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 e te whānau

We have recently received some very good feedback about the overall and sporting behaviour of our teams at Hagley Sport. This is very pleasing and is a credit to the learners who go along with the variety of coaches all overseen by Judith Kee! Well done!! Alongside this, people were also commenting on the quality and style of our new sports uniforms - they look fantastic and are very stylish and slick!

Board Elections

We recently received advice from our returning officer Wayne Jameison, from Christchurch Education Services, that the following parents were nominated for our Board of Trustees and duly elected as there were fewer than five nominations. They are Hamish Barclay, Vivian McFie, Ross Davids and Aeronwy Cording. The staff rep is Judith Kee. We still have one vacant seat on the Board that the Board is looking to fill by selection, which is allowed within eight weeks of an election. At the first meeting of the new board last week, Hamish Barclay was elected as the Presiding Member (chairperson) - congratulations Hamish!

A massive thank you to these members of our school community for putting their names forward.

Retiring Board Members:

Julie Batstone: I would like to thank Julie for her contribution to the board over the last five years. Julie was chairperson for four years. Her knowledge and wisdom have been great in contributing to the sound governance of the school. We seconded Julie onto the Board due to her knowledge as she had worked for the Education Review Office, is a former Principal and is a former student of RPS! I would like to personally thank Julie for all that she has contributed to our school.

Damien Riddell: Damien Riddell has been a parent representative on the Board for five years. Damien has had four children go through our school and could always be relied on to make considered decisions in the best interests of the learners. Thank you so much for your service Damien.

Farewell

Last week we said farewell to Patricia Martin (Whaea Tish) who has been working as a Learning Assistant for nearly two years and she will be taking up a role as a youth mentor for young Māori wāhine. We are hoping that she can continue as our Kapa Haka tutor. Whaea Tish has been a fantastic learning assistant and we wish her all the best for her future role. 

Fire Evacuation

As part of building upgrades the fire evacuation system in the school is being upgraded with a whole new system to be operational soon. The new system is linked directly to the fire brigade. This week it got a test out as the new building had a dust overload in one area, caused by the builders. It was pleasing to see everyone respond so well and the system is a lot better in terms of automatically giving clear evacuation instructions.

Library Relocation

We have moved our library to a new permanent position in Room 13. The class space is between the hall and the office block. This is a permanent move for the library but it will receive further aesthetic updates as part of the main building upgrade next year. A massive thank you to Whaea Hannah, Matua Will and the large number of learners who helped with the move. Parents are most welcome to go into the library before school to have a look and/or borrow some books.

Christchurch School Rebuild Programme

Next week we will be officially blessing and opening our new learning block, 'Tē Tūāraki' - to the north, north wind. This will involve official guests, board members, local iwi and learners from Rooms 3 and 7-11. Due to limited space, we won’t have any room for parents at the opening but will do an open afternoon/evening in the new block as soon as possible after it is opened.

The official handover of this block is looking likely to be the Friday of the week after next. It will take a few days for us to move furniture and relocate our senior classrooms. We will send out a notice soon to the classes involved, outlining the way this will work.

This is the first stage of our building process and has been a long time coming as this is the post-earthquake rebuild. We are very excited and the teaching block is looking fantastic.

Have a fantastic week and please encourage your children to be respectful, responsible, real learners. 

Ngā mihi nui

Paul Irving

Tumuaki - Principal