a half years and is leaving to take up a two year contract at an international school in China. Lea has been an exceptional teacher for us and quickly established strong relationships with children, staff and parents. She led team Harakeke for the first two years and was a literacy leader in our school. This year she has been working for our Pūtaringamotu (Riccarton) cluster of schools, specifically looking at creating strong educational pathways from early childhood to primary. She has been excellent with all of her leadership responsibilities. Apart from being a great teacher, Lea is a fantastic person with a larger than life personality and has been fun to work with. She loves garage sales and op shopping and has been the envy of many of the female staff with her bargain jackets, handbags and dresses! We will miss her! We would like to wish Lea, her husband Lee and her daughter Tahnee (who we will also miss) all the very best for their future! Thank you for all of your service to us at Riccarton!

We are pleased that Teresa Tapp has agreed to take Room 3, in partnership with Maria Goulter, for the rest of the year which ensures continuity for this class .

Christchurch Schools Rebuild Update

I am pleased to confirm that the Ministry of Education has contracted WSP Opus to complete our design and to oversee construction of our building upgrade. As mentioned previously, this will involve master planning over the next month or so, preliminary planning for the remainder of 2019 and detailed design for 2020 with construction starting in late 2020. We have now entered the Master Planning stage of our building upgrade process. Master Planning involves high level planning to look at where buildings will go now and in the future when there is further roll growth. Our initial build roll is for 350 learners but master planning will also include staged planning for up to 600 learners. A sub committee of the Board of Trustees including myself and Margie Askin-Jarden is working with WSP Opus and the Ministry of Education on this plan. This will be able to be shared at some stage. Please note that Master Planning is concerned with where the buildings will go rather than what they will look like and/or have inside them. The preliminary design stage will look at how they are designed. Please note the Education Brief which we consulted on last year will inform all design.

IMPORTANT - BOOK NOW FOR TERM 3: ­Whanaungatanga: Parent, Teacher and Child Learning Conferences Next Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th August

Please take this opportunity to come and talk with your child and their teacher about their progress and achievement so far this year.

We want these interviews to be based around the concept of whanaungatanga, which is about relationships, kinship, and connections with whānau. We know that we are better able to understand and teach your children when we have strong and positive relationships with them and you, their parents/caregivers. It will be a chance to talk to your child’s teacher and your child about their achievement and progress to date and how we can work together to help your child be successful. It is also an important interview to share information about your child.

These interviews will take place on Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th August, starting at 2.15pm, with the last interview being at 6.45pm. Each interview will be fifteen minutes long.

To book a time slot, please go to www.schoolinterviews.co.nz (and use the code 8hrse.)

​If you have no internet capability please book at the office.

Please note that school will finish at 2pm on both of these days next week.

Privacy and Children’s Learning and Behaviour

I just wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about some restrictions we as schools have when it comes to our operations in regards to children’s behaviour and privacy.

From time to time we have issues with children's behaviour at school and some parents will perceive that a child or children are being naughty and nothing is being done about. Generally what you see is the very 'tip of the iceberg' in relation to what is really going on for that child and there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes. Just like we can’t give away your telephone number due to privacy we can’t comment on what is happening behind the scenes for that/any child due to their privacy and rightly so. We can’t talk about support plans we have in place, agencies we are working with, conditions and diagnoses that a child may have and the agreements and communications we have with parents and whānau.

Our staff are incredibly proactive and actually you would be amazed at the number of individual learning plans we are working on and supporting. We spend a significant amount of time at every staff meeting talking about our children, their needs and how we can help them - not just academically but as a whole child. And we cannot share this information with anyone but their own parents. Not all children are the same and what will work for one child won’t always work for others in terms of learning and behaviour (if it was that easy there would never be any issues!). So please rest assured that we are doing our level best to create Respectful, Responsible, Real Learners at RPS and we are constantly looking at ways to support our learners to do so.

Have a great week and please encourage your children to be respectful, responsible, real learners!

Ngā mihi nui

Paul Irving

Tumuaki - Principal