LATEST NEWS AND VIEWS : 28 October

Covid raising its head again.

With the scare this morning relating to a possible snap lockdown, we have made sure we are all prepared with Home learning packs, ready for use at any time.

Year 5&6 Camp

The students, teachers and parent volunteers all got away yesterday and had a wonderful first day at Living Springs.  They are having a great time - check out the article sent from camp this morning.  Buses will be back around 2:30pm tomorrow.

Hats for Sun Protection 

Term 4 is a 'must wear hats' in the playground.  Please hunt out your school hat ready for use on the first day of term.  After week one we will be implementing the 'no hat, no play' rule.  Those without a hat will be restricted to the covered, shaded verandah areas. Hats are available for sale through the school Office at a cost of $14.  

Commercial Food Packaging

Prepackaged goods are often a great lunchbox filler.  However we are finding an issue with the number of children who cannot open their packages and require teacher assistance.  Teachers are noticing this is taking a large amount of their lunch duty time.  One teacher is supervising about 90 children during this eating time and if half of them need support it means the teacher is not focussing on children eating their lunch and lunch behaviour.

Challenge : Please take the time over the school holidays to teach your child how to open their packages.  This may mean that before it goes in the lunchbox a corner is already clipped for easier opening.  This also applies to some fruit that children struggle to start to peel - oranges and bananas especially.    Some parents cut the fruit up and it is so much easier for children to manage and they are much less wasteful.  (You would be amazed how many half eaten pieces for fruit get thrown out!!!!!)  Starting it at home, or peeling it first is a great option to support their independence.

Your support with this is much appreciated.  Some of those packets are really hard to open - even for adults.

Mihi Whakatau

We ran a 'Level 2' version of this so we were able to welcome families and students who have joined the school over the last term formally.  Thanks to Ruru and Kererū for welcoming the families.

Leavers Dinner

We are underway with planning this annual event.  At this stage it is all good to go but these will be limitations on the number of additional people who may attend.  We are looking at other ways to cater for everyone and there will be further information on this once we are clearer with our hosting venue, and closer to the date.  Add the date - Thursday 9 December 6pm (dinner), prizegiving 7pm, to your calendar.

Heather Walkinshaw

Principal