By Simon Clarke | Posted: Wednesday September 19, 2018
The 3 R's for Principals... Retirements, Recruitment and Road Safety
We will be starting the process of planning for 2019 this week after the Board accepted the resignations of two of our longest serving staff members. Dale Blackie, who is currently on sick leave, and Susan Oldfield after over twenty years of dedicated service to Kaikorai Primary School will be following other pursuits in 2019. Dale is looking forward to more travel and playing more croquet while Susan will be spending more time with grandchildren and family.
They will be hard to replace, but next week we will be conducting interviews for their jobs, and we look forward to announcing in the new term on their replacements. Once the appointments are made, we will be starting to put together the classes for 2019.
Roll numbers largely dictate the school structure. In 2019 we will be having a Year 4/5 class as part of the seniors and a year 1/2 class in the juniors. This will allow for smaller classes across all year groups. When we organise classes in our school, we look at each of our students’ academic and social needs and abilities. We use our cumulative teachers’ notes and check friendships with each child. We strive to achieve the best possible learning environments for all of our students and teachers. We actively decide to separate some students and join others to achieve the best possible learning and teaching outcomes.
If you believe you have any special information that you feel our teachers may not be aware of please email me at [email protected] or make a time to talk to me in person. It is important if you have any information to share that you let us know before Week 1 Term 4.
It is sad to end the newsletter on a negative note but lately the parking around the school, and more importantly, the attitude towards people who are keeping our students safe has frankly been appalling.
It is important that as adults we model the school values to our children. Parking on our neighbours' driveways or their DCC permitted park on Tyne St is not Kind. We are not "making good decisions" and being independent when we park on the yellow lines and obstruct the views of children crossing the road. Remember that they are half our heights and can't see over the cars.
Finally what has been most disappointing is that some of us are not aspiring to be the "best that we can be". Unfortunately, our local police officer was verbally abused last week by a parent as I have many times recently when asking people not to park where they shouldn't be. I also witnessed one of our fantastic road patrol wardens being abused as well.
Please do not leave your car in the 5 minute zone. It is amazing what a difference it makes when the 5 minutes areas are free-flowing. The Police and DCC parking wardens will continue to check this area and will be issuing infringement notices.