It was lovely to meet so many of you at our Meet The Teacher evening last Thursday. Thank you for your attendance and for all the positive comments that you shared about our school, our staff and about your child's enjoyment of their new learning environment. Our goal is to ensure a smooth transition at the start of the year and to focus on students feeling happy, settled and having a sense of belonging. The feedback from last week reinforced that we are meeting our goal.

Next week we move into subject teaching. Students have had time to get to know their class peers and will be moving together as a whānau group from subject to subject. Teachers are excited to be meeting new classes next week and being able to teach their favourite subjects.

Subject teaching allows our teachers to teach their passion and to be experts in one curriculum area. Our smaller class sizes means that teachers can meet learning needs and abilities within the class and ensure that all students are able to progress. I am sure your child will enjoy all of their subjects next week and love meeting more teachers across the school.

Your child's whānau teacher is still the first point of contact for you if you have any questions or concerns. All staff emails are on the website. By now you should have had numerous email contacts from your child's whānau teacher. If not, it could be that we do not have the correct email details for you. Please phone the office to update these.

Enjoy the weekend. I look forward to seeing your children back at school enjoying subject teaching and learning next week.

Ngā mihi nui,

JoAnne Sutton

Last night our Board of Trustees met to approve the strategic plan and budget for 2022. We also went over the covid response plan that our Principal has written to ensure that we have procedures in place to act quickly if we need to adapt the way we deliver the curriculum to our students.

The school has a detailed covid response plan that is in line with the current covid framework from the Ministry of Health. We were pleased to see that the school has considered all scenarios in the response to the virus and its spread. We know that we are unable to anticipate every possible scenario but we feel confident that we have good systems in place that will ensure your child continues to get a quality education.

The annual plan and the budget for 2022 set goals to ensure that the school is meeting our vision of providing a quality education in a caring environment. Every year we strive to improve and add to the experience that our students have at Intermediate. Some of our goals for 2022 include:

*Increased educational programmes for students who show talent and ability beyond what is offered in the classroom

*Greater use of outdoor spaces as teaching areas with increased seating and shade cover

*To build a school fale that can be used as an outdoor learning or entertainment space

*To ensure student wellbeing is supported by offering counselling and mentoring to students

*Introduce 3D printing as part of our digital technology programme

*Deliver Aotearoa / NZ Histories curriculum to all students with a strong focus on our local area

*Build gardens and plant more fruit trees around the school that can be used as teaching tools for sustainability and self-sufficiency

*Develop stronger ties with the local College to help students prepare for the next step in their learning pathway

Raising student engagement and achievement continues to be a priority as is the wellbeing of all students.

We know that our school has the best interests of students in mind and we are well resourced to ensure a quality education. We are grateful to the hard work put in by all of the staff at our kura and the ongoing support from our community.

Board minutes will be on our website. We will also have the annual and strategic plan on the website after it has been submitted to the Ministry of Education.

As you will be aware, the country moved into phase 2 of the red traffic light system in response to the current Covid situation. We have updated our response plan to reflect the changes.

Here are a few reminders for you about how we are managing the current situation.

*Mask wearing indoors is compulsory. Please ensure your child has a mask with them at school every day.

*Students are with the same class of students all day for learning to ensure we can correctly track their close contacts.

*Students are keeping their own records of who they interact with at break times for contact tracing purposes.

*If a student is a confirmed case, all of their close contacts will be contacted. *Close contacts need to self isolate for 7 days and have a negative covid test on day 5 in order to return on day 8.

*We are observing all Ministry of Health mandates including social distancing across the school.

*We will not disclose the vaccination status of students to outside organisations. *Your child's health records are private. This means that they are only used in situations where there is a medical reason for these records to be accessed.

Our goal is to keep our community safe from the virus while still ensuring a quality education in a caring environment.

We are currently running trials and information sessions for students about team sports that are offered by clubs outside of school hours. These include waterpolo, basketball, softball and netball. Please encourage your child to check the daily notices to find out when there are meetings or trials if they wish to participate.

As these are optional activities, they do incur a cost and may need parents to manage or coach teams. If your child has missed a trial, it doesn't mean they miss out. Contact the teacher in charge for more information.

Basketball and Softball - Rachel Young - ryoung@bis.school.nz

Waterpolo - Vikki Glenn - vglenn@bis.school.nz

Netball - Katarina Martin - katarina@bis.school.nz

Our school uniform includes a hat. We recently changed from a bucket hat to a cap to encourage more students to wear their hat in the summer months. The Warehouse in Glenfield has lots of hats in stock.

Teachers are trying to do more teaching outdoors and to give frequent breaks from mask wearing. To do this in a way that is sunsmart we need to reinforce the message that sun hats must be worn in terms one and four.

Students not wearing a sunhat will be directed to be in the shade when outdoors.

Tuesday 1 March in our school hall from 6pm.

This is being run by NetSafe and is part of our school programme to increase student awareness and skills in a digital world.

The presentation will be informative for parents, students may also attend.

Netsafe will share the risks and opportunities of digital

technology, and the practical steps you can take to

minimise the chance of harm and help tamariki stay safe

online. The session will cover the Harmful Digital

Communications Act, online bullying, social media,

inappropriate content, and much more.

We will be hosting this in the school hall which is well ventilated. Masks must be worn and we will observe social distancing, contact tracing protocols and reduce numbers to less than 100. If we need additional space, we will live stream the presentation into a classroom. Please RSVP by emailing your child’s whānau teacher so we can monitor attendance numbers.

1st March - Road Patrol Training

- Managing Digital Safety Workshop for Parents 6pm

2nd March - Class Photos

15-16 March - Rocky Shore Trips for Science

Please contact office@bis.school.nz to advertise your community event in this space.