Kia ora koutou e te whānau,

I came across this whakatauki this week -

“Ko te ahurei o te tamaiti arahia o tatou mahi" Let the uniqueness of the child guide our work.”

It reminded me that all our tamariki are uniquely different and special in their own way. Our staff work really hard to meet the needs of your child and take greatly into consideration what their unique gifts/talents, skills and interest are and use this information to support the learning programme that they develop on a daily basis.

It has been amazing to walk around the school, from learning space to learning space, and see how engaged, curious, joyful, and active our tamariki are in their learning. As a school, we are committed to creating an environment where your child feels safe and happy and seeing them soar to new heights (our school vision).

This week a new staff member joined our team as our new Learning Support Coordinator. Jacqui Radford will be working at our school five days a fortnight as it is a shared role between us and South Hornby. Part of the purpose of her role is to support our staff with specific expertise and guidance with identified students. She will be working across our kura supporting our kaimahi and tamariki. We welcome Jacqui to our kura and feel very grateful that she has joined us.

As a leadership team, staff and Board of Trustees, we have developed an Action Plan (Annual Plan) for the school that we believe is strategic and purposeful. This Action Plan has five key parts to it which we have called feathers. They are:

Feather 1: Quality teaching that improves student outcomes 

Feather 2: Learn, Create, Share - which is a key teaching pedagogy for our school

Feather 3: Cultural responsiveness and communication

Feather 4: Values and PB4L

Feather 5: Hauora (Wellbeing) for all - staff, students and our community

I will be communicating with you at different times about how we are progressing in these different aspects and what we are intentionally doing to see growth and development in these five areas. 

Lastly, just a friendly reminder about some key things that are happening in the near future.

1. Whānau Picnic - due to bad weather, we have to cancel this event. 

2. Non uniform day - tomorrow - this is a fundraiser for the flood affected areas in the North Island. Please send your child to school in "non uniform" and with a donation (money). All donations will go directly towards this cause. Thank you for your support.

3. Paid Union Meeting - as per previous notices - please pick your child up at 12.30 next Thursday (2nd March). 

4. Assembly - next Friday at 11.30 - Ruru leading the assembly - ALL welcome.

5. Please keep your eye out for learning space notices and reminders via Hero. We use this platform to communicate notices and reminders to keep you up to date. Also, check out the poster in the communication article from this newsletter with some other information on how we communicate at WPS.

Thank you whānau for all your support.

He waka eke noa - we are all in this together.

Gerhard Potgieter

Acting Principal