Wow, it has been a very busy end to a long and full term. Last week's wheelathon was so fun and I have received lots of great feedback from our learners, staff and families.

We are all so grateful for how this was embraced as a fundraiser for our much anticipated bike track. I am looking forward to hearing how much money has been collected so far at a special announcement in assembly tomorrow. Thanks to Laetitia Jones and Nicole Richards from GROW who have been following up with daily prizes for learners who return their funds. Laetitia and Nicole will be at assembly to update us!

The children also really enjoyed our Crosscountry and Tough Kids challenge last Friday. Well done to our senior learners who qualified to represent our school at the Zone Competition.

We also had our largest group of Year 5-8 swimmers representing our zone at the Canterbury Championships. What a great achievement for those learners.

This week we have had two groups of Year 7 and 8 learners enjoying a camp at Wainui in the beautiful Banks Peninsula. Thanks to the efforts of our community, GROW, and the cheese roll team, the cost of camp was discounted for our families. What an amazing community we have! Thanks to Mrs Megan Murray for her hours and hours and hours of preparation for camp and to her team, Miss Katie Talbot, Mr George Harnett, Mrs Amanda Skinner and Miss Hannah Bowman for their passion and efforts. Thanks also to our deputy principals, Mr Ben Galletly and Mrs Amanda Clarkson, who managed to get over to camp to support and to our parent helpers: Tina Washington, James Coleman, Sarah Linehan, Hemi Paniora, Jacqui Read, Heinrich Havenga, Jodie Taylor, Fred Woodcock, Simone McFarlane, Chris Briggs, Salena Schaeffer, Arthur Van Soest, Deon Botha, Keith Grosvenor, Casey Murphy, Phil Burton and Nik Newton. I know the Year 5/6 learners are now looking forward to their camps next term.

Finally, the photo I have included in my newsletter is of a family of four children who all attend our school. As we have grown to a school of over 700 learners I continue to take pride in the fact that our staff make a real effort to get to know our learners and families - and that definitely gets harder as we get bigger. My vision has always been to try and retain a community feel as we do grow. I am really grateful to our families who make the time to support the school with all sorts of things .... from John Jones helping lift a play-house for our little ones yesterday, to the five parents who attended our GROW meeting last night, to Johnny who helped clean up glass in the park after one of our learners did not stop to think about his actions, to the parents who take a moment to drop a line to thank the teacher for an amazing camp experience, to the parents who stop and greet new parents and make them feel welcome, to Amy Price and Annette Hynes who spend hours at our school developing basketball, to the parents who use our kiss and grow spaces correctly and model how to follow rules so our children are able to, to the 21 parents who offered to train to be traffic wardens to keep our learners safe, to Amy Hunt who comes in every Tuesday to teach tennis, to one of our grandmothers Mama Taloa who helps each Thursday with Pasifika, to the whānau who drop a bit of baking off for our staffroom!! ...so many people contributing to making our school an awesome place...he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

Have a safe and happy holiday everyone, I am really looking forward to spending time with my beautiful children and husband in the holidays.

Ngā mihi nui

Sylvia