Week 9, Term 4, 2024

Another year has started to wind down. The teams of Te Mihi and Poihipi have had their end of year celebrations on the school site. Then we move into the prize giving assemblies. These are a great opportunity for us to acknowledge the students who have been exemplifying our school values. We have increased the number of certificates we are giving out per class and added another category – ‘Rising to Success – for students who have been working hard on their learning during the year and have made major improvements.

PTA Pet Day Meeting

The Board and PTA met last  night to discuss the feedback given by the community regarding Pet Day. The survey offered a chance for the community to offer its thoughts and ideas to move forward. What is very clear is the hard work that the PTA and the school do to make Pet Day work. It requires many hands on the day. Not having this support was the main reason for the change of day and time of the year plus the inclusion of the Summer Picnic.

After reviewing the feedback, the PTA and the school have decided to move the Pet Day back to Saturday October 11 2025. Floral day will be held on Friday October 10 starting at 9 a.m. as we have swimming lessons in the afternoon for some classes. This date gives us an opportunity for students to go on to Group Day which will be held on October 24 2025.

There will be some of the past gala activities present -- food on sale and raffles. The focus will be on the pets and the flower creations plus student baking. Final confirmation of the date will be given in early 2025, after we have made sure we have judges available and there is no clash with the other rural schools.

Pet Day Survey Report

Read the Report

Meet the Teacher Evening

There will be a family focussed Meet the Teacher evening held on February 27, 2025 starting at 4.30 p.m. This is where the Year 6 stalls will happen, as the school feels that the standard of the stalls from 2024 were of such a high standard we would like to continue this practice. The student favourite, Jolly Jars, will be at this event.

PTA Roles and Responsibilities

The PTA are a voluntary group of parents. It is made up of those who put their hand up to support the school. Their first meeting is February 3, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the staffroom. The call to action is this: "Come, Be present, and use your skills that you have to offer". The PTA needs:

• Are you passionate about effective communication? Join as the publication officer for Pet Day, Meet the teacher and the discos. 
• Good with logistics? They need you to arrange the prattley gates and organise the set up and pack down the field after Pet Day. Do you have Sign Writing skills? The Pet Day signs need updating. 
• Know the food trucks and can book them in? Give us your number, 
• Know the community and can get sponsors for the next three years?

Now is your time to step up. This is some of the support the school and the PTA need.

2024 Highlights

Part of my role is to report to the board about what happens in the school. I do this via a written report for each meeting. In December I get to write about the year that has been. Following are some of my highlights:

• We employed new staff for the start of 2025.
• Learning is at a high level across the school in all basic areas. This is a huge achievement and has taken many years to get to.  It is due to a committed effort from the staff and community. It has involved new learning and sticking to what we do well.
• Staff are known for being professional and having high expectations. 
• The app is working, and more and more parents are engaging. I must remind myself that change is hard, and it is what they asked for. Might not be the format they expected. However, it is one point of truth.
• My leadership team has managed their classrooms and their roles with a high level of professionalism. 
• Val in the office who maintains the steady ship even when things are a big hectic. 
• The board who are moving more and more into their roles and taking on challenges. You all do it with grace and a smile even if you don’t understand the jargon. It could be said that I do that on purpose to see if you read the reports.
• The blogs. Not always acknowledged for the learning that they show or the work that goes into producing them. Without them we are just a school in the center of the North Island in New Zealand. We have an international presence that is monitored by educators around the world. The photos and the learning stories are picked up and used in other publications like the Open Polytech for their Arts Teaching programme. How cool is that?
• The Celebration of Learning. Community engagement, tick. Parents knowing about learning, tick. Students being able to articulate their learning, tick. This part matters to me. Learning is meant to be engaging and meaningful.      
• My office make-over. And a heat pump. And new carpet. I didn’t realise how much that mattered or meant to me.
• Our classroom programmes that we introduced. The Code, BSLA, Learner First to focus on learning. Jargon to you as parents. Important parts of the curriculum for students.
• Tokarewa grows from strength to strength and is such an interesting thing to watch. The hats with the bling on them. The new tokens for sports days. How the students talk about it and the possibilities of where it can go to. The names of our Whare Tiaki groups and their flags. Now the new names of our teams link to the whenua.
• Taiopenga and all the inter-school events that we participated in. We had a very successful year.
• Whaea  Anne Marie and her positive presence around the school. Such a great asset to have.

2025

In 2025 the school is introducing new team names linking to the local area. There will be four teams 

Year 5 and 6    Karapiti  Rooms 1, 2, 3, 4

Year 4 and 5    Tuhuatahi   Rooms 7,  8,  9 10

Year  2 and 3   Pirorirori  Room 11, 12, 13, 14

Year 1 and 0    Raparapa  Room 15,16, and 5

Make sure you update your 'Personalise My Notifications' on the app.

The school office will be open:

Thursday 30, January 2025, 9a.m.-2p.m.

Friday 31, January 2025, 9a.m.-2p.m.

Stationery will be available to purchase on these days.

The stationery lists are already up on the website and available for purchase at Office Products. You can order these online and they will deliver them to school during the last week of January 2025. You can also order from the school and the pack will be delivered to the classrooms. Online payments are the best for this.

iPads for Sale

The school has some older iPads for sale. There are three price ranges and all iPads come with a cover and a power cord. They are fine to use at home connecting to the internet. They will not be supported by Apple from mid way through 2025. 

A Group iPads   $100

B Group iPads  $80

C Group iPads  Make an offer

If you are interested in purchasing one of these iPads please email Angel Chauval. It is a first in this situation. All the funds that we collect will go back into buying new iPads for the school.

2025 Staff Changes

We have a few changes occurring in 2025.

Carla Ross has a new position. Gwen Bowler is moving to Taupo Primary, Paul Morehu will be leaving us at the end of Term One to head overseas and Fiona Griffin is going on refreshment leave starting Term One 2025. 

We wish all these staff members the best. 

Did you get to see Fiona’s write up on the Facebook page for winning 'Teacher of the Year' on the More FM Teacher Challenge? You can join the other 141 likes and hearts to celebrate her successes as a teacher.

Conclusion

I would like to thank everyone for their support during 2024. It has been a great year for the school, with a variety of achievements ticked off. We let TPS win the Inter-School Athletics just so that other schools could share the joy.

Look out for the annual start of year newsletter. It will be on its way in mid January. 

The school office closes at 12.30 p.m on Tuesday, December 17. 

Have a safe and relaxing summer break. I look forward to seeing you all next year.