Information for the start of the 2020 school year

Kia ora koutou

Welcome back to Te Kura o Huriawa Thorrington (the school at the bend of the river - Thorrington) for 2020 and a special welcome to all of our new families who are starting their learning journey with us. We continue to make slow but steady progress on rebuilding parts of our school this year and I will keep you informed when we move into the next stage of the process which will be around putting contracts out to tender.  

In response to the health curriculum survey that we sent out last year, we are even more focused on building a healthy school culture that values respectful relationships,  where friendships can flourish in a safe and happy learning environment. This work will be ongoing throughout the year as a part of our commitment to wellbeing for all. We will be working with our children to ensure that they have a voice in building a positive school culture with an expectation that everyone contributes to making our school a  welcoming and exciting place to be.   

In the second part of the year, we will have a 'Create' focus which will involve the whole school in a wearable arts presentation. This will provide many opportunities for parents and whānau to help out from the creation to presentation stages and we look forward to you sharing your skills with us. 

We had a 98% uptake on the whānau connect booking this year and have had positive feedback from teachers and parents about how useful this is in building learning relationships going forward.  To build on these connections we will be having a whānau picnic at school on Thursday 20 February from 5.15 – 6.45 pm. Everyone and their extended family are welcome - bring a picnic tea and enjoy getting to know other parents in your child's home base. 

School donations from 2020

As Te Kura o Huriawa Thorrington is a decile 10 school we were not able to take up the opportunity of the government Donations scheme,  where the Ministry of Education pays schools $150 for each child to cover curriculum and activity costs.

Schools (like Huriawa Thorrington) not in the donations scheme may continue to ask parents for donations for any purposes (either general or specific). In 2020 we will continue to ask for donations to cover the cost of buses, swimming, trips off-site, sports activities, some stationery costs, health and safety consumables, visiting performers and camps. We are hoping that our parent community will continue to support these activities as they have done in the past. We can only offer these extra opportunities if parents continue to contribute and we will be reviewing the viability of each activity for our 2021 forward planning. Please click in this link which is a Ministry fact sheet for schools NOT in the Donations Scheme  

Teacher Only Days 2020

In the primary teachers’ collective agreement 2019-2022 there is provision for up to eight teacher only days over the next three years for any one principal or teacher, who is covered under the Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement.

In previous years all schools in the cluster have tried to align their teacher only days, but this year for a variety of different reasons this has not been possible except for the Friday before Queen's birthday which is May 29th. Here are the dates for our teacher only days in 2020 where the school will be closed for instruction. 

Term one

• Monday 23 March – Whole school coaching sessions 

Term two

• Friday 29 May - Kahukura Cluster professional learning around wellbeing

Term three

• Friday 28 August - Whole-school professional learning around the curriculum 

Term four 

• Friday 18 December - which will mean children will finish on the Thursday 17 of week ten instead of the Friday. This day will be for 2021 teacher planning.

Although our start and end dates align with the cluster as much as possible we are open to changing the start dates in 2021 - some people love the longer holidays in late January early February whereas others feel that their children are ready to be back at school by now. I will survey the parent community later this term.

Back to school must do's

• Please name your children's clothing - our pile of lost property has a life of its own!
• Shoes are black or blue, leather or sports shoes 
• Sandals that are worn in summer to have a closed toe
• Please ensure that you have applied sunblock to your children before they come to school and that they have their sunhat. 
• We ask that children's lunches are 'litter proofed' - no wrappings except for reusable wrappings or suitable containers to hold snacks.

Hopefully, you will have seen the communication that I sent out regarding the Coronavirus over the last ten days.  Families who have been to China or who have travelled through Hong Kong airport have been communicating with the school and will be keeping their children at home for two weeks. We have one family who has been in lockdown in Wuhan which must be very stressful. Our thoughts are with them and the rest of their family back in Christchurch and we look forward to their return. 

Looking forward to catching up with everyone on Friday ... 

Ngā mihi

Christine Harris 
Principal