FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK
Kia ora Koutou,
Focus of this weeks newsletter;
- Welcome back
- Housekeeping on current procedures in COVID Level 3.2
- Whittakers Chocolate Fundraiser
- End of year Plans and Dates
- Art Competition – Bella Browne Hale
Grayson arrived on his first day back after lockdown with this wonderful card for his teacher Mrs. Howard. He is pictured with Ella Vermeer
It has been fabulous having more children back!! We are all loving the chance to connect and be with each other and learn in the hands-on “usual way”. ZOOM and MEET have been very handy for lockdown but I think we all agree a welcome rest is coming with the holidays in sight. Thank you everyone for playing by the rules, helping children to be organised with masks, changing the time of pick up, keeping to drop off and pick up procedures, and just helping so much to keep everyone safe and able to return to school.
We have trialed new ways of spacing the children by having different break times, using the whole school including the bush area, and rotating the areas of play each break. All is working very well.
A few bits of housekeeping :
Contact and Phones:
- The landline at our school has died. Please use the email – [email protected] or our mobile phone 021 525 1848 to communicate. Everyone has been using this but in case you were wondering why we are not answering the office phone we need to upgrade our old PABX system. If anyone has experience in this or knows a company that does, I would love to hear from you and gain some advice.
Pick up / School Attendance:
- We have asked the Junior parents to come at 2:30 pm which is certainly helping with traffic congestion. A suggestion to further help the problem with our driveway and gate is if you are entering from the Waitoki side of the school rather than cross the road, please drive further down, turn and come back in from the Silverdale side. This would prevent cars from being stuck in the middle of the road.
- The second suggestion is to not all arrive at 2:30 but stagger the time of pick up, only 10 minutes after this the traffic is clearer, Try arriving 10, 15, 20 minutes later.
- School Attendance – just a reminder if you need your child to attend more than just the staggered days because you have all returned to work in your house then you can. Please let myself and Mel know. We will be reviewing the current system as we said at the end of the week, particularly if the levels all change.
Whittaker’s Chocolate Fundraiser
A huge thank you from us all. So many of you have returned the payment for the box or boxes. This is such a relief for the FOWS group as we had only really just started. There are still some people we know from the box number who need to return the chocolate or the money. If you need someone to do this for you we can help so please let the office know. Someone from the office or FOWS will ring you to see how we can help. We would love to have this all sorted before the end of next weekend.
End of Year Plans and Dates
With only 16 days of the school year left the focus has been on reconnecting here, working within the parameters we have to have events with only children at school, and planning for next year.
We are in the process of organizing some celebrations for the end of the year and we wanted to see what the next government announcements were going to be. Sadly however it is too late to have Christmas in the Country or Athletics as not all the children are here. Please rest assured all schools are in the same position.
The Only Events we have are;
- Graduation for the Year 8 students only at school – Friday 10 December – 6:00 – 8:00 pm at school.
- Prizegiving Sports and Class Awards Junior – Middle school – Monday 13 December – 10:00- 11:00 a.m at school
- Prizegiving Sports, Prize Giving Senior and Middle and Class awards – Tuesday 14 December – 10:00- 11:00 a.m. at school
- Farewell Assembly – Wednesday 15th December – 10:00 am at school. School Finishes for 2021 at 1.00pm
We will be able to record and or, Live stream in some form all the presentations as we cannot allow parents / caregivers onsite.
FINALLY
Bella Brown Hale Year 8 student leader has a wonderful art competition to improve the front entrance of the school. I am so impressed at the resilience of Bella to get her goals completed. I have included the brief here again. As an adult, you could enter as well. Your artwork would be blown up and printed onto a large board that will go over the current Boards. We can’t wait to see the final result!!!
Art Competition for everyone – Kia ora my name is Bella Browne Hale and I am one of your student councillors. One of my goals this year was to brighten and tidy up the school entrance. One of the things I wanted to do was to re-do the art that is next to the notice boards at the entrance. I have organised a competition for everyone in the school where if you win, your art could be proudly displayed at the school entrance.
You will have 3 weeks to create this art (the final day for submission is Tuesday the 30th of November) which must feature either the team birds or an image of Ag Day. Once you have handed in your art (either by emailing a picture of your art to me at [email protected] or by handing it to Mrs. Bray at drop off) they will all be judged and there will be winners from each team.
The judges will then pick their top 2 overall winners and their art will be enlarged and displayed on the boards at the front of the school. Please complete this on an A4-sized surface (whether it’s a card or paper or anything else) and when you hand it in, remember to include your name and year. So what are you waiting for, get creating – I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Ka kite ano,
Gillian Bray
FOR YOUR CALENDAR
- Tuesday 23rd November – BOT Meeting – 6.30 pm — ZOOM
- Wednesday 24th November – FOWS Meeting – – 7.00 pm – ZOOM
- Tuesday 30th November – Last day to submit your art for the Art Competition
- Friday 10th December – Graduation Dinner for Year 8’s – 6.00 – 8.00pm
- Monday 13th December Junior/ Middle Sports and Class Awards / Prizegiving – 10.00 – 11.00am
- Tuesday 14th December – Senior Years 5-8 Prizegiving; Sports, Class Awards and Cups – 10.00 – 11.00am
- Wednesday 15th December – Farewell Assembly – 10.00am
- Wednesday 15th December – Last day of school for 2021! Finish time 1:00 pm
- Thursday 3rd February – First day of Term 1, 2022
OTHER
COMMUNITY
