Term 1 Week 7

Kia ora koutou

Contents

• Middle/Senior camps
• Parent/Teacher Interview date
• Inter School Swim Sports

 

Mid/Senior Camps

Room 4 & 5 are off to camp on Thursday morning this week for a one night, two day experience.  I spoke with R4, while waiting for assembly this morning, they are excited about their adventure.  I believe school camps are very special times for students, teachers and the parents who support them as volunteers.  One of my life lessons is that when a group of people get together and share experiences, they often grow closer together.  This is true in my experience as a teacher, who has taken many camps over the years, and personally on adventures/camps/tramps or sports activities.  Camps have been one of my favourite things during my teaching career.  For some students being away from their parents for the first time is the learning or challenge.  For others it is an obstacle course, or waterslide or water activity that challenges them.  Parents can often be the ones who struggle more with separation themselves than their children.  We are all different and take away different things from camps.

Senior Camp next week

Rooms 6 & 7 are off next Tuesday for a three night, four day experience.  The longer stay brings the benefits of a longer shared experience and the forming on new relationships for children, teachers and parents.  The children will have more challenges to overcome, longer away from home coupled with multiple learning opportunities within the Mangonui local area.  A big thank you to the volunteer parents, who have taken time off to support the teachers and students during this time.  The volunteers will come home happy, tired and worked hard by our staff.

I will be attending both camps as I find these times invaluable getting to know the children and families a bit better.  This will mean I am out of the office checking emails during down time and delegating school leadership to staff remaining at school.  Camps definitely put my principal role under pressure by being out of school, but I’m a sucker for punishment for being fully involved with camps.

Thank you to all our parents who have promptly filled in the documents required to run safe camps.  We still have quite a few who have not paid the donation to run our camps and have not communicated their intentions.  As stated previously, the donation is not compulsory, but if parents do not support the funding of these camps they will not be able to continue in this format.

Parent / Teacher Interview

On Thursday the 15th April on the last week of term we will hold parent / teacher interviews.

Purpose:

• 5mins parents sharing information about their child or any concerns they have
• 5mins teacher checking contact details, parents use of seesaw at home

1pm early school finish

Interview start 1:30 – 6:10

An online booking form will be sent out closer to time.

 

Inter School Swim Sports – team

We have 9 students representing our sports zone at the Whangarei Interschool Swimming Sports at Whangarei Intermediate tomorrow.  Well done everyone on making the cut.  We wish you the all the best competing.  The teachers have commented that we have more confident swimmers coming through the school lately.  It shows the importance of regular school swimming during Term 1 & 4.  Our teachers have been trained a number of times by Swim for Life coaches on early swimming techniques.  I regularly enjoy watching stroke development sessions when I test the pool water throughout the day.

Mrs Cowan will be taking the team to the competition with a group of volunteer parents.