Pānui (News)

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...

Tēnā koutou katoa, (Hello everyone) I know the weather isn’t ideal, but we still look forward to seeing you tonight at our Matariki celebration. All the information for this is below and you would have received a Hero post on Wednesday about it too. Our Kapa Haka performance will kick off just after 5pm in Tāne Mahuta (Hall). Please can you have your tamariki here just before then, so they can get organised. (If they competed in Cluster Country today and their uniform is dirty, just sent them in black please). You'll get to see all of the amazing mahi toi (artwork)...

Kia ora e te whānau, (Hello everyone) Ngā mihi (thanks) for your support last Friday in allowing us to have the day as a staff to focus on the implementation of Te Mātaiaho (our refreshed curriculum). As always, when our staff get together, we have many robust conversations about our path forward, as we are all very passionate about education and want to ‘keep ahead of the curve’ with these changes.  It was mīharo (outstanding) to see our kids shine on stage at Pae Tamariki on Wednesday. Their performance really was incredible, showcasing their hard work and dedication to kapa haka. What was even...

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou (Warmest of greetings to you all), Getting this out to you a day earlier than usual since we are closed for instruction tomorrow because of our Staff Only Day. As mentioned, our day is centred around the continued implementation of Te Mātaiaho (our refreshed Curriculum) and PB4L, our school wide focus around improving consistency in our expectations across the school. We would normally have Hui Ā Kura tomorrow, so we will have it next Friday 6th June instead, at the usual time of 2.15pm.  Hopefully you noticed that our final uara (values) sign was...

Tēnā koutou katoa (Hello everyone),  Firstly, I want to apologise to our incredible support staff for not acknowledging them in last Friday’s pānui, as we celebrated Support Staff Day last week. We are very fortunate to have a group of incredible wahine; Aimi, Julie, Dani, Kirstin, Meryl and Mitzy. They are the unsung heroes of our kura, always there to give extra support in the classroom, helping out wherever needed, having their role change on a dime and doing those jobs that often go unnoticed. Thank you for being on Team Turitea! On Monday, We welcomed Thomas to Rimu on Monday morning, joining Anna and the...