Kia ora koutou whanau,

Thank you for your response to our early morning closure messages yesterday due to the burst waterpipe on Burwood Road and subsequently having the water shut off which in turn compromised children’s and staff health and safety. We have been in touch with our local Community Board Member and Councillor who are investigating the problem to ensure the pipe is replaced to avoid this happening in the future. With so much sickness in the school, including tummy bug symptoms, not being able to flush toilets and wash hands was a big problem. We appreciate that it was a very inconvenient situation to happen and many plans had to be changed as a result. So thank you. On that note if your child is sick please keep them home so we stop the spread to others.

Last Thursday the Wai and Rangi communities ran in their cross country. It was really pleasing to see our children encouraging each other and showing our REAL Hero values as they competed in their events and waited for their turn. We even had Mr Barker at the start line taking a break from his sabbatical and being here to encourage our tamariki. Our whenua community (Windsor and Burwood) had their turn this morning (Thursday). Thanks also to our organising team for all their organisation in making this event happen.

Our Year six children have been taking part in a Cycle Safe programme run by CCC. The aim of this programme is to increase our children’s confidence and competence on their bikes and educate them about road safety and the rules of the road. The programme includes a safety bike check and teaching children to keep their bike safe. Constable Jeff also came in to help. When they have the necessary cycling skills children are supported and taught to ride safely on the road. We are fortunate to have this programme for our Year 6 children every year before they transition to Intermediate. A big thanks to the Christchurch City Council for giving our children this opportunity.

On Friday we had a wonderful ‘Pink Shirt Day’ turnout and a sea of pink in the hall when we came together for our Learning Celebration. ‘Pink Shirt Day is an antibullying campaign celebrating diversity and creates environments where all people can feel safe, valued and respected’. The theme for Pink Shirt Day this year was ‘Speak Up, Stand Together, Stop Bullying. This is a slogan we really want to promote in our Waitākiri community. And it’s not just in schools it is also to help workplaces build positive environments and prevent bullying. As the website says ‘It isn’t uncommon to hear someone say something insensitive or mean to someone else. Although these words or actions are not okay, bullying has some features that make it much more serious and harmful’. The link in the above sentence outlines these features and gives supporting information.

Our REAL Hero values include Respect and Encouragement and this fits very well with our Positive Behaviour 4 Learning (PB4L) as well as the theme for the antibullying campaign. Comet is Waitākiri’s school character who promotes our REAL Heroes making REAL CHOICES values. On Friday our School Council students announced our next focus for PB4L. It is: ‘We are Bucket Fillers’ and this will be followed by ‘We are Upstanders’. Bucket Filling is a concept where we teach children about feelings and emotions. ‘The underlying message is that each person carries with them an invisible bucket and when that bucket is full, the person is feeling happy, confident, secure, calm and content. On the other hand, if a person is carrying an empty bucket, they are feeling upset, down, dissatisfied and unhappy. The goal is to help individuals monitor and understand how full or empty their bucket is as a gauge for determining how they are feeling.’ It is linked to the storybook Have you Filled a Bucket Today? By Carol McCloud. ‘Being an Upstander’ will be talked about in a future newsletter. Barry the Bucket Filler also made a comeback at our Learning Celebration to the delight of everyone.

At Waitākiri we recognise that in order to promote positive hauora/wellbeing we must spend time learning about it and practising. Last year we started teaching the ‘Pause Breathe Smile’ concept. We continue to teach this and have also introduced the Resilience Project. This is about ‘teaching positive mental health strategies to help people become happier and more resilient. The research is clear; the more positive emotion you experience, the more resilient you will be. For that reason we focus on three key pillars that have been proven to cultivate positive emotion; Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness’. Our Healthy, Active Learning Schools is another strong programme where we partner with Sport Canterbury to provide effective learning in our NZ Health, Physical Activity and Hauora curriculum.

I have included links for you if you are interested in learning more about what I have written as we know that when we partner together with families and use common language, children learn more and are more likely to independently use what they learn to help them become awesome people and REAL Heroes Making REAL CHOICES.

Next week on Friday 2 June the schools and ECE in our Kahui Ako Ōtākaro community take a day where schools will be closed and staff will come together to attend professional learning workshops. The overall aim of our Kahui Ako is shared understandings and working together so our children benefit across all their learning from ECE through to High School.

Take care and keep well

Ngā mihi, nui

Dianna Reynolds

Acting Principal