Week 9 Term 4 Panui
Monday/Rāhina - 13th November
Contact Us
Email: office@witherlea.school.nz
Website: https://witherlea.school.nz
Location: 214-216 Weld Street, Witherlea, Blenheim 7201, New Zealand
Phone: 64 (03) 578 5568
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/witherleablenheim
Principal Message
Kia ora koutou Witherlea whānau,
The final message for the 2021 year is one of immense gratitude and is extended to our community, to our Witherlea whānau for; your patience, for your kindness, for your support and for your understanding during another COVID year.
Many colleagues and schools across New Zealand are facing hugely difficult times as communities flare up due to cancelled events and vaccine passports...but not you. So, thank you for this because it has meant a great deal to us - that pressure was not added to the shoulders of our hardworking team here at school and so many events have still gone ahead.
We celebrated our Service Assembly on Friday which highlighted the Year 5-6 Superheroes for all their contribution to the school. We farewelled Sarina Ibbotson from our Board of Trustees for her near 8 years of service in the roles of Policy, HR and Principal Appraisal. We also celebrated our two amazing teachers; Mrs Herdman and Ms Stringer who have had 20 years of teaching service at Witherlea and finally we farewelled our dear Mrs Holmes who retires from teaching in 5 more days.
We will be farewelling Harriet Mackle who has won a position at Mayfield School, Angela Ives who has won a position at Tua Marina, Hazel Halton who is on Study Leave for 2022 and Val Nelson who is off on some new adventures. We wish all our colleagues wherever they are going and whatever they are doing success and happiness.
Finally, we will be farewelling our superb group of Year 6 students who have grown in confidence, size, maturity and most of all their learning throughout their journey. They are our stars and this will be their final week at Primary School - we are so proud of them all.
An essential part of life, is the coming and going of people and facing the changes, taking them in our stride. We model this to our students during these farewells and even though we are sad, new things are coming and we should always be looking forward to our future while remembering the past.
Whakatipuranga - Successsion
Māku te ra e tō ana; kei a koe, te urunga ake o te rā
Let mine be the setting of the sun; yours is the dawning of a new day
We have been into all our Year 5-6 classes this week to remind them of the extra kindness that is needed due to;
- some of them transitioning to a new school and all the emotions that go with this
- tiredness at this time of year with everything on
- puberty and how this affects us on the inside
So, being extra kind, watching what we say to each other will help everyone finish the 2021 year on a high, on a positive - which is so important.
We have also completed all camps and everyone got there and back safely which is priority number one and secondly, they had a blast! We were one of the very few schools that continued during Alert Level 2 to go on our camps and this was largely to do with our volunteers, the parents getting all their proof of vaccinations through to us. Mrs Sim did all the checking and collecting, Mr Robertson planned and went to every Mistletoe Bay camp and Pine Valley and all our teachers spent the week at camp ensuring the learning and the safety of our groups. A huge thank you to all.
We are delighted with the teachers and the structure of our school for 2022 - some small changes and some shifting of rooms. You will receive your child's report tonight and we have class swap day tomorrow - to meet the new teacher (or the same teacher in a new space). We used a new programme this year, Pluto, to ensure that we had the correct mix of; needs, behaviours, relationships, learning and we were able to continue our composite philosophy (where possible) which has most children staying with their teacher from 2021. This means they can just continue the learning where they left off in December making it more seamless. Everyone is very excited about this.
From the team at Witherlea, 2022 is going to be wonderful as we plan our events ready for the Orange and Greenlight; it will mean tickets and vaccine passes for many of our events especially ones that bring our community onsite however it will also mean all of us together again.
Until that time, have a very safe and relaxing holiday with your beautiful children.
From all of us here - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Andrea Harnett - Tumuaki
Welcome to Witherlea School
We wish to welcome these new students and their families and whānau to our school and community;
Ellie W
Welcome to School Certificates are given out at our Flag Raising on a Monday morning at 9am when we are in Green Light (2022).
Term 4 Events - Wahanga Tuawhā
Week 9 - Wiki Tuaiwa
Monday 13th December - Friday 17th December
LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL for 2021
Monday 13th December
Reports Go Home
Tuesday 14th December
Class Swap. - Meet 2022 teacher
Year 6 Final Assembly (in-school event only)
Friday 17th December
School Closes at 12pm
2022 School Dates
Orientation Day: Year 6 and New Entrant Only
Monday 31st January
Tuesday 1st February
Term One: Monday 31st January - Thursday 14th April
- Monday 7th February: Waitangi Day Observed
- Monday 21st March: Early Finish @12pm for Whānau Hui (Parent Teacher Meetings)
- Monday 28th March: Teachers Only Day Term One
- Easter Holidays begin Friday 15th April
Term Two: Monday 2nd May - Friday 8th July
- Monday 6th June: Queens Birthday
- Friday 24th June: Matariki Observed
- Monday 27th June: Teachers Only Day Term 2
Term Three: Monday 25th July - Friday 30th September
- Monday 5th September: Teachers Only Day Term 3
Term Four: Monday 17th October - Tuesday 20th December
- Monday 24th October: Labour Day Holiday
- Monday 31st October: Marlborough Anniversary Weekend
- Monday 28th November: Teachers Only Day Term 4
- Tuesday 20th December: Last Day of 2022 - 12pm school closed
Witherlea Year 5-6 Touch Champions
Witherlea takes the trophy and title home with a 1-0 game. What a season! Thanks to Jason Clark, Mrs Robertson and Mrs Lee and Mrs WiRepa for coaching and managing.
Witherlea Year 3-4 Touch Campions
Be Kind, Be Safe, Be Fair Shoutouts
We encourage all our students to be Kind, Safe and Fair with their families and in our community. We will be returning in 2022 with our Shoutouts in a slightly different format.
Thank you for being Kind, Safe and Fair parents and caregivers as this models it to our children.
A huge congratulations to Aliana Hoani-Tau'alupe for winning the Murray Hewson Be Kind, Be Safe, Be Fair Award for 2021 - this is for role modelling our school values consistently throughout the years at Witherlea. We are so proud of Aliana.
Witherlea's Got Talent Sponsors
What amazing generosity.
A huge thank you to Ms Henderson for the outstanding organisation this year so that the Witherlea kids could show how talented they were.
Early Words Recognition
Mollie C, Fred D, Charlotte M, Angus T
We are very proud of the effort towards learning that our youngest students put in as the Early Words is the start of mastery at Witherlea School.