Kia ora e te whānau o te kura o Parakawhara (hello friends & family of Gladstone School). We are very grateful for your support during the week as we navigated the weather, forecast weather and the road conditions. We are pleased for local landowners that the predicted amount of rain didn't eventuate on Thursday and thank families for understanding our decision to close as a precaution. For those of you who have been affected by recent flooding and high rain fall, we are thinking of you and the unfortunate position this puts you and your family in. Please reach out to us if we can help in any way.

Reminder - 150th Celebration Committee - If you or anyone you know is willing and able to join us in organising this all important community event, please reach out - principal@gladstone1.school.nz. Thanks to those of you who have put your names down already.

Deepest sympathies go out to the whānau of Maddy Wallace. Maddy & David's daughter Kayla was a past pupil of Gladstone School. Everyone who knew Maddy has been warmly invited by her whānau to celebrate her life on the 17th of March - details above.

Students are travelling by bus from school to the Carterton Pools next Wednesday. This is our practice run for the Carterton Cluster Swimming event being held on Wednesday 1st of March. We are also looking forward to the whānau group relay - if parents would like to rustle up a team to race the whānau groups please do - teams of 5. We would be grateful if any family members were available to run the sausage sizzle - please contact Belinda (principal@gladstone1.school.nz).

We have a fund raising event coming up on 24th February (lunch for the 25th). This is quite a big fundraiser with over 200 boxed lunches needing to be provided by us. If you are interested in helping on the day (Friday after school/early evening) making sandwiches and boxing up lunches, baking either cake, slice or muffins (also need gluten free/dairy free/ vegan), or if you are keen to donate some money to the FoGS account, please let me know on 027 766 5009. Your help on this is so appreciated, and all the profit goes towards our kids, in our school! Thanks in advance Hayley Quirke.

Congratulations to the following tamariki (children) who were awarded certificates by their classroom teachers today - our focus this week has been on Kaitiakitanga (Guardianship of People, Places; Language & things): Jade Francis; Archy Ashby; Kaylee Huck; Archie Stevenson; Harry James; Jaelyn Fraser; Sidney Mason.

Ko ngā rangatahi, ngā rangatira o āpōpō, our children are the leaders of tomorrow.

It is time for our ākonga to learn, understand and share our country’s kōrero tuku iho, historical stories that can be passed on through generations.

Please note as above Wings Over Wairarapa has been postponed. We will let you know the new date as soon as we know. We have our rescheduled check and connect meetings next Thursday. Also coming up is the Gladstone School Practice Swim and our Carterton Cluster Swimming Event. Information is going out via the app, please check these alerts as they come through. Staff are working on camp organisation, an approximate cost is below - we encourage you to start planning ahead for this, an additional $10 per week paid onto your school account certainly helps rather than trying to come up with whole amounts at the time. Please let us know if you anticipate any difficulty with camp costs.

We wish you a lovely weekend.

Ngā manaakitanga,

Belinda

Each Monday our wonderful FoGS committee organise school lunches for our tamariki. Can an adult in your whānau help one Monday this year with school lunches @ 12:40 pm for approximately ½ hour?

Parent Helpers get the food ready for handing out at eating time. Please contact Liz Mason (lizarthan@hotmail.com) if you can be a parent help.

Thank you to the following fabulous families who have offered help to start the year off. A roster for the remainder of the year will follow once we have volunteers:

Tues 7/2 Paula Dick
Mon 13/2 Bron Wood
Mon 20/2 Liz Mason
Mon 27/2 Paula Dick

In other FoGS news we have a couple of fundraisers in the pipeline - catering for a family reunion (200 boxed lunches for the 25th February). Requests for baking will be sent out closer to the time.

The other event is a Cèilidh or céilí. Which, according to google, is a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering. In its most basic form, it simply means a social visit. In contemporary usage, it usually involves dancing and playing Gaelic folk music, either at a house party or a larger concert at a social hall or other community gathering place.

Week 4

Wed 22/2 - Gladstone School Practice Swimming Event

Week 5

Wed 1/3 - Carterton Cluster Swimming Event