Welcome to Term 3 and a special welcome to our new learners, whānau and staff. This term we welcome Miss Georgia Telford who is teaching in Te Ara Whanake as Mrs Emma Bennett and her husband Kyran have welcomed a new pēpē into their home - Kiriana Maree. We also welcome Mrs Tess Rodgers back from parental leave into a part time teaching position in Te Ara Whānui as Miss Laura Finn has gone on parental leave. Tess will teach TAW1 with Miss Anna van der Voort, our Assistant Principal. We currently have 782 learners and 33 whānau groups/classes.

On Tuesday we had a group of keen learners visit Ngati Moki Marae. This was open to all learners who are interested in participating in extra Te Reo Māori Ako Immersion or Enrichment days each term. They had a fabulous day sharing their pēpeha, learning about our wetland environments and the history of Māori people in our local iwi. Thanks to Mrs Sam Schreuder, Miss Bec Lambert, Mr Ben Charteris, Tihi Brightwell, Tegan Dawson-McMurdo, Willie Watters and Kenny Dawson for supporting our tamariki.

Next Wednesday our Kapahaka group are performing at school at 5pm.  Anyone in our school community is welcome to attend. Please rsvp: rebeccalambert@westrolleston.school.nz There will then be shared kai [please feel free to bring a plate] and an opportunity for whānau to discuss our learning opportunities and success for Māori learners. 

Our teachers have also been busy planning lots of exciting learning experiences for our children for Term 3! We have a fabulous culture day, the Talent Show finals, korfball for seniors, football for junior girls and lots of learning in technology related to the Land!

Please also ensure you have booked your learning conferences for Week 3. These are a perfect opportunity to connect with your child and your child's teacher about how they are progressing with our vision of growing happy and healthy learners. This can be done via the hero app.

Finally, thank you to the families who responded to my traffic survey question in HERO regarding trialling a kiss and go barrier in the parent carpark.  318 families responded Yes and 31 responded No. We will trial this in the mornings as soon as the staff carpark is ready for staff parking. 

Ngā mihi

Sylvia