It is almost time for our school year to start. We start later than other schools because we end school later. This is the case this year as well, our first day will be 7th of Feb and our last day will be the 20th of December.
There is still time to get stationery, this can be found at https://www.myschool.co.nz/ or by popping into Office Max.
A reminder that it is recommended children arrive at least ten minutes before the bell so that they have time to settle. Please don't make a habit of being late, children find this incredibly hard and it is not a great start to their day. Attendance is also absolutely crucial, friendships suffer and children miss out on vital chunks of learning when they are frequently absent. Quite frankly if children are not at school, we can't do our job in helping them.
Keep children home if they are sick, but otherwise, please ensure they are at school.
On the flipside of this, please please please do not drop children at school before 7.45am. We are very lenient on the time we allow children at school, but having some arrive at 7.30am is simply not fair to teachers. We prefer children to arrive after 8.00am if possible. If we continue to have problems with children arriving too early we may have to consider making the earliest drop off time 8.00am which would be hard on many families, please consider everyone and ensure you stick to this policy, dropping your children after 7.45am. The office does not open till just after 8am and is open to approximately 3.20pm in the afternoon dependent on staff.
Pick up is at 2.55pm and children must be gone by 3.20pm. Once again we had many children who were repeatedly picked up after this time last year. If this is the case we will be sending children up to after school care and payment will need to be sorted out with Chrissie in the office. Please take into consideration that by 3.20pm school has been finished for 25 minutes and teachers have work to do, or appointments or meetings to attend off site. If you are going to be late, please phone the office and let us know, we do appreciate that on occasion this does happen and appreciate your courtesy in letting us know.
Our beach trip is on the 1st of March, this is a whole school event and one we can not do without your help transporting and supervising. This doubles as outdoor classroom day this term. You will receive information home early on this term. Please get these forms back ASAP because it takes a lot of organising.
Year 5 and 6 camp takes place this term from the 26th - 29th of March, you will receive further information home with your child if this involves them.
This term promises to be very, very hot. We are lucky to have air conditioning inside, but we ask you to send a full bottle of water with your child, a full brimmed hat and to make sure you apply sunscreen in the morning to your child. We also have sunscreen available in classrooms.
Every child also needs their togs each day, your child's teacher will let you know what days they swim, but there is no harm in sending them every day.
Thank you for those that took the time to fill in our reporting survey last year. We got lots of lovely feedback that was very useful to us. This year our aim is to give you more information 'real time' rather than waiting for an end of term or year report. We will also go back to having sit down parent interviews (learning conferences), which the children can be part of from Year 4 up.
Term One will be a whanau evening, basically a meet the teacher, similar to the two we ran last year, where you can come in at any time and meet the teacher, see the class, visit other classes etc. This will be held on the 28th of February. Teachers will still be getting to know your child at this stage, so there will be nothing formal to report. However we urge you to organise a time early in Term One to sit down with your child's teacher one on one if there are specific items you want to discuss. You are always welcome to make an appointment at any time, please don't wait.
In Term 2 and Term 4 we will have sit down 'learning conferences' these will be scheduled in a timeslot that you choose and will be used to discuss a report on your child's learning that the teacher has compiled. They will not be a time to bring up other items and are intended to specifically focus on your child's learning journey. Once again if there are other issues you need to discuss during the year, an appointment can be made to do this. At the end of this learning conference you will take this report home with you. We have shaped these reports on the feedback we received from you.
Our whole school will be using Seesaw this year as a reporting tool. Classes will use it to share learning with you and aspects of your individual child's learning journey. We have signed up for the school version, which means you will be able to keep your child's journal from year to year and download it if you like. As we were not on the paid version last year, those journals will not carry over. We were very lucky to secure some sponsorship from an anonymous donor and also from JK Plasterers. Their donation has kept the cost down for you and will mean seesaw is just $4 per child. As we pay this over a three year plan, we will reassess the cost again next year. Every child will need to pay this $4 as even if you don't use the journal, teachers will be using it as a tool for assessing your child etc. Please help us out by paying this early on. Teachers will send home login details for your child when the term begins.
You will also receive a statement for school donation and materials contribution this term. Contrary to popular belief education is not free and this donation goes a long way to ensuring children at our school get the basics. A school of our decile gets limited funding and we rely on your kindness in paying this. Sadly teachers pay hundreds more than that, out of their own pocket, each year, just to keep their own classroom going, the items that they buy, get used by all children.
Once again children are welcome to bring their tools to school to build with, we just ask that they wear covered shoes. Thursday will again be nerf day and scooters and bikes are welcome. Please keep the small toys at home though please as these cause great distress when they are lost.
We urge you to please name all items children bring to school, particularly clothes. The lost property pile at the end of each term is an absolute disgrace. If your child loses something at school, have them look for it, rather than replacing it.
You will notice we've had a bit of interior work go on during the holidays. This is not quite finished and there may be a bit of mess, hopefully this won't take long to sort out.
The Life Education caravan will also be on site from the 4th of March for the week. Children love Nadine and Harold and the message of empathy, kindness, respect and friendship is such an important one. There will be a charge for this as unfortunately our budget will not stretch to funding it, the price will be $4.
You will notice that rather than a website, this is a blog site. It still contains all the information you need in the tabs at the top and you can click through to our parent information hub which I have put together. If you have not had a look around the blog, please do so, it tells you a lot about who we are as a school.
I had the pleasure of presenting at a conference in Napier a week ago. It is wonderful to have the fabulous things our school is doing recognised at a National level. We constantly strive to do the absolute best for each and every child and you play a vital role in this. Please talk to us when you have a question or concern, message us through seesaw, ask if you are not sure how to help...the only silly question is the one not asked. When it comes to children and their learning journey, we are very much in this together.
I look forward to seeing you all on the 7th of February.
Leslee Allen
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