Kia ora parents, caregivers, and extended whanau

I hope you had a nice long weekend. This week is Support Staff week. Margaret Stormont, Bronwyn Black, Kathy Davis, Mel Guilford, Ngaire Jamieson, Justine Morrison and Rosie Wells, are our support team. They support our school in many ways. Working with students, supporting our teachers, running our administration systems and keeping our school buildings and grounds in order. If you ever hear the term 'well resourced school', look past the material things such as the best grounds, facilities and equipment, and have a look at the personnel. Because the most important resource a school has is it's human resource and we are very fortunate to have a very strong human resource in the shape of our support staff team. We would love to clone them. Perhaps this is something for the government and the Ministry of Education to ponder when they are considering how and where to provide funding for schools.

Our junior teachers read a compelling article from Perry Rush entitled 'Becoming literate' as part of their teaching inquiry into improving reading. You may have heard or seen Perry Rush, as he is ever present in the media. He was most recently the principal of Hastings Intermediate and president of the New Zealand Principals' Federation, he is now working for a consultancy company. He has his fingers on the pulse of education, and I have always respected his astute perspectives. His article explored the declining standards of literacy in New Zealand and outlined a number of key factors contibuting to this decline over the past decade. The factors span from flaws in learning programmes at school and extend into households where certain domestic situations are putting the squeeze on healthy routines that promote language use. I have been in communication with him around the article, seeking clarity on a few statements he made. According to Rush, a key factor behind this decline is that reading is no longer fun for many kids. The instant gratification of technology and device use has become more enticing, and books are seen as boring. This is probably not startling news to you. But let's have a think on that for a bit. The reading challenge in term 1 has gone some way towards helping books regain some of their status with our tamariki and reading is seen as a pleasurable pursuit again. However, the lure of devices will always be there so we must collectively and deliberately promote BOOKS before TECHNOLOGY. I am acutely aware of the challenges of this, as we have two teenagers with loads of homework that requires the use of a laptop, so we have have to be vigilant with their use of the laptop as it is all to easy to slip from their homework task to some mindless browsing. Perry Rush also alludes to less oral language in the house, once again citing increasing technology use and busy working households as factors behind the reduction in talk. 'Dinner Talk' was one of our intitatives to promote focussed learning conversation but also to keep korero alive in the home. Research clearly supports speaking and listening as a foundation of literacy development in young people. If you have a child who loves to talk at home, then that is great, but perhaps switch roles and you take charge of the dialogue and get them to activate their listening skills.

With that in mind, I plan to pull out the Cluedo board game that is still unopened from Christmas. There will be no laptop use and I will be going through the game instructions step by step to see how sharp my childrens' listening skills are, as well as their patience.

Have a great rest of the week

Jade Tawhiti

• Year 6 girls placed 2nd
• Year 6 Boys A placed 2nd
• Year 5 Boys B placed 3rd
• Year 3 & 4 boys A placed 2nd
• Year 3 & 4 girls A placed 3rd

The School Board has commenced the process of searching for our next Principal. An important part of this process is to seek feedback from the school community about the next leader.

The School Board invites you to provide this feedback via the following link and thanks you in advance for your contribution.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkAsloL657TV7wWqRsoMUvjv1_4jFGa7Vs_of38qEizAOTrA/viewform?usp=sf_link

• 09th June - Book Fair Opens
  
• 15th June - Book Character Dress up & Parade
• 16th June - Calf Club meeting in Rm2 - 2.30pm
• 20th June - Photolife Photos - Class, student leaders, netball
• 21st June - Last day for Book Fair
• 24th June - Matariki Day - no school
  
• 29th June - BOT Meeting - 5.30pm
  
• 30th June - PTA AGM - 2.30 - 3.30pm
• 01st July - Jammies in June Mufti Day
• 01st July - Matariki Assembly
• 05th July - Franklin Zone Hockey