ROCKQUEST, ROCKQUEST, ROCKQUEST!!!

Yes, three of our four RockQuest teams have made regional finals. Congratulations to all four teams on the hard work, creativity, courage and talent they have shown to date. And well done to their teacher Martin McDonald. The regional final is at the Ngaio Marsh Theatre, UC, Christchurch at 7 pm on Saturday 10 March…hope to see you there.

Staying without arts, we also have student visual art work exhibited at Te Ara Ātea, Rolleston, next week.

Well, the relief from PPTA strike actions didn’t last long and we’re back into days of refusing to teach certain year levels and refusing to cover classes for colleagues. This week saw Year 12 rostered home, next Tuesday (6 June) will be Year 10 and next Thursday (8 June) Year 9. I have to say that most of our teachers are finding these actions hard as well but at this stage need to hang in to see the improvements they’re requesting.

With Covid cases rising, as well as other winter bugs, we are pushed daily to keep classes covered (we had 12 teachers away one day this week, out of 50, with 4 relief teachers and a strike banning internal cover from most teachers). We are doing all we can to avoid sending year levels home, including stopping staff doing training courses and putting our Executive Officer and me into classrooms, as we know the strikes have been disruptive, but I can’t rule out using this option if we have to.

Readers of the “Darfield Community Page” on Facebook may have seen a community meeting called about our Health consultation. We weren’t invited to this and didn’t attend: the organiser has since met with me which was helpful. The meeting may have been initiated by some confusion or misunderstandings and relates to a broader concern about sexuality education from that part of the community. To be clear:

Schools have to consult every two years about the sexuality component of the Health curriculum so this is a standard practice (we missed our last one)
We are not proposing anything new in our consultation (there is currently a refresh of the NZ Curriculum taking place by the Ministry of Education but this does not relate to our consultation)
Parents have the right to have their child removed from the sexuality part of the curriculum
School guidance counselling is not part of the Health curriculum
Whilst it is an open survey, it is intended for school whānau; that is families including the people who are most active in the lives of our students
Responses aimed at hurting any groups of people will be disregarded as they have no place.

Our Health team are excellent professionals and I praise them for leading respectful classroom learning about issues that are very important to teenagers and often insufficiently discussed in the home.

Noho ora mai (stay well)

Andy England

Key dates:

See https://darfield.school.nz/calendar/

Monday 5 June: King’s Birthday holiday

Tuesday 6 June: PPTA strike - Year 10 stay home please (unless essential to be at school)

Thursday 8 June: PPTA strike - Year 9 stay home please (unless essential to be at school)

PPTA Strike information