After months of intense training and fundraising it was great to have the opportunity to travel with my son recently to the World Futsal Championships. He had a wonderful experience there and particularly enjoyed travelling on the bus with a Brazilian team to the games each day. The boys received a bronze medal in the bronze division placing 11th out of 16 teams.

It was great to hear that the school ran very smoothly in my absence and big thanks to Ben Galletly and Amanda Clarkson for their leadership. 

Thank you to our parents and whānau who attended the learning conferences this week. Our teachers enjoyed the time to meet with you and your child to discuss their learning journey and pathway. Research shows that parents and whānau who invest time and energy into their child's learning accelerate the progress and potential for success for their child. We hope you found these conferences beneficial too.

This week we had several teams participating in the Year 5-8 netball and rugby zone tournaments. Well done to our learners who demonstrated a GROW attitude in their sports. Thanks to our amazing parent coaches: Sarah Fidow, Nic Wilson, David Loach, Dan Sullivan, Millie Martin, Amanda Wilkie, Brenda Lindeque and Jo Burnett. Michael Robb - the sponsor of our school app from Property Brokers  coached a netball team as well. Thanks also to our staff for organising and providing these opportunities: Sam Nichols, Pete, Northmore, Amanda Clarkson and Fraser Malins.

Finally, I have a couple of really important message reminders for everyone this week please:

Safe Travel to and From School - if your child is walking, scootering or biking to school by themselves please please discuss safe travel with them each day. Another concerned parent spoke with me about children exiting walk-ways straight onto the roads without stopping for traffic. Please encourage your child to wear the safety vests which are available free from the office as well. Please also ensure your child always uses the patrolled crossing as this is the safest place to cross and demonstrates safe travel behaviour for all of our learners. Finally, please ensure as a driver that you, or any family members you may have picking up children, have a disability permit if they are using the disability car-parks. These are essential for some of our families.

Attendance and Lateness - please use the school app www.schoolapps.co.nz to contact the office or phone in if your child is not going to be at school with the reason for their non-attendance. This information is required by the Ministry of Education and is reviewed. On a few occasions I have had to pop round to people's houses to check on the safety of a child if we have not had notification regarding an absence. Please also try very hard to ensure your child arrives before the music plays as this helps them to settle and is less disruptive for everyone.

School Uniform - thank you for ensuring all of our learners wear the correct school uniform each day. Yes, this does include plain black shoes so we really appreciate your support in ensuring that this is what is purchased when you next go shoe shopping and what our children wear to school each day.  The juniors are great at it - come on seniors!

Reminder school assembly is at 2.15pm tomorrow due to the book show in the morning.

Meitaki (thank you  - Cook Islands Language)

Sylvia