Term 4 Week 7 Newsletter

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Families
Kia ora, kia orana, talofa, malo e lelei, fakaalofa atu, hello and greetings

From the Principal

Here we are on the countdown to the end of the 2020 school year. It’s always frightening how quickly the last term goes by. In saying that we are keeping the classroom routines as normal as possible to maintain a settled environment for the children. I had a number of students share great work this week. Jacob from Room 2 shared his awesome writing, and Uawa and Mayan from Room 3 were very proud to show me that they had learnt all their basic words in the Early Words Programme. It gives me great joy to give out praise, stickers and stamps for academic progress and learning from making mistakes.

Teachers have finished assessments now, and are busily writing reports. You will receive these the second to last day of the term, with the link for ordering stationery for next year included in the envelope. Despite the challenges of COVID 19 your children have made pleasing progress.

The school also received a generous donation from AFFCO on behalf of our local farming families. A huge thanks to the Brien family, the Russell family, Kylie Shepherd, Tony Lenssen ( Bella’s grandad), the Scott family ( grandparents of Scarlett & Rose), Brian Mason and the Watson-Walker family. We appreciate you being part of this scheme to support Tomarata School.

We have a nasty tummy bug doing the rounds so please take notice if your child runs a temperature & complains of a sore tummy. I have since found out that it is a 48 hour standown before returning to school after this type of bug (thanks Sherryll).

In the office you will see a decorated box. This is for anyone to donate non-perishable food items or gifts for a needy family this Xmas. This is to support the Te Whai Community Trust, and the co-ordinator is one of our new parents.

This term we are moving to a new student management system called LINC-ED HERO. We are really excited about this new programme which will offer features such as online enrolments for new students, excellent data analysis of your children’s achievements and progress, online reporting and family notifications. Next year you will be able to access your child’s profile, mid year and end of year reports and community notices. It will give you picture at any time where your child is at in the core subject areas, and what they are working on. We will pass on the links next year as well as some lessons on how to access it. So watch this space!

The next few weeks there are a lot of trips and activities going on. This Friday is the shared Athletics day in Centennial Park, we have the House Captains going out next week, the Year 8 Big Day Out and Prize-giving on the last day. We also have a whole school assembly this THURSDAY at 1:30 pm. Please keep a look out for notices, especially on SEESAW.

Our PB4L focus this week was Zero waste and litter. We do not have rubbish bins around the school, so we ask the children to take home any glad wrap, or lunch wrappers . Any food waste goes to our worm farm or the chickens. It is part of our goal to teach the children about environmental sustainability , and being kaitiaki of our Tomarata environment. Why not as a family have a discussion at the dinner table of how you could recycle or have zero waste in your household.

I am sure you are waiting with baited breath like me to find out what the final figure is for our Fireworks fundraiser. Well you will have to wait a wee bit longer as we are still getting money in. I think next week we will be able to reveal what it is. I do know it is more than we raised last year, which was $25,000 so whoopee!