Newsletter Term 3 Week 6
Pekapekarau Primary School - 1st September 2022
Principal's message
Tēna koutou katoa
Kōanga/Spring is in the air - we are all excited about tomorrow’s Cross Country and Colour Run and the opportunity to have whānau join us in cheering everyone on. This is the first time we are running (get it?) this event like this - with both the Cross Country and Colour Run separate, but on the same day. We didn’t want to do away with the opportunity for those who love to run and thrive in this area to have their moment challenging themselves against their peers, but are all looking forward to some quality fun and entertainment in the afternoon. We even have some special guests coming along - I hope you all come dressed, ready to run and beat the team from our community who are coming along to join us! Thank you to everyone who has fundraised, we love how our whānau get in behind us to be able to provide opportunities and equipment for our tauira (students).
Yesterday we welcomed a new cohort of Kickstarters who will be joining us next term in The Nest. While I was unable to attend their mihi whakatau, we are so proud of the way our tamariki and kaiako in The Nest do this themselves and make our new whānau feel part of Pekapekarau.
Last week a massive group of tamariki and whānau travelled to Rotorua for the Junior Tough Guy/Gal Challenge. They started off bright yellow and many ended up with massive smiles and massive amounts of mud on them. Thank you to everyone, the kaiako and whānau who gave up their time to make this opportunity happen. Putting ourselves in situations of challenge and creating memories is a really important part of well-being and making us all feel connected, successful and happy!
I hope everyone who signed up received their Potato in a Bucket instructions and have organised how and when you are going to plant your seed and nurture this. Again, this is another opportunity for you as whānau to be involved in your tamariki’s learning and create a memorable experience! You might even get some yummy potatoes at the end of it to enjoy together!
Today we hosted a number of Tumuaki/Principal’s from our Te Awamutu cluster who are part of MAC - Maori Achievement Collaborative. We really enjoyed having our colleagues from many local kura who are committed to this kaupapa to work together and it was a great opportunity for some of our tauira to host a mihi whakatau to welcome them to our kura and show them what amazing rangatahi (young people) we have at Pekapekarau.
We will be having our final Teacher Only Day for 2022 on the last day of this term. This day is for Professional Development for our kaiako to learn about the Aotearoa/New Zealand Histories Curriculum
Ngā mihi mahana,
Tania and the Pekapekarau Team
TOMORROW
You can still fundraise!
- Sign up and make your Student Profile Page www.schoolfunrun.co.nz
- Share your fundraising link via email, text or social media with your whaanau and friends!
Message from the Presiding Member
Kia ora everyone,
Last Wednesday we had our very first board hui as the new board following the triennial school board elections. The purpose of this meeting was to welcome the new members, get to know each other a bit more, and for the previous board to handover any key bits of information/learnings to support continuity and momentum moving forward.
Kerry Emery from our previous board, joined us at this first hui to support handover and to celebrate the key successes of the last 3 years. We noted that for the majority of the previous board term, Covid had been a big factor with various changes to navigate continuously. Despite this, we are really proud of all that was achieved during this time. There has been a tremendous amount of work done by Management to embed systems that ensure consistency of practice, evaluation and reporting at every level of our school. Our staff have been integral in ensuring that these were implemented in the right way and to facilitate learning that is interesting and relevant to our diverse young learners. This work is evident in our student achievement data which has seen the reduction of discrepancies between our different cohorts. The foundation of evidenced-based, consistent practice at Pekapekarau provides the new board with an exciting platform to look into the future and continue to lift achievement for all students. We also celebrated the correction of our school name to Pekapekarau. While this is something that should have happened a long time ago, we are pleased to have finished the term with this corrected and seeing the way our tamariki have enthusiastically engaged in learning about our history. Last year, we officially appointed Tania Bagley as our Principal. This appointment was met positively by our school community and allowed us to continue building on the work done over the last few years. Ngā mihi nui to our previous board members for all of your time invested and decisions made which has allowed us to positively hand over to the new board.
Our first major item as the new board is to consider is what our strategic plan looks like moving forward. We will be sharing more about this process with you over the coming months.
We look forward to being able to be together as a school community for our School Cross Country/Colour Run this week.
Erinna Lane
Presiding Member
Pekapekarau School Board
Sharing from Room 9
Mathematics Online
We are pleased to be offering Matific - an online Maths platform that tamariki can both use in the classroom and at home to support their mathematics learning. If you don't have your log in yet, contact your child's kaiako (teacher).
Rerenga kupu ō te rā & Wero ō te rā
School Lunch menus
Lunch menus for Term 3
Notices
Seesaw
Have you updated your Seesaw app lately? Do so, to make sure that you are receiving our messages from the office and from your child's classroom.
We are welcoming new enrolments to our Kura! Do you know someone who is interested in enrolling their tamariki at our school? This also includes out of zone enrolments.
Share this with whānau that you know.
Save the Date
Pekapekarau School Cross Country
School Fun Run
Friday 2nd September
Juicies and Sausage Sizzle available
Interschool Cross Country
Friday 9th September
Postponement date - Interschool Cross Country
Monday 12th September
Board Meeting
21st September 5-45am - 7.45am
School Staffroom
TAI Year 6 Information Evening
6.00pm tp 7.00pm
Last Day of Term 3
29th September 2022
Teacher Only Day
30th September 2022
Term 4 Starts
Monday 17th October
Have you downloaded our School App?
See the link below
Email: office@pekapekarau.school.nz
Phone: +64 7 871 6025