Category: News

Tēnā koutou katoa (Hello everyone) It's great to be back at kura after attending my conference in Brisbane last week. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to develop my leadership skills and contribute to positive change at our kura. Whaea Anneliese did an excellent job writing the pānui in my absence, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did. It must have been a pleasant change to hear from a different voice on a Friday! As she mentioned, it is one of my favourite things to do as I feel communication is a vital part of a...

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa (Warm greetings to you all),Writing the pānui is one of Troy’s favourite jobs and something he holds pretty close, so I’m honoured to be passed the baton in his absence. Wasn’t the sunshine earlier this week an absolute treat? We were spoilt with beautiful days of warmth and sun, which would have been the perfect way to farewell the last week of hōtoke (winter) and look forward to koanga (spring). Perhaps Troy sent us some of that sunshine our way from Brisbane, where he has been attending the APPA Conference. However, in true Palmy...

Tēnā koutou katoa, (Hello Everyone) This morning we were delighted to host four kaiako (teachers) from Russell St School for a visit. Some of you might remember that is the school that I used to work at prior to joining the team here at Turitea, so it was nice for some of my old colleagues to make the trip to see all the amazing things we have going on up here. Garden to Table continued this morning with Mataī and Pōhutukawa filling Tāne Mahuta (The Hall) with great smells. I was invited along to enjoy the vegetable fritters on offer....

Tēnā koutou katoa, (Hello Everyone) This week we embraced Te Wiki o te Pangarau (Maths Week) as you can see above. Each day different teachers read a maths-based story or taught a maths game with every class after lunch. We also had daily estimation challenges across the kura. Estimation might just seem like ‘making a guess’ but teaching our tamariki to make educated guesses promotes their number sense, problem-solving skills, ability to reason and justify their thinking.  Monday was How many paper clips in the container? Tuesday was How many steps will it take Troy to walk from the front...

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou, (Warmest of greetings to you all) Production ticket orders went live today (see the previous Hero post or click here to order) and we can’t wait for this one to take shape. The theme this year is a good old-fashioned ‘Tiki-Tour’ around our country, learning a bit about each place we travel to, with each class having a different town/city to tell the story of Ayla and Mackenzie have submitted their entry for the Design The Programme Cover competition, which you can see below. It is on Friday 12th September at the Speirs Centre...

Kia ora e te whānau, (Hello everyone) Today, Tāne Mahuta played host to the Cluster Speech Competition, hearing well-crafted speeches from Year 5-8 ākonga (students) from Aokautere, Linton Camp, Ōpiki and Tokomaru schools. The quality of the speakers was very high and we were incredibly proud of Kyerin and Elisa who represented our kura with the delivery and execution of their speech. Whakamihi nui ki a koutou (Congratulations) to Ryzel from Ōpiki who won the Year 5/6, James from Aokautere who came second and Elisa who came third. Harriet from Ōpiki won the Year 7/8 competition with Kiara from Linton Camp coming second and Rhylee from Ōpiki in third place. Last week, Dani held...

Ngā mihi mahana e te whānau, (Warm greetings) I want to start this pānui by extending a massive whakamihi (congratulations) to Whaea Anneliese who has just been appointed to be an Across School Lead Teacher in our local Kāhui Ako (Collaborative Group of Schools) Don’t worry, she’s not leaving us! It just means she will be out of her classroom a little bit more than usual, doing mahi (work) that will benefit us, along with the other 24 kura in our Kāhui Ako. Meagan will be teaching in Tōtara every Thursday and Lynne (who is well-known to a lot of our kids) will be in every Wednesday. She...

Nau mai hoki mai ki te wāhanga tuatoru (Welcome back to Term 3) Thankfully our roofing project was completed in the holidays, minimising further disruptions around the school. It wasn’t without drama though, you may have heard that the roofers accidentally hit our power main and took out our power for five days! Thank our lucky stars that happened when school wasn’t open. Now we just need the roadworks on Old West Road to wrap up and we won’t know ourselves… This term began with our usual mihi whakatau (informal welcome) for our new whānau members. We are delighted to...

Kia ora e te whānau, (Hello families) And just like that, we’ve reached the end of another term at Turitea. Although it has only been 9 weeks long, we have crammed a lot of learning into it! This afternoon, I released your child’s mid-year report through Hero (or it will be in your child’s bag if they have joined Rimu this year). Please take the time to sit with them and share this together. I finished reading them all yesterday and I am extremely proud of every student. It gave me great pleasure to hear how they are tracking in their learning...

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou, (Warm greetings to you all) I have to send a heartfelt mihi (thank you) to those who came to our Whakanui i a Matariki (Matariki Celebration) last Friday. I did think that the poor weather might put people off coming, but whether you came and gave our tamariki another opportunity to share their kapa haka bracket, viewed their mahi toi (artwork) as pictured below, engaged in kemu (activities) in classrooms, lit a candle to commemorate the loss of a loved one or had traditional Māori kai from the Real Deal Hāngi Food Truck, I...