Our school has recently featured in a series of articles in the New Zealand Education Gazette. The articles discuss the roll out of the new digital technology learning area in the NZ Curriculum. We were interviewed about the decisions we made setting up our curriculum as a foundation school, back in 2015.

I am really proud of what we have achieved and how we have tried to incorporate digital technology and the importance of being a safe cyber citizen naturally into our curriculum. Our vision is for our learners to GROW as healthy and happy learners and we value the importance of holistic broad learning experiences across all of the learning areas.

If you would like to read the main article you can find it here: https://gazette.education.govt.nz/articles/growing-digital-citizens-of-the-future/ and you can see the video, featuring wonderful commentary from some of our learners here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naRk5VVroeg 

As I write this newsletter late on Wednesday afternoon, our school is still full of the vibrant sounds of our children out in the playground as we have learning conferences underway. 526 conferences have been booked for today and tomorrow. Thank you to the parents who make the time to come in and meet with teachers to support their child's learning journey. The children do really love the opportunity to show you their learning. Thanks to our staff for their energy and passion for their jobs.

Next week is our Year 5/6 camp to Living Springs. This camp [like all of our camps] was booked two years ago when we had to speculate what our numbers would be. The children get to have a wonderful walk in around the bay and over the hill. Then they will be immersed in a range of fabulous experiences like orienteering, animal survival, swimming, and the monorail. Many thanks to Mrs Megan Murray and Mr Pete Northmore for their endless hours organising these camps. Thank you to our parent helpers [Sarah Harris, Stacey Ladbrooks, Lucy Brears, Tori Burbery, Donna Caves, Amy Hunt, Stephanus Greyling, Tim Rait, Tony Greenlow, Arjun Kharkrang, Mike Tait, Dan Paterson, Lee Hautler, Kane Tamou and Lee James] who take time off work to ensure these kinds of wonderful opportunities can be provided for our learners. Thanks also to GROW and the Cheese-Roll making crew for subsidising the cost of camp for families by $70 per child - what an amazing discount!

You may know that I love to stand at the gates in the morning and greet the children as they enter our school. Unfortunately, recently I have had to be a bit of a traffic warden [which is definitely not in my job description] reminding parents not to leave their cars unattended in the kiss and drop zone or not to drive into the roundabout in the morning which is not safe for our learners as they disembark from their taxis and vans, or not to use the disabled parking by Te Pa Harakeke. Thanks to the people who always respect our rules even when the car-park is really busy and full.

Information is coming home on Monday about our exciting GROW Mathathon Fundraiser. This has the dual purpose of reinforcing the learning of basic facts and of raising money for some digital tools for the school. Thanks for your support with this.

Finally, just a reminder that children should not be arriving at school before 8.30am which is when the patrolled crossing opens thanks.

Ngā mihi

Sylvia