What a great start to the week we had, a typical smorgasbord of opportunities for our learners.

On Mondays, I go for a wander through our classrooms and around the grounds to touch base with our learners and teachers. It struck me this past Monday again what a great place Wakari School is for its learners. We had cycle safety for our Year 6's, spelling and writing underway in most other rooms, Rugby League coaching on the top field. Tonnes of smiles, hellos and happy, confident learners about the place.

On Tuesday Parent Interviews notes were sent home, please ensure these are returned to your teacher by Tuesday 10 March. These are always well supported and are an important point of communication between Home and School.

We have had a couple of neat assemblies thus far for 2020 and whanau are welcome to attend. The assemblies run from 2pm on alternate weeks to our newsletter. They are on the school calendar on our website.

At our last Board meeting, we welcomed Jason Sargeant to the fold. Jason and his family have a long history with Wakari and I am sure he will be a valued member of this integral group of parents. Beth Chisholm was elected as Chairperson with Michelle Cone taking on the Deputy Chair role. 

This year is the final year of our innovation funding from the Otago Community Trust on Project Based Learning. We have invited the worldwide experts on PBL to work once again with our teachers in early March from PBL Works in the USA. All of our teaching staff will be working with these experts between the 18th-26th March so expect to see some of our familiar relievers in your child's class over these days. The professional development programme concludes with a teacher only day on Friday the 27th of March. This is a big commitment for the schools in the cluster (Kaikorai, Maori Hill, Halfway Bush and Balmacewen) and it is important that we get the most of these experts while we have them in the country. The students from the cluster have been asked to be involved with the hospital rebuild plans and this will be the major project in Term 3/4 and a chance for the teachers to put their new learning into action. 

As always if I can be of assistance please make contact.

Regards Chris