It was amazing to listen to Lee James' GROW Chairperson's report at the AGM this week and reflect on all that GROW has achieved over the past twelve months.

Not only has GROW contributed to our wonderful community feel with organising ladies night, school discos, the bouncy castle, pedal-mania at our February 'meet the teacher,' providing care packages for families and winter hot chocs but they have also run numerous fund-raising events. GROW has purchased more gym chairs, the PE storage container, sports uniforms, paid for the senior camp buses just to name a few AND we are very grateful for your fund-raising efforts on behalf of our learners. The next big items to fund-raise for on our wish-list are more hard courts on the field in front of Te Ara Whanui, more play based outdoor learning items in our courtyard, soft-fall for a jungle-gym and a highly anticipated bike track. If you can help in anyway please talk to myself or a committee member from GROW.

On Tuesday our staff spent three hours after school participating in part 1 of a phonics professional learning and development session. The learning was invaluable. How can you help at home? Don't forget to keep reading to your children, even in Year 7 and 8! Turn off the tv, play station, chrome books, ipads and phones for a set period and play those fun word games like making up silly sentences, building a sentence where each person has to remember the sequence and add a new word, re-learn old nursery rhymes and make up limericks. 

Finally, just a couple of traffic safety reminders - 

* please leave our disability parks for our parents who need them

* please always cross at the patrolled crossing as lots of parents, and grandparents, are crossing with their children in front of the school and on the corner of Dunns and Burnham School Rds which teaches all of our children unsafe habits 

* please ensure your child hops out of the car on the pedestrian side AND

* please also use the pedestrian crossing in the parent car-park

Ngā mihi

Sylvia