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

Spring is on its way!

One of my favourite parts of the year is travelling to work in daylight, seeing the lambs bouncing and playing in the sun and being able to see the snowy mountains in the distance. When walking around the playground you see busy happy children enjoying the warmer weather.

How great was it hosting What Now! This was a fantastic event that was well supported by the local community (even if it was to check out the noise). It was an amazing experience for our children to see how the live filming of a programme works. A highlight for a small group was being able to gunge Mrs Jackson. I absolutely hated having to foam the children. It was a shame that the foam had to stop!

Daffodil Day has been a huge success. Everywhere you looked today was yellow and green! There are some very creative people around! The Student Exec were very keen to support this iconic event and have raised $637.70. Thank you very much for your donation. It will go towards providing a wide range of support services, education and awareness programmes plus fund vital research. See the photo below.

We are now in the second half of the term and it looks like we will remain at level 2. Please continue to drop off when you can and sign in using the vistab in the office (and the COVID Tracer App if you have it). We really appreciate how you have adapted to the drop off and pick up system and working with us to ensure social distancing. The key messages here have been about staying safe, regular hand washing, sanitising, staying home if you are sick and being respectful about personal space. Please note that if your child travels on one of our school buses they are not required to wear a mask, however may do so if they choose.

Whilst we have had to cancel celebration of learning and postpone sports events, we are trying to keep things as routine and normal as possible. This pandemic and the subsequent alert levels do have an effect on our community and we have noticed an increase in anxiety and tension for some of our learners. If you have any concerns then please contact your child's pod teacher or our Learning Support Coordinator - Jeanette Neal jeanette.neal@westmelton.school.nz.  Today's LSC Corner has some tips to help manage children's anxiety.

Let’s hope for some more sunshine and enjoy the onset of spring which helps us all feel that much better!

Nga mihi nui

Tracey

Hope Church

Meet EJ (L) and Dana (R)!  We are community youth workers employed by Hope Youth Trust and work out of the Hope WM Church to provide support and care to our young people here in West Melton. Dana has just started this term and will be at  WM school for 5 hours a week supporting the years 4-6 learners, and EJ is in at the school for 3 hours a week supporting the year 7-8s.

Our main goals in being in school are to support the students and staff, encourage school values, and be a positive influence in the classrooms and playground. So if you see us around please come say hi!