Newsletter 16th June 2022

'A shared vision is not an idea ... rather it is a force in peoples hearts ... at its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question, "What do we want to create?"

Peter Senge

Kia ora whānau

Perseverance is one of those aspects of Our Whakawhanaungatanga that has recently stood out for me. That ability to just not give up, to continue, to keep at it and to grit our teeth is ever so important as it is not just learning that can be hard. For some, life can be hard. I loved the saying that my father was fond of using, "He is the kind of person that would fall down a sewer and come back up with gold in his teeth". Being a lot younger at the time and perhaps a little less wiser I always thought that this meant that whoever was the recipient of that saying was someone who was always lucky. As I found a wee bit of wisdom I realised that we create our own luck, our own opportunities and that these are the result of our own hard work and perseverance. Do the mahi, reap the rewards.

Every day at this kura we see examples of that perseverance - that 'stickability'. Whether that be individually in the form of learning or collectively in the shape of Cross Country, the reality is that adults act as role models in creating that attitude. This is especially so when our tamariki are engaged in an activity that they might find difficult. The questions we ask of them and the statements we make go a long way in enabling, or disabling, that aura or perseverance. As a teacher I find this so easy within the classroom yet have to really think about it with my own tamariki. True story that. We all ask questions of our tamariki at the end of their school day but these can often be way too general. If I ask one of mine how their day was I get a 'good' as an answer and that tells me what? Not a lot! I changed that initial question to what was the best part of your day and why? And, hoping for that awesome answer, was ready with more follow up questions.

So, you could ask...

• What did you find difficult today?
• How did you overcome that?
• Who helped you?
• Who did you help?

At the end of the day, it is our attitudes that make all of the difference!

Ngā mihi

Marty Hantz

Chelsea Sellars talked to the board at our May meeting about how Special Educational Needs are managed at school.

Last year Chelsea restructured how the Kaiawhina worked within the school to maximise the use of their skills and time. She has continued to work with Kaiako and Kaiawhina.

One of the numerous improvements she has made has been developing Hero's learning support systems to increase the use of digital technologies with the Kaiawhina.

With a growing number of akonga having additional learning needs this is a vital role and we are very fortunate to have such skilled and dedicated Kaiawhina working alongside those akonga.

• Matariki Public Holiday - Friday 24th June
  
• End of Term 2 - Friday 8th July 3pm

We have a lot of lost property missing their owners. Please remember to check it daily.

It is in the Hall, just inside the doorway by the office.

As you might now be aware many Te Matou a Maui (Hawkes Bay) schools have been hit very hard by the latest 'flu, with a number of these making the decision to close their schools as they just do not have the staffing to cope with this. We have been in the fortunate position where, so far, this has not had the same impact upon our staff and so has had little impact upon our day. Despite the fact that since Monday we have had anywhere between 160 and 180 tamariki away with illnesses, with the 'flu very much the issue, we have been able to cope. While it is our intention that we should try to maintain keeping our kura open, we may be forced to rethink if our staff are compromised.

We will continue to encourage mask wearing as this has been effective for the staff. At present too few of the tamariki are choosing to wear masks and we feel that this is having an impact. Please remind your tamariki to wear a mask where possible.

Please remember that it is a legal responsibility for you as whanau, guardians and parents to let the school know if your tamariki will be away on any given day. Please ensure that you let us know of the reason why your child is away too. While we may be very perceptive we have not quite yet developed the ability to crystal ball gaze!

We are experiencing high volumes of absence due to the flu and the time that it takes to check up on everyone has been greatly lengthened by having to make calls to find out why a child is away.

TPS is part of the Otatara Kahui Ako learning cluster of schools, which includes something like 19 Early Childhood Centres, all of the Taradale primary schools, our local intermediate and high school. EIT also has a wee part to play in this too. The idea behind this is to create a learning pathway for all of our akonga and make sure that our community looks after its learners! A wonderful opportunity to create an even better community! We have three major foci...each of which has two underlying areas that each of our kura have added to their Strategic Plans.

• Cultural Connectedness...with a specific focus on both Aotearoa Histories and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The aim overall is to increase the proportion of learners who feel strong connections to their language, culture and identity, and their cultural identities are valued and respected across the Kahui Ako.
• Preparedness to Learn...with a specific focus on transitioning to schools, from one school to another, and on preparing our tamariki for our schools. The overall aim is to increase the proportion of students who report they have dispositions required to develop "capabilities for lifelong learning".
• Hauora...with a specific focus on developing Well-being guidelines and on creating a shared model of Te Whare Tapa Wha across our Kahui Ako. The overall aim is to increase the proportion of students who report positively against our 4 wellbeing indicators.

These are woven very strongly into our Strategic Plan.

A great big koa (thank you) to our Road Patrollers this week. Many of them have gone above and beyond the call of duty as they have had to fill in for their colleagues who have been ill. This is done at very short notice and they have been both willing and so good natured about this. It is a big thing to give up on playing with your mates in the morning to instead give up an extra half hour of community commitment! What a cool bunch of kids!

All of our staff are entitled to have a number of Paid Union Meeting days throughout the year and this week has been one of those. Under different circumstances and in previous years we would have all taken the same time of the day for this and would have had to close the school for an afternoon. To prevent that we divided the times across the three Teams at our kura and chose to take the tamariki into the hall for a chill-movie time. A great solution for all as we know how potentially disruptive closing for an afternoon can be.

Kia ora koutou Whānau.

On Wednesday 22nd June we are holding our school wide Matariki Day. At this stage, our COVID numbers are looking good and we would love it if you could join us for our shared morning tea. Pre schoolers are welcome too! Please mask up. Although we would really like to welcome you in throughout the day, we have had to limit the time to just the morning tea time.

We will be having a shared morning tea in our home classes. Can your child please bring a small plate of food that is either of cultural significance to your family or is a family favourite. If the weather is nice, classes will be eating outside in the fresh air.

10:30-10:50 Shared morning tea in our home classes.

10:50-11:10 Outside play time.

Looking forward to this exciting day!

If you want to do some things to celebrate Matariki with your whānau, here are some links for celebrations happening in the Bay.

Check out the Ātea a Rangi on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/atea.nz

https://www.kahungunu.iwi.nz/matariki-2022

"He oranga ngakau, he hikinga wairua, when it touches your heart, it lifts your sprit." This whakatauki is a wonderful representation of the kindness and aroha our TPS community has shown yet again. Your amazing generosity has once again shone through in your support for our Jammies 4 June fundraiser. We raised $700 and collected 70 pairs of PJ's!!! A huge thank you for your kindness. We are so lucky to have such a caring community.

Congratulations to the PTA for running two awesome disco's last Friday! A much needed boogie for everyone involved and we all know that the kids just loved it! They had been talking about it for weeks and they are still talking about it! The PTA raised $2600 from the two disco's, all of which will go towards everyone's kids at the school. What an awesome amount of money!

Kapai mahi, the PTA!

From the table below we can see that our cases continue to grow slowly and it seems as if we are only receiving one new case each day! This is really awesome and is a reflection of how seriously we are all still taking this. We have seen a resurgence of mask wearing at school and this we think that this is making a wee bit of a difference still. Please note that with the advent of the current 'flu we may yet make the wearing of masks for Years 4 to 6 tamariki compulsory, apart from those who have valid exemptions. Got to keep ourselves safe!

Haere rā. Goodbye said to someone who is leaving. E noho rā-this is said to the person staying.

Haere atu. Go away. Off you go.

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