Tena Koutou Katoa! Nau Mai to the first update for 2024.
Firstly a huge thanks to the Board, Mrs Porter, Mrs Anderson and the team for their hard Mahi over 2023. It is lovely to be back and connecting with everyone and I thank you all for your kind messages.
Second - there will be no pool tokens updated, or distributed, this term. As you know the pool has been relined and we are waiting on some other things to be completed. At this stage is is okay for school use during the day, but will be unavailable out of school hours.
Next - many of you will be aware that the new coalition government has plans for education and that we have been working to ensure these plans are being implemented. Here is a brief summary of what to expect:
Mobile phones and smart watches - These have never been welcomed at this school, so this doesn't change for us. Please do not send your children to school with these devices as they can be very disruptive to learning, particularly if children are being contacted during school hours.
Three hours of reading, writing and maths every day - We are working on some of the finer details of this. Given this is generally how we operate it shouldn't be a problem. Once we have more information about the practical elements of this, I will provide more information. This will of course have impacts on other curriculum areas, but as always we will be pragmatic and responsive to the needs of our students and community.
National testing with a standardised report for parents - Again, there is some information to come about this, including ages of those to be tested. At this stage I understand that this will use a tool that we already employ in the school (E-Asttle). The tool will create a report based (I believe) on a one off assessment. I will give you more on this once I know more. We will also stick with good assessment practices that are part of the teaching and learning. This is a timely reminder that a high stakes test may give us a sense of achievement for the child, but won't give us the finer details of how well a student is learning and progressing.
Finally - Our staff whanau get together is planned for the 28th of February from 4:30-6pm. Keep this date open for a low key welcome to the year and an opportunity to hear about some of the things going on for our amazing tamariki. :-)
I will have some more messages for our community in a fortnight.
Kia ora kotou.
Isaac - Principal.