Kia ora koutou katoa. It is nice to have the shortest day over and done with and we can now look forward to the mornings slowly getting lighter. Still a wee way to go though and I am sure winter still has a few tricks up its sleeve before things start warming up.

It is probably timely to ask you all to take care on these cold winter morning. I know it’s easier said than done because we have the same battle every morning getting our two young ones out the door; but leave yourself plenty of time and if you are driving take it easy on the winter roads…actually if you are walking take care on the frosty footpaths too!

Education Review Office (ERO) Report

You probably didn’t even noticed a little bit of tension early in term 2 with the visit from our friends at the Education Review Office. Obviously, we on the board were quietly confident than the dedicated team if educators at Wakari would impress the Review team, but if course there is no getting away from the fact that the visit is a hugely important event in the school calendar. It is quite a stressful undertaking, both for us at Wakari and the Review team.

We have seen the draft report, which was very positive and complimentary about Wakari School. While the review has given us some great advice on some minor things we can look at implementing to improve the achievements of our children, there were one of two points that we felt we not an accurate representation of the school and we have fed this back to ERO. We expect the final report to be published early next term and accessible to the public on the ERO web site http://www.ero.govt.nz/review-reports/.

We are happy that the review team seem to have accepted the feedback and evidence the school has provided on some points indicated in the draft report.

The Board of Trustees would like to thank the team at the school of their hard work and dedication and feel that the final ERO report on Wakari School for 2017 will be something to be proud of.

Annual Accounts

As usual Bryce has done a stellar job of financial management this year and we now have the annual accounts approved and audited. The Annual Accounts are available to view in the office if anyone is interested. Please, don’t all flock to the office at once!

Future Focus on Education at Wakari School

With Cam Grindlay on board (excuse the pun) he has been encouraging us to take a longer term look at what the school might look like in 20 years or even 50 years. With a proud history stretching back to 1858, I don’t believe it is too ambitious to think this far ahead. Obviously, this will mean some big thinking, but will give us a great opportunity to work towards a learning environment that will meet the needs of the generations to come.

One of the things that will assist us in this forward planning is the professional development that our educators are engaged in at the moment with Mark Osbourne. Mark is a consultant that works for Leading Learning. He is challenging us to think about the world our children will be finding careers in when they leave school or graduate from tertiary education. Many of you may have watched the television special “What’s Next?” hosted by Nigel Latta and John Campbell recently. Similarly Mark is challenging our Educators to think about what type of education we need to provide to prepare our Children for jobs that don’t necessarily exist yet and to ensure we are not teaching them how to prepare for job that won’t be required in the future. It’s really thought provoking stuff, but exciting to think that we have such a huge opportunity to really think about what we need to do to give our young people the potential to succeed in the world that the will inherit.

Ngā mihi

Mike Restall

On Behalf of the Wakari School Board of Trustees