• Monday 18th October - Term 4 starts
  
• Thursday 21st October - Pet Day
• Friday 22nd October - Teachers Only Day
• Monday 25th October - Labour Day
• Monday 8th November - BOT meeting @ 6pm
• Wednesday 17th November - Sports Prizegiving
• Friday 19th November - Junior Prizegiving
• Wednesday 24th November - Senior Prizegiving
• Friday 26th November - Teachers Only Day
• Wednesday 1st December - Year 8 Dinner
• Tuesday 14th December - Last day of Term 4

RAISE Goal: to celebrate everything that I have achieved this term

Te reo phrase of the week: kuhu mai ki roto (come inside)

Kia ora,

As we come to the end of Term 3 it is once again prudent to thank our parents/caregivers and community members for the wonderful support that our school receives. From the hard work that you all put into your children’s learning over lockdown to the ease in which you quickly adjusted to our Alert Level 2 protocols, having a supportive community really makes our jobs easier.

Hopefully many of you will be coming to the end of calving and will be able to spend a bit of time catching up with your family over the next couple of weeks. Let’s hope we get a bit more sun, without the constant rain.

Looking ahead to Term 4, we have made a few changes that we feel reflect the direction of our school, please find them listed below Kurt’s update from the Board of Trustees.

On behalf of all of the staff at Matapu School, we would like to thank you for your continued support and we look forward to catching up with everyone next term.

Ngå mihi nui

James Willson

In this crazy world we live in it's been so pleasing to see the way James has led his team through the uncertainty surrounding varying covid circumstances and alert levels.

As a BOT we really would like to thank him for this. It's not easy but he has been on top of his game led from the front and as a result homeschooling has been fairly seamless.

A big thank you to our amazing teachers who also quickly adapted and made homeschooling a success.

There's been a bit going on from a BOT perspective, we have co-opted two new members onto the board. We welcome Gemma Adams and Nathan Joyce to the team.

Succession is always something that is in our minds and as we head into the end of another BOT term we believed the timing was right to introduce some new blood into the board.

Gemma brings skills in community liaison and with her design background adds a different skillset to the BOT. Nathan brings skills in both finance and property. We look foward to working with both Gemma and Nathan and feel they will both be vital members of the team.

From a property perspective we have finally had sign off on the classroom refurbishments which has been a big long drawn out project that we can finally put to bed. The build looks amazing and has given the school a real fresh approach.

We are in the process of completing final drawings and obtaining quotes for our new makerspace area that will play a major part in where our curriculum heads in the next few years. Your community survey responses pointed to a favor of localized curriculum and life skills / problem solving as being key areas for us to focus on. It's an exciting project that all levels of the school will enjoy. This project will be up and running for the start of the 2022 school year.

This is being funded by grants received from the TSB community trust and the TET.

A big contribution of this project is a direct result of the 'Rear a Bull' fundraising from our school parents and extended local community.

SPA have also made a significant contribution to the project.

A big thank you to all listed above it's great to see so much support for our school which provides our students with some outstanding opportunities.

As James has touched on the board decided to split the pet day and gala this year. With heavy workloads on staff and so much happening in term 4 it made sense to split the two up.

The petday committee consisting of some BOT members and some SPA members are well underway with their planning and the gala will be a awesome way to kick off next year.

Have a great school holidays everyone and catch you back next term.

Matapu School BOT

Pet Day/ Gala Evening

For Pet Day this year we will run the event during the school day on Thursday 21st October. This allows us to have a dedicated event solely focused on the various animals that our students choose to share. We will then run a Gala Evening on the 4th March next year, which I’m sure will be an absolutely epic event.

Prizegiving

Due to the huge community turn out that we receive for our annual school prizegiving event, we have had to change things up a bit this year to ensure that we are not exceeding the Matapu Community Hall’s maximum capacity. Therefore we will hold a Junior Prizegiving Assembly on Friday 19th November at 9:15 am to celebrate the achievements of Rooms 4, 5, and 6. We will then hold a Senior Prizegiving event on Wednesday 24th November at 6 pm for Rooms 1, 2, and 3. Both events will be approximately one hour in duration. The reduced numbers attending the events should enable all family members to be seated. Younger children (in Rooms 4, 5, and 6) will not be able to attend the senior prizegiving as this will push our numbers over the maximum allowable.

Hangi

We have decided to move the School Hangi to Term 1 2022. This will hopefully lead to some more favourable weather conditions and provide us with an opportunity for our parents/caregivers to have a ‘meet and greet’ night with our teachers.

BYOD

We have had a massive uptake of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in our senior classes (Rooms 1, 2, and 3) this year, which has been great to see. The students have been able to use their own device to personalise their learning and quickly access education based apps (as they are already logged in). We highly recommend that our families who will have children in Years 5-8 next year, look into purchasing your child/ren an Apple iPad to support their learning. The school provides a hard case with a keyboard and supplies all of the apps that your child/ren will use at school. We also have a financial hardship option available, please make a time to see me if you would like to discuss this further.

We have partnered up with Noel Leeming again so that you can access special BYOD pricing. You will need to create an online account and note Matapu School down as your BYOD partner. Due to the latest Apple iPad only being released last week, we don’t have a flyer that we can share with you at this time. However if you click on the link below, it will take you to the iPad that we recommend for 2022, the BYOD price is $529. Please catch up with Anna Hauparoa or myself if you need any further information.

Apple iPad

Distance Learning Survey

If you have already completed this survey, I would like to thank you for your feedback. If you haven’t had a chance, please click on the link below. It should only take 5 minutes to complete.

Please click on the following link to complete the survey: https://forms.gle/ELi2UEuMhJTJddVB9

Well Done!!

• Can we please have all Pet Day trophies returned to the office asap.
  

Students must have their own tennis racket.

Huriha to aroaro ki te ra tukuna to atarangi kia taka ki muri i a koe.

Turn your face to the sun and let the shadows fall behind you.

The term has skidded to a halt! With a blip in the middle while we were in Lockdown it has made learning a challenge, but we are really excited to notice the progress that has been made in lots of areas in the last few weeks. Mrs Bailey has updated all the word trackers in the Home Learning books so you will be able to spend a few minutes a day learning new words, and rechecking previous ones, if you have the time and energy! This should help us to get a good start to Term 4, which always zips by very quickly.

Have a wonderful break- whether you are away or at home- and see you in two weeks time!

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

Mark Joblin Concept & Construction Ltd, Sanfords Rural Carriers, Taranaki By-Products, McDonald Real Estate, Eltham Vet Services, ANZCO, Power Farming, Corrigan Electrical, Matapu Bulk Transport, CRV Ambreed, FMG, Mack Transport, Blastways, Nevada, Ballance, Todd Energy, & BCCL (Burgess Crowley Civil Limited) Carrfields Livestock, Rosemount Charolais - Dairy Bull Specialists, PGG Wrightson Livestock, Jack Gray Ltd, Bruce Parry Livestock, Kelsen's Glass & Glazing, Tommo's Tyres Ltd, Chris Perrett Electrical Solutions, Holdem Contracting Ltd, STE (South Taranaki Electrical), Kaponga Four Square, MG Taranaki, JP Refrigeration.

PLEASE SUPPORT THOSE THAT SUPPORT US