End of Week 8 Term 2 Pānui

Tēnā koutou katoa,

Isn’t it crazy that it seems we are having more sun in June than it felt we had in all of January? Hey I’m not complaining one bit. Yesterday we had a double whammy of adults coming to work with our kids and it made me proud hearing feedback from them about how nice a place our school is to come and visit. Coach Kahu was in taking Rippa Rugby yesterday with the whole school and commented on the noticeable difference between city and country kids and their ability to muck in and give things a go, even if it is new for them. Then Dean Mckerras from Red Star Dance was also in yesterday working with our Year 3-6 kids who might like to compete at DanceNZMade, which is a stage show that runs throughout the country. He is coming back next week to take another session and then he will pass it over to Manawa, one of our Year 6 students who attends his dance school to help lead the rest of the group. A great example of using our experts within the school to grow others. This type of hautūtanga (leadership) was also on show today with Olivia S, Harper, Te Aranga, Harlow and Natalie organising their Wildbase and SPCA fundraiser. A day that many of our kids enjoyed, so thank you for your support with this.

Whānau Consult:

Today is the final day for you to ‘Have Your Say’ through our whānau consultation process that we have been engaging in. It is still available to fill out online or send in the paper copy to the office, but I will be shutting the form off over the weekend, so we can unpack and analyse the responses to get some patterns and trends and develop a plan to address your voice. I truly thank each of you who have taken the time to do this. All I am trying to do is make Turitea School the best place it can be for our tamariki, so I’ve really appreciated your honest feedback. It has been informative and has given us some immediate actions, some short term goals and some long term projects to work on. Congratulations to Sandi Pemberton who was our 30th and Karen Brougham who was our 45th person to do the survey. I did think I was being a bit ambitious by expecting that many responses at the start, so you have far exceeded my expectations. 

Matariki Event:

Whaea Tūrehu has asked us to push the time back on our event next Friday 23rd June to a 5.30pm performance start. Can you please bring your child in their Turitea School sports uniform to the evening. If you are one of our new whānau and haven’t got one of these yet, they have been ordered and we are awaiting the delivery early next week. We will get these home to you as soon as they arrive. Our hangi orders have nearly hit capacity, so there is limited space to order one here. Don’t forget to BYO cutlery.

Pae Tamariki:

Once our tamariki get that taste of performing for you, I hope they will have that hunger for more and their next chance is on a much grander scale at the Regent for Pae Tamariki on Monday 26th June from 12.10pm -12.30pm. I will write a separate post which provides much information, but our plan for the day is to leave school at 10.30am to arrive at the Regent and watch two roopu (groups) perform from upstairs and then come down to get ready for our turn. Just before 1pm, the bus will pick us up and take us to the Esplanade to have lunch together and a play on the playground before coming back to school at 2.30pm. If you’d like to be a parent helper on the day with this, please let us know in the survey below or even if you wanted to come and meet us for lunch, we’d love that.

Mid Year Reports and Learning Conferences: 

Teachers are busy preparing up to date progress information on your child’s learning, collecting your child’s voice and writing their own mid-year comments. This is all due to be checked, finalised and ready for your viewing pleasure in Hero by Friday 30th June (last day of this term). This will be accompanied and supported by Learning Conferences which will take place in the first and second week back next term. The dates for these are Thursday 20th July and Thursday 27th of July. The first Thursday will go from 3.15pm – 5.30pm. The following week on the 27th, we will start the conferences at 1pm and go through until 7.30pm. Just like last time, if you are able to pick up your child early that day, we’d appreciate it. If you can’t, then they can hang out with Faye, Kirstin, Aimi and myself until 3pm. Keep an eye out on Hero for when the bookings for these will open.

Cluster Cross Country:

We have got back the official results for the Cluster Cross Country which happened last week. 28 runners in our team of 49 came in the top 10 out of all five schools, which was amazing! Some notable finishers were Natalie who won Year 5 Girls and Kazuri who won the Year 4 Girls race. Ada, who came second in Year 5 Girls, Rory who came second in Year 2 Boys race and Charlie P who came third in Year 1 Boys. – Ka rawe koutou (Awesome everyone)

From the PTA:

  • Thanks for getting involved in our Pepper&Me fundraiser. For all your purchases, the school got back $200. We hope you enjoy their products.
  • PTA meeting is next week on Wednesday 21st June at 7pm in the staffroom, all are welcome. 
  • Hoodies should arrive ready for distribution by the end of the term.

From the Community:

  • Linton Army Camp are running a Matariki event on Thursday 6th July. See here for more information. All welcome to attend and learn about this event. Email Troy if you’re interested in attending and are not affiliated with the military to get security clearance.
  • 40 Hour Challenge – Here is the link to get registered for this weekend if your child wants to take part
  • True Hoops Holiday Basketball Camps – Bigs (9+) on 6th/7th July. Littles (6-8 year olds) on 10th July.
  • Reading for Pleasure Festival – This weekend at the Palmy Library. More information here.

A reminder of how amazing our community is…You might recall my mid week pānui asking for topsoil. Well I received a response within an hour from Chelsea and Tyler saying they’d not just deliver it, but smooth it out too, ready for us to grass the area in front of our new steps and seating area that the PTA funded. You guys are amazing!

Ngā manaakitanga, 

Troy
principal@turitea.school.nz