Kia ora koutou e ngā matua, e ngā whānau, Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Konichiwa!

I am sure many of you are looking forward to the next two weeks. I never really appreciated the break from making lunches and washing school uniforms until I had my son.

As we hear of the second wave of Covid-19 moving through schools we hope that the two week break will allow it to keep on moving - right past us! We have worked well again together this term and have really appreciated the families who have kept children at home who are unwell, thank you. As you know it has been becoming increasingly difficult to juggle sickness with staff, therefore finding relievers was challenging. I would like to thank you for your understanding. A special thank you to the staff as they have had to be very flexible with time and organisation whilst also personally juggling post covid side effects. We will continue with our mask regime for the start of Term 3 and review at the end of the first week.

Events

As I look at our calendar of events every week, I often think about how many different opportunities our ākonga can and do participate in. How at each of these events they all demonstrate our DRIVER values and do their absolute best.  Since the last newsletter our Year 7 and 8 Hip Hop team came back buzzing yesterday after their performance at the Hip Hop Champs, our Rhythmic Gymnastics team performed admirably at the Canterbury Champs with some great results, and four teams headed off to the Selwyn Hockey and Football tournament with the Senior Football team moving through to the Canterbury Champs. We have children practicing epro8 today for the competition early next term.

Staffing

We farewell Kathryn Meyers today. Kathryn has been an integral part of our FAB 4 or FAB 5 team for six years as well as various other part time positions. She has worked her artistic magic teaching art across the school and producing with ākonga some of the murals around the school. Her current project being the improvement of the front of the bike container at the back of the field. Kathryn has accepted a full time position teaching art. We have valued Kathryn’s commitment, flexibility and creativity and we wish her all the best as she starts this new position.

Our FAB 4 team has two new staff joining them. We look forward to having Charlotte McGregor back from having her second child and teaching art. We also welcome Linda Gosling who has started already and in her third week of teaching drama.

Building

We look forward to having some project work happening in the holidays. Of note is the installation of our new filtration system for the pool. One step closer to ensuring the pool is ready to open as usual. Thanks to the FoWMS, Mānuka are going to get garage carpet installed on the balcony. This will increase the usage capacity during the year. For Health and Safety purposes if you are coming on to the school grounds at any stage could you please avoid these areas.

It's exciting to see work has started on the new intersection.  We are meeting with Fulton Hogan tomorrow to start initial discussions on traffic management.

We have had another very productive and successful term. Our staff have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with you and valued the opportunity to discuss your child’s learning at the Ako Conversations last week.

We hope you have a great break over the holidays and look forward to seeing you all back at the beginning of Term 3.