Newsletter 2nd February 2023

Kia ora whānau,

What a pleasure it was to welcome back our tamariki yesterday. Despite the somewhat lacklustre summer thus far, I hope you were able to enjoy some quality time together as a whānau. It is with a great amount of pride that I take on the role of Acting Tumuaki for Term 1. Having first been a member of this learning community as a parent, then as Deputy Principal, I have a well rounded perspective of what makes our kura special and also where the journey lies ahead.

After a couple of disruptive years we are excited to once again open our gates and invite our whānau to be an active part of our learning community. While the realities of working life may mean you are not always able to attend our events, we do hope that you will be an active part of our learning community - we will all be the richer for it.

A special welcome to those whānau that have just joined our kura - we think this place is pretty special and hope that your tamariki will too! Please make yourselves known to us and reach out if you have any questions or queries about the year ahead. As noted below in the ‘Upcoming Events’ we have our ‘Connecting with Whānau’ evenings coming up in Week 3. This is a great opportunity for us all to make connections and for our kaiako to share with whānau what teaching and learning looks like at your child's level in our kura.

Over the next few weeks our primary focus is whanaungatanga - forming and building strong connections. This week your child’s teacher is sending home a ‘Getting to know you and your Whānau’ google form for you to complete. We really appreciate you taking the time to complete this and provide us with important information about your child and how we can set them up for a successful year ahead.

Lastly, our school website has recently been updated (Taradale Primary School) with the intent that whānau will have key information easily accessible. While our website is now ‘live’, it is a work in progress. In order to attract the best candidates for our Tumuaki position we brought forward its scheduled release in order to showcase our kura and more closely reflect what makes us special. Watch this space!

Ngā mihi nui,

Greg English

• Term 1 Begins - Wednesday 1st February

• Waitangi Day - School Closed - Monday, February 6

• Year 6 Opti Yachting - 13th – 17th February

• Team Tahi - Connecting with whānau - Monday 13th February 6:00pm – 7:00pm

• Team Toru - Connecting with whānau - Wednesday 15th February 6:00pm – 7:00pm

• Team Rua - Connecting with whānau - Thursday 16th February 6:00pm – 7:00pm

• ART DECO Day - Friday 24th February

• End of Term 1 - Thursday 6th April

As part of Team Rua's 'Big Day Out' at the end of 2022, we went to a movie called Strange World. At the time, Reading Cinemas were running a colouring competition that many of our Team Rua tamariki participated in. Well...we are very excited to say that TARADALE PRIMARY SCHOOL won the Strange World school’s competition - a prize of $500 for Team Rua to use!

And the 3 pictures they particularly liked and which secured a win for TPS were created by Aria T, Gavin Y and Freija R (all from 3C/Rm 15 in 2022)! Well done to these amazing TPS tamariki. The $500 will go towards buying some new play equipment for Team Rua's Tinkering Time!