Term two overview 2021

 

Laying the new drains during the holidays.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

We are now at the start of the third week of the new term and so I am hurriedly trying to get this term two newsletter out before the term is over.

Property issues and development

During the holidays we had a major piece of infrastructural work carried out which you may not even notice. Some of you may have been aware that we have been dealing with the Ministry of Education over an extensive drainage problem. This was remedied in the holidays, much to our relief. The problem had developed about two to three years ago and was steadily deteriorating due to old pipes and ground movement. It took the contractors the two full weeks of the holidays to remedy the issue.

 

This year we are likely to be having work being done at school for most of the holidays. If things go according to plan, (emphasis on the if), we are looking to replace more of our roofing and put in a COLA (covered outdoor learning area). The roofing was repaired a couple of years ago but we are finding that in some places we are experiencing some leaks. The school is effectively going to replace all the old roofing.

 

We have scheduled an internal configuration of the administration block which may not necessarily be obvious to the public but which should create a space for our learning support co-ordinator.

 

At Christmas time a number of our rooms along the side of the main field for our older students are expected to have a makeover. We have waited very patiently for this.

 

In addition to this we are beginning to think about re-modelling the junior play ground. We believe it is tired and that elements of it need replacing. Do not worry about Thomas. Thomas is staying.

 

 Staffing

Everything remains the same this term but we have had a number of staff away with illness. Hopefully this will improve. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have just recovered from a dose of ‘man flu’ which as all men know is seriously debilitating, and all women know is seriously difficult to manage.

 

Next term I will be going on Sabbatical with the specific task of looking at the area around Moanataiari School to explore local history. This should be very exciting and I hope to find out snippets of information and stories which we can identify with as a school.

 

This year the ‘Teacher’s Council’ have changed the provision for the way schools’ manage appraisal. These are now referred to as Professional growth cycles. Professional growth cycles comprise of learning conversations and professional observations. This term we are conducting professional learning conversations.

 

Well-being

Friday Whakatau - Charles speaking for the manuhiri.

This term we have begun with our welcome to new families, parents and communities with a whakatau. We hold this on the second Friday of every new term. Mrs Dines and Mrs Pooley did a great job of preparing our ‘new’ girls to lead in the karanga. The girls took the roles on well and conducted themselves admirably.

Ka pai tō mahi.
OPSM (Sam and Kayla) testing Macy.

This last Thursday and part of Friday we were privileged to have the optometrists from OPSM visit us.

This is the second time we have had OPSM do this for us. Prior to this we had OPSM visit in 2018. Every child who was at school on those two days had their eyes tested by Sam and Kayla. We discovered that twelve of our students need further assessment for potential sight problems. We are very grateful to OPSM because this will truly benefit some of our learners.

We are investigating doing the same for hearing but testing hearing is more complex in that the equipment is not as portable and the testing takes longer.

 

Attendance is a national issue and a school issue for us. We know this is the term when children get sick and we do want you to keep the children home if this is the case. Sick children at school will spread the illnesses to their classmates and teachers. Just recently we have had a number of teachers requiring time off work because of illness. Where attendance becomes an issue is if it is unjustified absence.

We are tracking attendance closely and are monitoring three groups of students:

1.  Students whose attendance is between 80 to 90%.  We are describing this as irregular because it is less than the MOE expectation of 90% or more.
2. The next group of students we are noticing are children whose attendance is between 70 to 80%. We are describing this as moderate absenteeism but in this category there is a strong likelihood of children having their learning impacted detrimentally.
3. The final group of students we are tracking have attendance below 70%. These children are described as being chronically absent, which hinders their learning substantially. We only have a small number of students in this category and it is this group of students who will most likely be referred to truancy services. We are however, also monitoring students in the 70 to 80% category with the the thought in mind that some of these students will also be referred to truancy services.

Dental van also hit by DHB cyber attack.

This year we have had the dental van with us and the dental nurses have expressed their appreciation of
us having them. They have also said that our children seem to have pretty good teeth. Apparently there was a lot of catch-up work to be done after our Covid year.

Apparently it is quite tricky for many of our health services including the dental nurses because the cyber-attack on the DHB has locked them out of being able to access records. Hopefully this will get back to normal shortly before it gets any more serious.

 

Learning activities

Students taking part in the Rippa tournament

This term our children (Year 4- 8) are going to be involved in a number of sporting events. Today there is a Rippa rugby tournament. We are also anticipating taking part in a Ki-o-rahi tournament which should be a lot of fun. Ki-o-rahi is a Māori game similar to, but not the same as Tapuwae. We are also hoping to take part in the gymnastics festival. In the past our children, mainly girls have enjoyed this tremendously. Later in the term, some of our seniors are going to travel to Hamilton for National Young Leaders day.

On Wednesdays we have a resilience programme running for selected students with Mike Wilkes. A number of girls from St. Francis are joining us for that.

Tomorrow we have EPro8 taking place and this can be an intense challenge for the children as they solve technological problems. Coming up we have the Maths problem challenge and a week with Zero waste.

 

Community

1983

As a matter of interest we are currently having regular reunion meetings. Next year we have the school’s fiftieth anniversary. We are looking at holding this on the weekend of Friday the 11^th of March.

For those new students to our school our cohort entry date for term two is Tuesday the 8^th of June.