Welcome, Parent/Teacher Conferences, Communication & Newsletters, Staff Update & Teaching Team Overview, Uniform Focus, Sun Safe, Camps, 2025 Literature Quiz, Attendance Summary, Lock Scooters & Bikes, Social Media and Driveway Challenges

“Challenge to achieve and grow.”

Hīkina te mānuka, kia tutuki, kia tipu

Kia ora e ngā whānau,

I trust you have had a wonderful summer break and are looking forward to the year ahead. To our returning students and their families – it is great to have you back. To our new enrolments in Year 8 and to all the Year 7 students and their families I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the Waimea Intermediate School learning community.  

Great to see the substantial number of parents and students taking up the opportunity to meet their child’s homeroom teacher, specialist teachers and members of the senior leadership team on our open afternoon before school started. Home and school links are important, even more so at this age even when your child is telling you otherwise! There will be other opportunities this term for you to come to school, keep an eye on our fortnightly newsletter for details.

Year 7 students had an enjoyable first day last Wednesday, having the whole school to themselves. It was great to see them go straight into their homerooms and start the beginnings of new friendships, as well as reconnect with pre-existing. I have included a couple of photos taken on their first day. As you can see there were lots of smiles! The Year 8 students joined us the following day, and likewise, it was great to see them back and reconnecting with their friends with new classmates.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Wednesday 5 March & Thursday 6 March

Early finish at 1:30 pm Wednesday 5 March

Meet the Teacher and Goal Setting conferences are scheduled for Wednesday 5 March and Thursday 6 March. This is a valuable time to discuss your aspirations for your child and hear from their teacher how they are settling into 2025 routines. Booking for conferences will open via a link that will be emailed out to the email address you have already provided the office with closer to the time. If your email has changed, please let the office know. If, for some reason, you are unable to make a booking on-line Nicole and Catherine in the office will be able to help you with this. You can either email or phone them to sort this on your behalf.

Please be proactive and continue to keep this communication open should you have questions or information to share with us that will support your child here at school. Our WIS staff will also be proactively communicating with you should we notice something that we would like to discuss and/or share with you. And, of course, you are welcome to make contact at any stage during the term outside of these times.

As Term 1 gets underway, please do not hesitate to ask questions to make sure you know how things work. We are looking forward to getting to know your children and meeting you all as the term progresses. In the meantime, watch out for your child’s homeroom and team newsletters, which will provide a brief overview of upcoming events.

Communication and Newsletters

Communication is an important part of our partnership with you and our newsletters are a key part of this. A link to our newsletter is sent home every second Thursday. It will have a mixture of housekeeping information, student learning celebrations and information about what is happening in and around the school. If you do not receive the newsletter link via email, please send a message with “Email Newsletter” in the subject line to office@waimeaint.school.nz.

Great to see we have over 1000 followers on our Facebook page, which can be located via the link on our school website https://waimeaint.school.nz/

If you wish to contact the class teacher, you can do so via email (these are the same for each teacher – firstname.surname@waimeaint.school.nz

e.g., dianne.giraud@waimeaint.school.nz or phone the school office.

Staff Update and Teaching Teams

We welcome Catherine Elmiger to our administrative office team after farewelling Karen at the end of 2024. Sam Church and Kristian Hall-Smith have joined our homeroom teaching team and Jayme Lowe, Maree Terris and Stacy Martin-Godsiff, our learning support team.

I have provided an overview of our specialist teaching team (Arts and Technology), our three homeroom teaching teams, their team leaders and overseeing Deputy Principal for your information and possible points of contact.

Tu Tāngata Homeroom Team

Deputy Principal                 Genevieve Rae

Team Leaders                     Neill Wingham and Karina Rako

Homeroom Teachers        

Rebecca Leslie Room 5

Beccy Haley Room 6

Trish Sloan Room 7

Lesley Smith Room 8

Neill Wingham Room 9

Karina Rako Room 10

Scott Davis Room 11

Tangaroa Homeroom Team

Deputy Principal                Tim Parker

Team Leaders                    Denise Lee and Kimberley Martin

Homeroom Teachers        

Denise Lee Room 1

Kristian Hall-Smith Room 2

Jess Barnes Room 3

Kimberley Martin Room 19

Craig Starrenburg Room 20

Libby Stove Room 21

Roseanne Oughton Room 22

Nikau Homeroom Team

Deputy Principal               Deane Taylor

Team Leaders                   Alyssa Nesbit and Eric Strachan

Homeroom Teachers        

Penny Richards Room 12

Jody Perry Room 13

Eric Strachan Room 14

Jaimee Wattie Room 15

Sam Church Room 16

Nathan Gestro Room 17

Alyssa Nesbit Room 18

Specialist Team (The Arts and Technology)

Team Leader                 Chris Phillips

Art                                    Emma Panting

Music                               Chris Phillips

Textiles                  Sandy Goonan

Food Technology          Jo Townsend

Workshop                Stuart McDonald

Science                           Dianne Giraud

Uniform Reminder

Thank you in advance for supporting our current uniform focus which is plain black shorts. The reason for this focus is that we have noticed a small number of students wearing shorts that have white writing/logos and trim. Keeping the small things in check like this means we see fewer, greater challenges creeping in. There is a limited amount of spare uniform items should your child find themselves in a position where they need to borrow an item for a short time. They can do this via the school office. While we are discussing uniforms, students are required to wear covered footwear in their specialist classes.

Sun Hats and Sun Block

Please ensure that your child is bringing a named sunhat to school every day – any style, as long as they have a hat! We provide sunscreen in the classrooms, but some of the children do not seem to want to use the one we provide. Could you please discuss this with your child and if they prefer to use a different brand, we encourage them to bring their own and keep it in their bag.

Education Outside the Classroom - 2025 Camps 

Planning is well underway for our 2025 camps scheduled for Week 4 (Nikau), Week 8 (Tu Tāngata) and Week 10 (Tangaroa). Notices and invoices have been sent to students in Nikau and Tu Tāngata and will be sent out closer to the time to the Tangaroa students.

Huge thanks to the parent helpers and staff involved in making this opportunity available to our students - this is a huge ask of their time and energy. Overnight camping experiences are getting harder and harder to retain in a school curriculum with many schools around the country removing them from their programme for a variety of reasons. We are extremely fortunate to have willing staff and enough parent helpers to support us retaining this experience in the WIS programme.

As there is a cost associated with this optional experience, we do require payment up front or alternatively a payment plan in place. Should the payment plan be your preferred option please contact either your child’s homeroom teacher directly or Sharon, our accounts officer, via email finance@waimeaint.school.nz . We are also fortunate to have community members and organisations that offer to support the financial aspects of this experience through sponsorship to ensure willing students are not disadvantaged due to financial reasons.

2025 Literature Quiz

As the term gets underway your child will have the opportunity to participate in extra circular learning experiences. In previous years, our Literature Quiz teams have successfully represented our school, and it is great to welcome our expert tutor, Ms. P, back once again to facilitate this experience.

Attendance Notification

Every Tuesday parents will receive an email providing a weekly attendance summary for your child. Should you have any questions or queries around your child’s report please contact the office via email office@waimeaint.school.nz

Scooters and Bikes

Unfortunately, from time to time, scooters or bikes that are not securely locked have gone missing or have even been stolen. We strongly encourage all scooters and bikes to be locked every day to avoid this happening. Thank you for helping us keep your child’s scooter and/or bike safe.

Social Media

Please monitor your child’s social media use out-of-school hours throughout the year. Nearly all social media services require users to be at least 13 years of age to access and use their services. When there are issues that parents ask the school to help them sort through on social media the age of the student is the first thing we consider. These restrictions are there for a reason.

School driveway safety and closure to non-authorised vehicles 

As many of you will have noticed our school driveway is not a two-way driveway. There is only space for one car travelling in one direction during peak times (before and after school). When the driveway was built it was intended that only WIS staff and Maitai School community use our driveway because there was off street parking on Salisbury Road. For cars to pass in opposite directions on our driveway one car must move onto the pathway and this, of course, places our students and Henley School students using the walkway at risk. Therefore, the only traffic using the driveway during these peak times will be restricted to vehicles of staff and students who attend Matai Satellite School. Our school driveway will be restricted to staff, authorised vehicles, and Matai School vans. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you and hope that this advance warning allows you to make alternative plans for your child’s drop off and pick up. 

Have a great fortnight!

Justine