Week 7 Term 3, 2025

Brilliant Bean Growing

Growing the Beans competition has been a success and created interest in the science of growing a plant. Overall, there was a lot more interest in the beans than first expected and this meant a couple of additional trips into town to get more beans. The junior classes are growing beans in their classrooms. However, if you wish to individually grow the beans and compete as an individual, please tell your classroom teacher and we will get beans to you.  Everyone can enter this project and participate with the science board or diary. Mitre 10 are coming to judge the event and have prizes for the top entries.

Pet Day signs are up around the area, the booklet is being added to the website and one printed book per family is coming home with the eldest or only child. The online registration form for the animals is going live as is the parent helpers online registration form.  

The school is hosting Pet Day this year with support of the PTA. All funds raised will go to the PTA for the new playgrounds. Pet Day has a focus on the flowers and the animals. Not so much the market. There will be new signs made in the new year for the next Pet Day.  

There will be food to purchase from the bake sale and the BBQ and raffles going. A coffee cart and Mrs Whippy. 

Student Conduct

I have had some conversations with the students about the racial comments being made in the playground towards each other. It's just awful language that they don’t really understand. Hurtful language. It is such a shame to have to have the speech with children this young.

Survey Response Summaries

 2025 Community Consultation

Thank you to the nine who participated in the 2025 consultation survey. While we acknowledge this represents a small sample of the school community (around 370+ families), the feedback provides insight.

Key Themes:

• Communication emerged as the priority for improvement from 44 percent of respondents and report formats from 33 percent of the respondents; importantly, they were not all the same respondents.

• Parent-teacher interviews were well-received (67% extremely/very likely to recommend).

• Strong appreciation for our rural, small-school environment and friendly staff.

• Mixed feedback on technology integration - some wanting more traditional learning approaches, although no alternative options were provided.

• Report formats need improvement - respondents want more personalised, specific information about their child's progress with less emphasis on graphs.

Health Survey 2025 Community Consultation

Thank you to the three who completed our Health and Physical Education curriculum survey. While this represents a very small sample of the school community, we can share some initial insights.

Key Findings:

• POWER Values: Only 67% of respondents hear their children discussing the school values at home - indicating room for improvement in embedding these values.

• Health Topics: All areas surveyed (Mental Health, Food & Nutrition, Body Care, Anti-Bullying) were rated as important or very important by respondents.

• Highest Priority Areas:

  • All safety topics (sun smart, road safety, fire safety).

  • Anti-bullying strategies and where to get help.

  • Nutrition education and promoting healthy foods.

• Additional Suggestion: Managing food waste education.

Moving Forward: The Board recognise the limited response rate means we need to explore additional ways to gather community feedback.

Given the extremely low response rate (less than 1% of our community), we'll explore other ways to gather meaningful feedback about our Health curriculum. The responses we did receive support continuing our current comprehensive approach to health education.

We encourage more whānau to engage with future consultations so we can better represent our diverse school community's needs.

Communication

Thank you for the honest feedback we have been receiving about the communication systems. We really value hearing from you, and I want to acknowledge the frustrations a few families have experienced.

What we're doing: We've been working hard to improve the communication tools. The shift to the @school app happened more quickly than we anticipated - it's designed to be a one-stop shop for all school information, including permission slips and future planning. For those having trouble staying logged into the Tile, I've found that enabling face recognition or even fingerprint login on your device, can help resolve this issue.

The fortnightly newsletters continue to be posted on the school website under their own tab, making them easy to find and reference. They are suitably dated and you can refer to them when it is convenient to you.

The reality: Like all families, schools sometimes face unexpected changes that are beyond our control. When we advertise dates or events, we do so with the best intentions. Sometimes external providers don't deliver as promised, or student interest exceeds our wildest expectations (like our bean growing project!). 

We genuinely apologise when these changes affect your family's plans. There's never any intention to cause inconvenience.

Moving forward together: We're all learning to adapt and build resilience - students, whānau, and school staff alike. Your patience as we continue to progress and future-proof the systems is greatly appreciated.

General and Events

Netball Sponsors

The school and all school netball girls would like to thank the following sponsors for the new uniforms. They looked amazing on the court.

• McCarthy Log Haulage 

• Pirtek Taupo

• Armoured Engineering

• Tungsten Saws

Scholastic Book Fair

From Tuesday, September 16, 2025 until Friday, September 19, 2025, the Scholastic Book Fair will take place in the Wairakei Primary School Hall. Books will be available to buy from 8.15-9a.m. on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings and 3-3.45p.m. on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Offers of help from parents or whānau members that may like to sell books and run the EFTPOS machine at these times would be greatly appreciated. If there is anyone that would like to assist with the set-up or pack-down of the book fair during the day on Tuesday or Friday, please let me know.

Please contact Olivia Graham if you would like to help or have any questions.

Taiopenga  September 9 to 12 2025  at the A.C. Baths Events Centre

The Junior Year 1-3 (Rooms 11,12,13,14) Kapa Haka Group will be performing on Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at 11a.m. Departing school by bus at 10.15a.m and returning at midday.

The Middle Year 4 (Rooms 5,7,8,9) Kapa Haka Group will be performing on Wednesday,  September 10, 2025 at  2p.m. Departing school by bus at 1.15p.m and returning at 2.45p.m.

The Senior Year 5-6 (Rooms 1,2,3,4) Kapa Haka Group will be performing on Thursday,  September 11, 2025 at 11a.m. Departing school by bus at 10.15a.m. and returning at midday.

All students performing in the Taiopenga will have a separate letter given to them to take home with all the details on it.

I would like to thank the whole community for the support you gave the teachers, support staff and myself as a principal on Friday, August 22, 2025 for the Paid Union Meeting. We did appreciate the effort you made for us all.

Ngā mihi,

Paula

Dance NZ Made

Well done to all our participants in the Dance NZ made competition held last week

These dancers showed their dances to the full assembly on Friday. It was easy to see the amount of work that you have done to get ready for the competition. Mrs Bone did a great job of choreography of the dances for the Year 3 and 4 and the Year 5 and 6 groups. 

The Year 3 and 4 group came third equal, while Annaliese McCallum won a golden ticket to workshops in Auckland in January 2026.

Hockey results

Fantastic result for Wairakei Power in the final of the Hockey season. 

They came first in their grade winning against Waipahihi, the score was 4-3. 

It was a really close game. They played their hearts out and did not give up and came back scoring some really quick goals by working together as a team. 

Transition to Intermediate

Dates and information from the Intermediate re enrolment for 2026 can be found on the school calendar.