FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK

Kia ora Koutou,

I hope you have all been enjoying the amazing autumn weather! As it appears, the rain is here which is much needed for our farms, tanks, and gardens!

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Newsletter Focus:

  • Pink Shirt Day
  • Kahui Ako Update
  • Silverdale Bunnings Buddy Bench
  • Cultural Diversity Week
  • Buses
  • Landscaping to Occur

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

Pink Shirt Day – Well done everyone – we were SO Pink! Once again, Wainui School wholeheartedly celebrated Pink Shirt Day, wearing pink, listening to the messages that underly this day to stand up, speak up if others are not treating you with respect!! It was wonderful to have Constable Bryan and his team of police join us and share their messages, he is the Ambassador of Pink Shirt Day and champions this cause. Constable Bryan loves coming to Wainui starting his day with us!! Thank you to Laura Watt our Kitchen Specialist for the 300 pink cupcakes made with our students and to Leslie Ann Linn for the hot chocolates. It’s nice to do something special when we are talking, sharing and thinking very much about the “STOP Bullying” messages! Pink Shirt Day begins the celebration of Cultural Diversity week. Thank you to student leaders; Lexi Albert, Ella Wells-Lakeland, Flynn Dixon and Hamish Fincham.

Kahui Ako Update – Kahui Ako ki Orewa the Community of Schools Wainui School is a part of and the Community of Schools I am co-leader of with Cameron Lockie Principal at Silverdale School. We are now 8 schools; Wainui School, Silverdale School, Orewa Primary School, Orewa Beach Primary School, Orewa College, Dairy Flat School and the two new schools Nukumea and Ahutoetoe. Much has happened this year, we meet every two weeks as leader of this community, the principals of all these schools meet every 6 weeks and we are about to all meet every teacher in the community at the planned mini conference on Teacher Only Day (31st May) at Orewa College to hear Jay Geldard, founder of the programme E Tu Tangata speak. Jay’s messages are able to be implemented in every school from a Kindergarten to College, as they again are supporting health and wellbeing, the tall poppy syndrome and the success stories of this programme.

Cameron Lockie and I attended a meeting at Takapuna Grammar with leaders of all the Kahui Ako’s across the North Shore – communities of schools are successful in many ways. One of the key areas many of us are exploring is the building capacity of teachers in structured literacy, a real focus for us all. The value of having teachers released with expertise to support other teachers in building knowledge is fantastic.

Mr Wotton and Mrs Tollemache are our Within School Leaders for Kahui Ako and work in the areas of Te ao Māori and New Zealand curriculum.

Kahui Ako ki Orewa has now been in place for 8 years enabling us to build stronger relationships between all the schools in the area, a strong connection to Te Herenga Waka o Orewa, and build the skills and capacity of teachers in our 5 achievement challenges. This enables teachers to build capacity in their teaching and provide resources for children to use!! Ours is a positive story of which each month I will share a bit more in our newsletter

Building the Buddy Bench with Silverdale Bunnings team Silverdale

Silverdale Bunnings Buddy Bench – Thank you to the team from Bunnings that came and built a new Buddy Bench with a group of year 7&8’s. This is a wonderful community project completed and given to us by Bunnings. We love the Benches and are able to put them all around the school. We will need to paint this one before it is placed in its resting spot.

THIS WEEK

Cultural Diversity Week – Student leaders Ayla Lodge, Phoenix Sweetman-Jones and Isabella Lehmann introduced our week to celebrate how diverse we are, the many cultures we all represent and to be grateful for who we are!! This week we have a program that integrates with our core learning exploring the various cultures represented at our school. This week in our classes we will all be represented on a world map, we ask each individual to bring an artefact that represents the family, it could be a book, an ornament, a carving, food, a soft toy, a piece of clothing or weaving. Each class will have a table and set this up over the week. All the tables will be on display from Thursday evening to the end of Friday in the hall.

Other activities, on Thursday we have a Pacific Culture Group performing for us. On Friday a Chinese Culture Group performing for us. On Friday classes/ teams will share food in a shared lunch and we ask everyone to dress up in clothing that represents their culture.

Buses – Over the past few weeks we have received a number of complaints concerning the behaviour on our buses. Miss Stevenson and I have spoken to the students using the buses over this and have revisited the expectations we have when travelling on the bus. These are very clear expectations, we will send these home in a hard copy as well for you to remind your child/ children each morning to help us improve travelling on the bus. On the bus we have these 4 simple expectations. Any repeated issues or physical violence can result in a stand down off the bus:

  1. My bag will be on my front.
  2. I will remain seated for the trip.
  3. I will use a quiet voice and kind words.
  4. I will keep my hands and feet to myself.

COMING UP

Landscaping to Occur – Our plans for the entrance to our a school are completed and a timeline of how this will happen is being drawn up. This will also include the Nikau Wharoa being sculptured by Jeff Thomson with the year 7&8 group. We need the services of a concrete cutter, if anyone can help, this will be paid for.

FINALLY

The Whittakers Chocolates are here ready to be handed out to each family to sell. We have loads of prize vouchers to spur you on thank you Megan Evans from the FOWS, you are amazing gathering all these prizes for us!!

Ka kite ano,

Gillian Bray

FOR YOUR CALENDAR

  • Monday 20th – Friday 24th May – Cultural Diversity Week.
  • Thursday 23rd May – Rippa Zone Day.
  • Friday 24th May – Kiwi Team Assembly – 2:00pm in the Hall.
  • Monday 27th May – Chocolate Fundraiser Launch Date.
  • Wednesday 29th May – FOWS (Friends of Wainui School) Meeting – 7:00pm in the Staffroom.
  • Friday 31st May – Teacher Only Day – School Closed.
  • Monday 3rd June – Kings Birthday – School Closed.
  • Tuesday 4th June – Board Meeting – 6:30pm.
  • Monday 24th – Friday 28th June – Matariki Week.

OTHER

House T-shirts – A reminder that these are available at a well reduced cost after funds raised from the Disco. The idea is to revive our house culture, wear our colours and develop the whanau grouping that occurs when we have activities in our houses! Orders are taken until 4th June via Kindo or in the office for $10.00. We have the range of sizes to try if needed in the office.

SPORTS RESULTS

– email your sports results to Miss Ludwig in the office, exo@wainui.school.nz. 


Netball

Wainui Stars vs Westminster Opals.  Won 6-3.

Wainui Asteroids vs Bayfield Sparks. Won 10-2. POD: Vuliana Lodge. Sportsmanship: Kara Pretorius.

Wainui Sapphiries vs Sunnynook Stars. Won 7-4. POD: Genevieve Watt. Sportsmanship: Isabelle Hulbert.

Wainui Yr 5 Jets vs BBS Superstars. Loss 4–1. PODs: Emma Clough, Maci Campbell.

Hockey

Wainui Yr 5/6 Warriors vs Stella Kea’s. Won 5-2.

Wainui Yr 7/8 Tomahawks vs Takapuna Blue. Loss 3-2.  PODs: Travis Dunning, Tahia Ballhorn.

COMMUNITY

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