Kia ora koutou

Although it’s a week ago, I’m still buzzing about our Coast to Coast athletes. Lexie Sinclair-Dockerill, Oscar Lochore and our team (who placed 3rd) of Jared McDonald, Oscar Stevenson and Isla McPherson ALL achieved something remarkable. I love this event, for teenagers especially, as you can’t help but to grow as a person. It reflects life - success looks different for everyone but we all have to face fear and pain and respond with courage, resilience and hard work. Thanks very much to the families, supporters and to Pip Deans for her amazing support.

Our thoughts are very much with our whānau in the North Island and over the next few weeks we will pick a school in a farming area to offer our support to. It would be great to get our community on board with this.

The cooler weather has brought a range of clothing into school and we’ve emailed home about exceptions while we await full supplies of our uniform. Hopefully our staff have all been very understanding. Please do make sure that any jackets/jerseys are plain black or navy and that there are no big logos.

Our teachers who are members of the PPTA union are currently in a partial strike over pay and conditions, meaning they will not cover classes in their non-contact time. Our staff are a pragmatic and supportive lot and so far this is not causing much of a headache. At this stage, we do not expect to have to roster any year levels home. There is, however, a national strike day on 16 March IF the bargaining has not concluded by then. If this goes ahead it will mean students having to stay at home for the day unless absolutely necessary to be supervised at school by our few non-union members. I will send out a form in the next couple of weeks to gauge numbers.

I’m really looking forward to Whānau Conferences on Monday 20 Feb and hope to see you all there.

Noho ora mai

Andy England

Dates:

Monday 20 February: Whānau - Teacher conferences. This is a new event to hear from you about your child’s strengths and your aspirations for their education. We’re only asking for one meeting with your child’s Whānau Teacher, for ten minutes, and face to face is ideal so you can also see the school. We’ll have some workshops on for parents/whānau about aspects of parenting and of course we’ll have refreshments available.

DHS Sports Term 1