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.

Teacher Only Day Monday 28th August

Recently we applied through the Ministry of Education to take part in a Professional Development contract to support our teachers in raising the achievement of our students, particularly in the area of writing. We have been awarded a two year contract with a large amount of hours allocated which should enable us to make a real difference to the achievement of students in our school.

We have chosen CORE Education to deliver this professional development as we believe that they will do a very good job, and we have been lucky enough to secure expert facilitators.

As part of the roll out of this contract (of which we were only advised about three weeks ago) we are to have a teacher only day. We were hoping to have this in the holidays, but due to the unavailability of some of our staff and the facilitators we have decided to have this during term time on Monday 28th August and school will be closed on this day. This is the Monday of week 6 in term 3. We are still required to be open a certain amount of days each year so as a result school will now finish for the year a day later on Tuesday 19th December.

We will continue to remind you about this as the year proceeds and we understand that it may cause some issues for some families, however we are hoping that due to the advanced warning you will be able to make arrangements. Thank you in anticipation.

Thank you to Riccarton Rotary

A big thank you to Riccarton Rotary who have donated a 3D printer for use by the students in our school. This is technology that is having a big impact on manufacturing, production and design industries so it will be good for our students to get to utilise this technology in primary school.

Reading together

There is still space on our Reading Together programme. We would really like you to consider taking part. We are sure you will find it of great help for yourself and your child(ren) as you support their reading at home. The programme helps you understand that you can really foster a love and enjoyment of reading at home and what you can do to ensure this happens. Reading to and with your children each day no matter what their age is the biggest gift you can give your child and does make a long term impact on their success at school. This programme goes through the do's and don’ts and will help you immensely.

This year the programme will consist of two workshops. They will be held in the school staffroom on:

Wednesday 31st May 5:30-7:30 (light meal provided)

Wednesday 14th June 5:30-7:30 (light meal provided)

Please sign up by sending in the slip on the notice sent home or just call the office.

Playground Fundraising

Please keep watching these newsletters as soon we are going to be launching into our fundraising for our new playground. Miss Fry, the teacher in charge of Friends of the School, has a small group of parents who will organise events but we will be calling on volunteers on a case by case basis. Thank you for your help.

Have a great week and please encourage your children to be Respectful, Responsible, Real Learners.

Paul Irving