Principal News

By Simon Clarke | Posted: Friday April 2, 2021

Thank you to everyone who took part in our community survey.

We had nearly 100 respondents to our biennial community consultation survey and the Board and staff are very pleased with the responses.   The very helpful feedback has largely reflected individual families goals and beliefs rather than a strong theme that the vast majority wanted to be improved. Thank you to everyone who took the time to make a comment.  We appreciate the kind words and have considered all of the feedback carefully.

Communication channels was a topic that was brought up by parents but this ranged from being too much to not enough, and for every response we had that was looking for improvement, we had twice as many saying that they felt well informed.  We do see a need for more face to face communication which has been made more difficult by Covid19 over the last year due to the restrictions on group gatherings. This obviously had a big impact on our planned meet the teacher and information evening this year.  Going forward we are planning on hosting a PBL evening as part of the student's expo on Wednesday 26th of May where we will explain what is and what isn't PBL.  I will also run induction to school sessions with parents while their new entrant students are at Kaikorai Kiwis starting next term.  We also see a need for improving communication about the expectations as children transition between the syndicates.

The staff and students are to be commended with their work on our Voyages topic and we look forward to sharing this new learning at our aforementioned expo which will run in the school hall on Tuesday 25th and 26th of May with a late-night being available to parents on the 26th.  We will have more details closer to the time.  We will then pivot and start on our movie production with the premiere being held in mid-term 3 and then Kaikville.  For those who have not heard of Kaikville, it is a very popular programme with the students where we turn the school into a mini-society.  This will be especially exciting this year as the first of the new buildings will be completed by September and the fair will be able to be held in the new learning spaces.

The students have been wonderful in dealing with the limitations of the playground space.  Thank you to the staff who continue to take lunchtime programmes such as dance, Nairn St park, choir, KPSTV and sports practices which takes large numbers of children out of the playground.

Thank you to John Bish for teaching in Room 3 for the last year.  We are lucky enough to retain his services as he will continue to teach in Room 3 on a Friday.  We welcome back Miss Gilbert from maternity leave who will resume her role as Assistant Principal and Room 3 class teacher.  Thank you also to Amy McBeath who has filled in for Sarah in a leadership role so admirably.

We hope everyone gets a chance to spend some time together as a family over the students holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone next term.

Kind regards

Simon Clarke

Principal