Whatawhata School News

Kia ora e hoa

It is with great excitement that I introduce a series of hui and a survey about whether our community wants bilingual learning at Whatawhata School! This is something I've hoped for ever I first began so it's great that we may be able to make to happen soon. See all the info below and make sure your voice is heard! 

School is currently in the grips of assessment and report writing in all classes. One of the great challenges of measuring progress is that one on one time that is currently needed to assess it while continuing to lead and manage the rest of the class. I thank all our teachers and support staff for making this happen so successfully. We look forward to exploring better ways of capturing and sharing your children's learning in the coming months. 

My ongoing conversations with the Ministry of Education about our property needs were rather cryptic this week. I was trying to get permission to build our mini library which wasn't forthcoming but they suggested that something better may be announced soon. Fingers crossed it's everything we want and need! I also submitted the plans for the spending of our upgrade money this week. Once we get this approved we hope to get straight into completing the upgrades for Te Kaho, greatly improving Te Kaakano and completing a new toilet block. There are also a number of other upgrades planned for the years ahead - it's surprising how quickly you can spent $866,000 when you try!

Finally our junior Creative Zone was open this week to provide a separate place for our younger children to enjoy building and creating! We now need a range of building materials so if you have anything please drop them off. Thanks so far to Auto66 for a huge selection of tyres, Emma Williamson for cool cable spools and tractor tyres and Nicola Inder for loads of plastic sheeting. Keep it coming as our kids absolutely love it.

Aroha nui, Matt Stockton

Thank you once again to the awesome board who served over the last 3 years. This  included Sean McCormack, Alan Snell, Joe Kingston, Renee Kenyon, Peter van Elzakker, Laurel Benn, Lisa Hansen and Naomi Pocock. You gave so much of your time and energy to the school and it was truly appreciated.

Thank you once again to all those people who put their names forward to become part of our Board of Trustees. This led to a hard fought election with a very large proportion of our school casting their votes.

I'm delighted to announce our new Board of Trustees, who officially take office from Friday. They are:

Renee Kenyon

Peter Van Elzakker  

Amy McLean

Mark Galloway

Amy Reason 

Stephanie Lidington (staff trustee)

Lisa Hansen (co-opted trustee)

Maari Moke (co-opted trustee)

Our first task as a new board is to get to know each other a little better then to attend a training evening all about boards, what they do and how they can support the school, the children, the staff and the community. I really look forward to working with you all

The school is really keen to explore whether we can create a Maaori bilingual learning option for our school. This used to be an important part of our kura and is something we are really keen to bring back if there is support from our community. 

Maaori bilingual programmes are grouped into levels, based on their level of immersion (% teaching in Maaori). Level 1 has the highest level of teaching in Maaori (between 81% and 100%). In Level 2 is 51% to 80% of the time and Level 3 is 31% and 50% teaching in Maaori. These levels are used by the Ministry of Education for allocating funding and staffing to immersion programmes and for designing curriculum. The higher the level the more funding and staffing.

Bilingual learning is open for anyone regardless of ethnicity. We do not yet know what ages any programme would be applicable to nor at what level - that depends on interest. 

To gauge interest we will be holding whaanau hui and providing an online option too. If enough people are keen we will begin working much more closely with Ngaati Maahanga, Ministry and interested whaanau on the details. 

Our whaanau hui will be held on Thursday 20th June at 8.30am, 2.30pm and 6.00pm. They will be very short and are just about seeing what interest there is. We will hold them in the "spare" classroom in the middle of the school. 

If you want to share your interest you can also click this link. 

If you child is not yet 5 please still share your interest.

Please spread this news far and wide so we can get the best possible picture.  Thanks

On Friday 21st June we'd love all those magical grandparents, nanas and special people to come and join us so we can show you a little bit of our school and then celebrate how cool you are!

We invite you to come to school around 9.30 to spend some time in classes, join in with learning and see what school looks like now. We'd love to hear some of your stories of school when you were little!

Then we'd like to spoil you by putting on a bit of a high tea that we can all enjoy together!

We really look forward to seeing you

Parents: We'd really appreciate it if you could send in something tasty at the start of the day as part of this celebration. The school will organise the teas and coffees which we know are so important! Thanks in advance

We're excited to welcome and introduce Christine Foster as our new people and safety manager. Christine will manage all health and safety, payroll and staffing, new children induction and support and helping with other office tasks. Here's a little about her...

Hi, I'm Christine Foster, I have been a Whatawhata local for about 4 1/2 years with my husband and 3 young kids, AJ who is in Te Pihinga and Hannah and Charly who are at Magnolia Tree.  I love spending time with friends and family, reading, writing and going to the beach.   I am a passionate person and am looking forward to putting my energy into Whatawhata School.