Pānui (News)

Thanks for all the love you showed me on Tuesday for my ‘big birthday’. Sounds like some things can’t be kept secret around here. It wasn’t all treats, cards and presents though (however they were really nice, see the photos) my office did get quite the makeover! Have a laugh at my expense here to see what some of the staff did for me... Hope that some of you took on the wero (weah-roar: challenge) of using some Te Reo Māori in your daily life this month. I’d love to hear how you’re getting on. With next week being Te...

Yesterday marked the start of Mahuru - Māori Language Month. I challenge you to Kia Kaha Te Reo Māori - Have a go at using Māori Language. Sadly, we only have 3% of fluent speakers of Te Reo, a language that is native to us here in Aotearoa. You could start small; even if it is just changing from saying Hello to Kia Ora (Key or-ra) or See you later to Ka Kite (Car key-tear). I’ll try and support you with the pronunciation and give some phonetic pointers to help you out. One cool site I’ve stumbled across is Māori...

I’m getting in a day early on the pānui action as I am off site tomorrow. Thanks to those of you who booked Learning Check In’s for today and yesterday. We hope you found this process useful. Remember you can arrange to meet with the teachers anytime via email. This is what they do and value meeting with you.

Proud principal moment for me to watch our two Basketball teams compete in the finals last night at the Arena. Our Year 3/4 team shot the ball extremely well and passed as a team and beat Winchester 12-4 making them champions of their division! Our Year 5/6 team showed so much grit, resilience and physicality but lost to North Street School 12-4 making them runners up of their division. Thanks to Ali and Beth for their coaching, as well as all the parents who came and waved the Turitea Flag. Ka mau te wehi! - Awesome!

Hoping this pānui finds you all doing well on this glorious spring day! Hero is telling me that I am reaching almost three quarters of you which is amazing. A reminder that all you need is an email to get yourself an account and we can grant you access to the app or have the pānui emailed to you if you prefer. 

I can tell from how intuitive Hero is, that nearly a quarter of you are connected through the app. It tells me that two thirds of you have received and read communications from us too via email. So we are getting there. If you haven’t made the shift yet, it is pretty simple. Apple users click here or Android users click here to download the app. If you have any questions, come and ask us for help, that is what we are here for. 

Welcome back to the new term. First time coming to you through our new school app HERO. Am hoping you have all got connected ok. Will still be posting this on the Skool Loop to catch those who haven’t made the transition across yet. Please reach out if you have connectivity issues as we do need a valid email address listed in our system so we can link you to your child/ren to access this. It’s simple and we hope you love it!

Today your child should come home with their mid year report. We hope you find these reports informative as our teachers spent a lot of time crafting them for you. It is a new format and I have tried to explain the reasoning here. Next term we plan to have another round of learning conferences where you can meet with your child’s teacher to discuss the content further and set some goals. Don’t feel like you need to wait until then to meet with your child’s teacher though as effective learning needs an effective partnership.

We’ve been hit pretty hard by the winter illnesses with up to 30% of our tamariki away over the past weeks. Unfortunately our lovely Julie has been out with Covid this week and a few staff members have been ravaged by this flu going around. Our relief teacher pool is empty meaning some of your kids might not have their usual class routine on some days. Thanks to those of you who are letting us know when your child is sick. Remember this is really easy to report via the Skool Loop App in the Absentee tab.

Isn’t this weather a welcomed return? Look at the beautiful blue sky that our Ki O Rahi team had today for their tournament this morning! They had a fab morning playing against 11 other schools in the annual tournament run by Kelly Sports. Let’s hope it keeps this up over the Matariki long weekend which starts now.