Newsletter Term 1 Week 5

From the Principal

WOWZA !!! What an extremely busy few days we have had with lots of school events that have bought our community together. Such a lot to celebrate. The Puberty talks for Year 6-8 students started on Thursday with Kylie Ryan from The Tough Stuff. They thoroughly enjoyed their time with Kylie, and I am sure some interesting follow up conversations happened at home. This is the time to forge those open, honest conversations with your children before those “awesome” teenage years descend. 

Our assembly on Friday was a bit confusing with the time changing to 9am. Quite a few parents commented on how many students had the “wiggles”. There is always a marked difference in energy levels from morning to afternoon. Plus they were all excited about the Duathlon. Many thanks to Sara Nicoll and Elijah Bowman from Kereru House who ran their first  assembly ably. We were also presented with some very interesting information on Te Tiriti o Waitangi from Room 6. It is very important that our children understand our history of New Zealand from all perspectives.

The Duathlon was AMAZING. I was so very impressed with the children’s efforts and resilience. It was a successful and fun day with lots of parent support. A special thanks to Storm Baynes-Ryan and Hayley Hodgett who came up with the proposal last year. They also gave up a lot of personal time coming into school to train the children, not to mention organising the course and running the event on the day. We truly appreciate your involvement with the school. Thanks to the Helping Hands who supplied the juicies at the end and the sausage sizzle. A shout out to the students who stood in the hot sun as marshals . Most of all a HUGE thanks to all the children who competed so well, and the staff for their involvement. I’m looking forward to next year when it will be a Tryathlon ( now that our pool renovations are underway again!).

Today we held our first ever Tomarata School swimming sports at Rodney College for Year 4-8. I popped down for a quick look and it was running superbly. The children were once again giving their all & having a go. I especially want to commend Natasha Ward for her fine example of resilience and perseverance. You are a superstar Tasha! We now have a great team organised for the Rodney Rural Schools Competition on Friday. Big thanks to the parents who helped with placings and monitoring the children waiting. ( Hmm apologies for the dye coming out of the ice-block sticks and staining your hands. Whoops) Much appreciated. Thanks also to Mrs Salt, Miss McGuiness, Mrs Forno-Watson and Mrs Ashe for your organisational skills. The first time for new things is always a challenge.  Next year I think we will take the whole school down!

The Board would like you to know that our revised policies are now in the Policy folder on the website.( I do need to find some time to update images and photos etc on the website by the way, so please ignore the school docs sign, and other information that is a bit wrong! )The link takes you to our policies. The Board and Helping Hands are also having a Working Bee on Sunday 15 March at school, to prepare for our Pump track. It would be so good if you could spare some time to pop down to lend a hand.

ERO ( the Education Review Officers) will be at our school from 16-18 March. They will be looking at a number of things including student outcomes; our new Vision, values and strategic plan; leadership; our local curriculum plan; student leadership; local contexts; reporting; equity and excellence ;community involvement- to name a few. The work you as a community did in our re-visioning and revaluing days will be of a high interest to them. I look forward to sharing their findings with you in due course.

I have had a look at the school photos done by Dove Photography as the album is now online. They are gorgeous! Some stunning photos. Please go to https://littledovesphotography.shootproof.com/gallery/11762569, put in your email address and the password SummerTS20. Go to your child’s class photo and click. The individual & sibling photos are in there too. Then order what you want. So easy. No receiving packs and hating the photos that you get. Believe me there are some really incredible professional shots of the children.

Finally I am pleased to say that we have chosen the acronym for our new values which is GROW. I will inform you in the next newsletter what each letter means. We will spend time unpacking each value- 1 per term so that we all ( staff, students and whanau) know what they are and the expectations around them. We want our children to GROW mentally, physically, socially, educationally, environmentally and holistically so it is a great acronym to have. The values will compliment our vision, and will be the base of everything we do. We will live, talk and breathe them everyday.

It is vitally important that we balance the teaching and learning at Tomarata between learning versus performance. We want our children to be creative in their thinking and problem solving. We don’t want them to be passive passengers in the classroom. We want them to be engaged and interested and enthusiastic. So hold on to your hats. It’s going to be an interesting few years!

Reminders

Book Club closes 17th March

Helping Hands

Working Bee Sunday 15th March  here at school. Sausages will be available

Community Notices

Tomarata Club Junior (Yr1-8) Netball – registrations open now.

We welcome enquiries and registrations from new and experienced players – girls and boys, for the 2020 netball season. Junior games are Saturday mornings at the Rodney Netball Centre at Centennial Park in Wellsford. We participate in the Future Ferns programme with different game formats depending on age group. The focus is on skills development along with fun, fitness and fair play. The playing season starts May 9th and runs to August 15th (weather dependant) with training start date TBC. Our training sessions are weekly, after school at Tomarata School (Yrs 3-8 only, Yrs 1&2 have training during their Saturday sessions). Training day will be determined based on player and coach availability.

There is occasional requirement for parent / caregiver / whanau assistance with Saturday club duty days at the netball centre (2 / season) and we’re very (!!!) keen to hear from anyone interested in coaching or managing a team. This is a great way to be involved with your child(ren)’s sport and we can provide heaps of resources and support so you don’t need to be a netball expert – just enthusiastic and committed!

Students who are keen to find out more are welcome to attend a ‘Have a Go’ session at school during lunchtime on Monday 2nd March, 12.10-12.30pm.

Registration forms will be available from the school office from March 2nd also.

Any questions please text / phone me (Junior Coordinator Nicola Murray) on 027 683 2754 or email tomaratajuniornetball@gmail.com. We’ve also got a Facebook page- Tomarata Netball Club

We would like to thank Bayleys Wellsford for their sponsorship