Welcome to the first official newsletter of the year. We publish 2 newsletters a term with messages from the school, examples of classroom work, and community notices. Any past newsletters that you may have missed can be found on the school website under the communications tab. Please also keep an eye on the calendar on the website as that keeps you informed of what is coming up.

Our Year 7 camps have started and I was fortunate to visit Room 3 and 4's camp briefly earlier this week. The students were all engrossed in team-building activities despite the blistering heat. That night I joined Room 5's noho marae experience at Omaka and enjoyed kai with students and whānau. Next week Rooms 5, 8, 12, and 13 head away to Pine Valley, I hope they have just as good a time.

We have lots of activities coming up in the next few weeks with whānau hui, school photos, the annual school triathlon all happening in week 7, swimming sports next week and our annual chocolate fundraiser starting soon. Get involved and support your child with these activities as much as you can. Our school motto is "Maximising Potential" and we try to encourage all of our students to get involved in as much as they can in their two years at Bohally.

At the beginning of each year we like to remind parents of the importance of monitoring your child's computer and cellphone use. Please be aware that most social media platforms are for 13-year-olds and above, not 11 and 12-year-olds.

The information below is from John Parson who works across many schools in New Zealand:

It is not uncommon for Mondays in many schools across New Zealand to be a stressful time for students and staff. Arguments between students played out across social media during the weekend end up exploding in the playgrounds or classrooms. The following two or three days are spent trying to resolve the conflict or protect a child from harm. Generally, in primary schools, its low-level arguments which evolve over the weekend. Often between children who are not older enough to be on the social media platforms, they are using to either bully others or are themselves the victims of online abuse. In high schools, the type of online weekend bullying includes rumour spreading, damaging reputations and threats of violence that will be delivered on Monday at school—often involving females being brutal and cruel to other female students. These are dangerous situations that, left unchallenged, can lead to tragedy. The use of unregulated information communication technology (ICT) has a causal relationship to these issues. If the guardian does not know what the child is doing, they cannot guide them, advise them, or correct them when situations develop, which, left unchallenged, can lead to antisocial behaviour. This is Cyber Separation, and in the early years of a child's life should not be allowed to develop. Letting children and young teenagers loose in cyberspace without support is a risk factor.

I know that many of our families will have good systems in place in regard to device use such as handing in phones and computers at night, ensuring device use is kept to a minimum in the evening to help sleep etc. These routines will help your child at school and prevent the tired and wired scenario when students have been left to game all night or have unmonitored social media use leading to increased risk of bullying or harm. We thank you for your support with this. On Tuesday 28th March Marlborough Girls College is running a cyber safety evening which I strongly recommend attending, this will be presented by Rob Cope - author, parent, and filmmaker of the 2020 documentary "Our kids online". See details of this evening below in the community news section.

Finally, we are taking time today to remember our fellow New Zealanders who are recovering from cyclone Gabriel, with a mufti day to raise funds for the Red Cross disaster appeal. Many families have been left without a home and schools have not been able to reopen in some areas. We hope that nothing like this happens to us and we can be thankful that most of us can carry on with life as normal. For those of you who have family or friends affected please pass on our good wishes for some sort of normalcy soon.

Ngā mihi,

Nicky

On Monday 27th February teachers in our school will be attending paid union meetings to discuss the progress of negotiations for their collective employment agreements and the proposed unified public service pay offer.

This campaign aims to win smaller class sizes, more support for high-needs students, better recognition of cultural skills, greater job security for our essential relievers and to fairly value and recognise the work of teachers.

To allow our teachers to attend a meeting at 1.30pm, we will finish school at 1pm on that day (Monday 27th February). Witherlea buses will run at 1pm. For other bus students and families, we would appreciate it if you can organise an early pick-up, if this is not an option for you please contact your child's class teacher and we will provide supervision for your child by either myself or one of our support staff members.

Please note: Students in Rooms 5 and 8 will not be affected, they will be away at their Pine Valley camp which will run without disruption.

Thank you for your support of our hard-working team.

Whanui hui/3 way conferences are being held on Monday 13th (3.30-6.15) and Tuesday 14th March (1.30- 6pm).

Attending Whanau Hui is a fantastic opportunity to touch base with your child's teacher, work collaboratively on your child's goals, ask questions, and find out how they've settled into the new school year.

If you haven't already booked to see your child's teacher, please click on this link , or go to schoolinterviews.co.nz and use the code 7qdug. If these dates do not suit you then please make contact with the class teacher to arrange a phone call or to meet at another time.

The school will close at 1pm on Tuesday. The Witherlea buses will run at 1pm. Students on other buses will have to make alternative arrangements for that day.

We would love some new members to help with fundraising initiatives at Bohally. If you have the enthusiasm to help please come along to this meeting. It is also a great way to meet other parents and staff members.

Everyone welcome!

The camp was focused on building relationships and positive class cultures, through a variety of excitinig outdoor, adventure-based, team-building activities such as: making damper, orienteering, tree planting, and adventure problem-solving tasks. Of course, with a dose of water sliding !

Students participated in mihi whakatau with Te Pā Wānanga and a wānanga on pōwhiritanga with Matua Tuku and Matua Te Oho.

By James A

Room 18

On the 10th of February, we had our first NKO day of the year. we really enjoyed NKO day because there were lots of well-run games and sports. It was good because there were games that everyone could take part in. there were character points to encourage students to keep sportsmanship. Tane Mahuta won the run fairly shield for winning the most character points and overall we placed 2nd. We played lots of fun games including, Snatch, Golden Child, Big ball soccer, multi-sport, long ball, crash, dodgeball and capture the flag.

Cyber Safety and our Rangatahi

Marlborough Girls' College — March 28th 7-9pm, 2023

Marlborough Girls' College are delighted to offer a Cyber Safety information evening on Tuesday 28 March for interested parents, whānau and students.

Rob Cope - Author, Parent and Filmmaker of the 2020 documentary 'Our Kids Online' is visiting Blenheim on 28 March to present an information seminar on Cybersafety. You can find out more about Rob at https://www.ourkidsonline.info/.

• Date: Tuesday 28 March 2023
• Time: 7 pm to 9 pm
• Location: MGC Hall

This evening is open to all parents, students, whānau and any other interested people from the local Marlborough community.

This is a great opportunity to:

• Better understand the harms our kids are facing in relation to predators, pornography, gaming, fake news, social media access and the 24/7 switched on effect on the developing brain
• Learn practical solutions to keep your children safer online
• Learn healthy ways to approach these tricky topics
• Find out what to do when your child has been exposed to something harmful

This work on cybersafety has also been incorporated into our Hauora Programme for 2023 so that we can better support our rangatahi and their whānau to understand how to stay safe and protect themselves online.

Childcare available

We are keen to make this evening accessible to as many parents as possible. Therefore, if you need to bring younger children along, some of our Manutaki will be available to keep them occupied and happy while you listen to Rob.

There will also be tea and coffee and biscuits avaliable.

Pelorus Community Preschool, located in Havelock is bringing you the annual Kaituna Ramble. A fun 12km walk or run around Kaituna Ridges Farm located at 76 Readers Road, Havelock.

This is our main fundraiser event for the year and would like to make it a good one, so please share our flyer attached to your school newsletter and any school apps your school or company may use.

This year we will have a silent auction that will take place in the woolshed.

ALSO there will be a bus transporting participants to and from the event. Thank you to Nathan and the team at Marlborough Tour Company.

The bus will make 3 stops.

1st Bus stop @7.05am Marlborough A&P Park, corner of Maxwell Road and Alabama Road (where Farmers Market is held).

2nd Bus stop @7.15am Seymour Square, at Clock Tower.

3rd Bus stop @7.30am Renwick. Outside Phoenix Cafe and Gas Station.

This is a complementary bus, but a koha donation is welcomed when boarding and all money raised will go towards Pelorus Community Preschool.

The bus will then depart Kaituna Ridges Farm at 12.30pm.

Please txt Nikita 0274408940 to make a bus reservation.

Please share the word, bring yourself plus a friend! We look forward to seeing you there.

Any questions please let me know.

Halberg, in partnership with the Stadium 2000 and many Marlborough sporting bodies have organised to have a monthly disability sports group available to young people with impairments run at the Stadium 2000 in Blenheim one Sunday a month.

We are starting off at 11.00am on Sunday the 19th of March with Hockey Marlborough delivering the session.

Could you please register below so we know who is coming along!

https://halberg.formtitan.com/regionaleventregistration?fld19=a00BB000005ZRFHYA4

It would be great to continue to support this initiative and get some good numbers on board so please share far and wide!

Let me know if you have any questions.

Does your child require further support, over and above what can be offered at school?

Would your child benefit from bespoke and nurturing learning sessions from a highly experienced teacher designed to accelerate learning and boost confidence? We would love to help. We are a team of dedicated teachers, specialising in English and Maths support, for primary, intermediate and college students. Visit www.boostyourlearning.co.nz for more information or contact Jenny 021 223 3349 to book a free consultation.

WHAT: The Great Charity Lawn Bowls Event

WHEN: Saturday 1st April, 4 - 6pm

WHERE: Blenheim Bowling Club, Weld Street Blenheim.

WHO: Social/Family/Corporate teams of 3. All abilities, however, players must be at least 10 years old & have at least one adult in the team.

ENTRY FEE: $20 per person ($60 per team)

Life Education is a charity that works in schools to educate and inspire children and young people to make positive choices. Our teacher, along with Harold the Giraffe, visit up to 35 schools a year across Marlborough and Kaikoura. The 'Healthy Harold' Programme is delivered using multi-sensory teaching techniques to encourage all learning styles and help with retention of knowledge, covering topics like food and nutrition, human biology, identity, resilience, and substances.