Kia ora e te whānau,
Whakawhetai koe (Far-car-fear-tie-kwear: Thank you) to Craig Kawana, the original carver of our pare (pah-rear: lintel) from 2001 which lives above the main office door. Keeping it in the whānau, his son Mahina Scott-Kawana, under Craig’s tutelage, lovingly helped restore it to its former glory. Look up the next time you pop in and see for yourself how good the whakairo (fa-kai-roar: carving) is as a first impression to our school. The meaning behind this is the journey of our ancestors making their way from their lands to Aotearoa, in particular the Rangitanē region. We will get a plaque made to explain the significance of each aspect of this, a story we are proud of.
Covid Protection Framework:
You’ll be aware that at the beginning of last week, New Zealand moved to a new long-term approach to Covid-19. These changes were made based on public health advice and the declining case numbers across New Zealand. This will only result in minor changes to the way we operate at Turitea School.
– Household contacts of a person with Covid-19 no longer need to isolate, but are asked to complete a RAT each day, for five days and should continue to attend school if it is negative.
– Mask wearing is no longer required.
New Board of Trustees:
Last week we provided the communications from CES that they declared the following duly elected. We are all excited to work with them and look forward to the Board’s first meeting together in Term 4.
Numbers for 2023:
As Troy mentioned last week as we start to tentatively plan for 2023, he is trying to map class placement. With numbers being full and a growing wait list, if you do not plan to be attending Turitea School next year, please let either Troy or Julie at the office know so we can make adjustments. If you have a younger member of your whānau who are looking to attend in the future, please can you fill out the pre-enrolment form.
Parking Safety:
There have been repeated reports of some car parking woes such as speeding past cars who are waiting to pull into parks, overtaking on the school road and some aggressive driving. This is worrying to receive. To help ease this area at school we have this week moved the Staff Car Parking and re-signed to draw your attention to the ‘stop & go’ area car parks to help move the flow of traffic along. Please don’t take it upon yourself to create your own park, park across driveways or park behind staff along the turf fence line as staff also need to be able to head off to collect their own children or attend off site meetings come 3pm, with the added issue that there is then no turn around area available. The long and short of it is – please keep our tamariki safe by keeping your driving safe.
8am Drop Off:
A gentle reminder to not drop your child off before 8am in the morning. We offer this to help parents in the morning who have to work, please don’t take advantage of this as this small group is not actively supervised.
Activity Fee:
We have had some awesome things this term such as Te Manawa and buses to School Athletics and more in Term 4 for Junior Cluster Athletics and True Hoops Basketball with Coach Miles. If you are yet to pay your Activity Fee please contact Julie in the office office@turitea.school.nz for the $10 per term or $40 for the year.
Sports @ Turitea:
Hopefully you have seen the School Athletics Hero Post go out this week, we look forward to seeing parents support our tamariki for a fingers crossed fine weather day! Thank you Anna for all of your organisation with this, and the parents who are coming to support the rotations on the day which can be found attached to this panui as there are still a few problems with Hero alerts. If you haven’t seen this pop up, going into your Hero app and clicking ‘View All Notifications’ will bring up the posts on ‘Your Feed’ with the latest Hero Posts.
Upcoming School Holiday Programme:
Looking for some plans or options for the October school holidays?
– Kelly Sport offers an active and fun programme at College Street School. More information here.
– Te Manawa also has an exciting programme on offer, with lots of free things. More information here.
– True Hoops Basketball with Coach Miles, a Spring Camp October 10th & 11th. More information here.
Coming Up:
Junior Cluster Athletics, Linton Camp – Thursday 20th October Year 1-3 students will be attending via bus.
Calendar Art – Friday 21st October all Calendar Art will be sent home via SeeSaw for viewing & ordering.
Lamb, Calf & Pet Day – Saturday 29th October, more information for Class Exhibits to come next week.
There is no school on Monday – Memorial Public Holiday in honor of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Mā te wā (Mar-teh-wah: See you soon)
Kate (in Troy’s absence) kate.baillie@turitea.school.nz