Thank you so much for attending our learning conferences at the start of the term. We were thrilled to have such a high rate of participation, we all know that when school and home work together we get the best learning outcomes.

Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Kia ora whānau

The 40 hour Challenge was a huge success thanks to the efforts of Mr Aitchison, the students and of course whānau at home. We made a record amount of money, receiving a gold award for raising $12,834.70. Waitākiri also received the 'Above and Beyond Award’ and Mr A received an ‘Organiser's Award’ for inspiring and leading students to become global change makers supporting those less fortunate in Malawi.

We have not had many updates or meetings about the proposed 25m in ground swimming pool. That is because it has been in the design phase and is now at council being processed for consent. We are hoping to receive consent near the start of term 4. At this stage we will be able to press go on our fundraising efforts and we will need a passionate group to raise a significant amount of money to make the pool a reality.

With the new pool in mind, we are investigating providing after school swimming lessons in the Waitākiri School Pool, starting term 4 2023. The tutor will be Janet Lloyd, who is our current school swimming instructor and knows the students well. The cost per child is $10 for a 25 minute group lesson. There will be a maximum of 4 students in beginner lessons and 6-7 in more advanced. Students who attend OSCAR are able to attend swim lessons while at OSCAR. Lessons will be provided in terms 1 & 4.

This is a service we want to provide for our community. We see that there is a real need as there are large waiting lists at other swim schools. We have also noticed a drop in the number of students who can swim 50m and enter our swim sports. Any proceeds will go towards the building of our new in-ground 25m pool. If interested, please complete the survey here.

Online safety is a real concern for us at school, students and parents alike. There is an information evening tonight, 16th August 7:00pm at the Large Theatre at Shirley Boys’ High School. If you are unable to attend, please watch the webinar below from Net Safe. They cover a range of topics and you can fast forward to the parts of interest. If you have no time to do that……. just keep devices out of their bedrooms!

Thank you to the parents who supported our seniors at the winter tournament yesterday. Well done to all players and a special congratulations to the football team who won their competition.

Noho ora mai

Andrew Barker

Principal

Whānau Webinar

Our new Learning Facilitator Lazarus Haurua has been busy visiting schools around the country but he also gave us the gift of a recorded webinar that you can share with your own parent communities using this YouTube link: https://youtu.be/LQ7o3lybCMY

The webinar, which was delivered to the National Council of Home Educators NZ in July 2023 covers the following topics:

04:25 Understand some of our children's activities online

14:50 Learning about our children's activities online

18:45 Exploring technologies

22:45 Agreeing and setting expectations

28:43 Teaching online safety essentials

33:14 Modelling online safety

37:10 Making a safety plan

42:23 How Netsafe can support