Porritt School Press

Kia ora ngā whānau o Te Kura o Porritt!

It is appropriate to acknowledge the wonderful learning and mahi going on in school over the past four weeks around our schoolwide learning inquiry Hauora Heroes! In a number of ways, our tamariki, kaiako and Learning Support staff have been exploring the ways in which we can support our hauora - our wellbeing.

The framework this is being explored in is Te Whare Tapa Whā - the Māori health model created by Sir Mason Durie. This model is based on the premise that there are different elements to our wellbeing, and the model uses the analogy of a whare or a house, that is held strongly upright and in place by four interconnected and stable walls, made up of the different elements or dimensions of our wellbeing, and that if one of these walls is not strong and stable, then the whole whare is impacted.

Our tamariki will explore these elements - taha tinana (physical wellbeing), taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing), taha hinengaro (mental wellbeing) and taha whānau (the wellbeing of our family), as well as the importance of a connection with the whenua and the wellness of the whenua - the land.

After a week of my own illness at home recovering from my second bout of Covid, it is heartening to see our tamariki focusing very much on their own wellbeing.

There has been much made in the media and talk from the Ministry of Education through their attendance campaign, and from politicians in government, around the importance of attendance on educational outcomes. At Te Kura o Porritt, we certainly support this message and the priority given by the Ministry of Education to regular attendance at kura each day for our tamariki. Regular attendance is for statistical purposes, identified as 90% attendance or higher - 4.5 days out of 5 days per week on average.

Though I'd also make the point that non-attendance is often complex, and impacted by wider issues. To that end, at Porritt School, we have for some time, prioritised a couple of key supports to improve attendance for our tamariki.

The first is the expectation of clear and open communication between home and school. This is a wide ranging expectation in all ways. This is to celebrate successes, communicate around challenges, and certainly to touch base in the case of absence. When it comes to attendance, if your child is not at school, then we require an explanation regarding the absence. We track these absences and have data over time. We engage with whānau and caregivers in instances of regular absences.

The second and most important support we have invested in to promote regular attendance, is our awesome Student and Whānau Pou Awhina Mihiana Cottrell. As our Pou Awhina, Mihiana can engage with you and your whānau if there are any wider issues affecting regular attendance. Mihiana's work is having a positive impact on our tamariki. In a short space of time, Mihi has formed some really strong connections and relationships across our school community and we're very grateful for her commitment to our kura and our community.

Sometimes, we can be unsure whether our tamariki are well enough to go to school. This is particularly true of right now, in winter when the cold snaps appear, and we hear of gastro outbreaks, Covid waves and RSV etc. We wonder about whether that sniffle is hayfever or an impending cold for example. Te Whatu Ora - Health NZ, has published a guide to support your decision making here; Knowing if your child is well enough to go to school: Guidance for parents. Hopefully this is a help when you're faced with making that decision!

Kia kaha whānau! Keep up the good work. Let's keep talking and communicating with one another to ensure these beautiful tamariki or ours are healthy, happy and making great progress at Te Kura o Porritt.

Me mahi tahi tātou mo te oranga o te katoa - We must work together for the wellbeing of all

Mauriora koutou,

Maaka Papuni - Tumuaki/Principal

Porritt School Student and Whānau Pou Awhina Mihiana Cottrell, opictured here with Team Tahi's Rhen Church and Thea Stevens.

Whaea Mihiana can be reached at mihiana.cottrell@porritt.school.nz

A reminder that next Friday 31 May, Porritt School is closed for a Teacher-Only Day.

This is one of the two days that Ministry of Education has allocated NZ schools in 2024 to focus on curriculum and assessment change.

PorrittCare will be open for enrolled tamariki. Bookings are available on AimyPlus now.

We welcomed Mr Hamish McDonald to our kura early this term. He is our new school Caretaker and Property Manager.

Hamish has experience in this work and has already made an awesome start here at our kura.

We look forward to supporting Mr McDonald in his work. Welcome into the folds of the Porritt School whānau Hamish!

Mr McDonald, pictured here after road patrol with Evie Pawluk and Eli Asiata, has made a great start at Porritt School - welcome Hamish!

Porritt School are running a Hauora Heroes Wero - a challenge for our tamariki and whānau to raise funds. This wero is challenging our tamariki to think about the ways that they can support their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families and loved ones. We have seen some cool examples of our tamariki thinking carefully about, and modelling the ways that they support their hauora.

We are using the online RaiseIt platform to make fundraising easy! You can click on the link below to access this fundraising platform and set up a fundraising page for your child;

So far, we have an incredible 124 fundraisers, that have already raised well over $6,000. All proceeds of this year's Hauora Heroes Wero will go directly toward a project to refurbish our school swimming pool changing rooms...a well overdue project indeed!

We will also be celebrating the end of the challenge with a morning or hauora workshops and activities on Friday 7 June. Keep an eye out for more information about this soon.

An image from our Matariki Evening in 2023...almost time to bust out the marshmallows once again!

Today we went to Wharerangi Kindy to teach the little tamariki how to do the actions to ‘Tūtira Mai’, and they taught us their waiata. It was called ‘Tēnā Koe. It was so cool learning about all of the little tamariki playing with RJ. It was very exciting going to a new kindy. We all played with the play dough and all the kids showed me and Scarlett all the animals. I really liked going to the kindy.

- Aio Nepe-Apatu

Today we got to go to Wharerangi Kindy. It was intense and fun and we went to play with Play-Doh with the kids and then RJ did a breakdance for the kids. We taught them a lot of Māori words from the posters around their fence. They taught us a song called ‘Tēnā Koe’ and then we taught them our song ‘Tūtira Mai’.

- Scarlett Snook

Kia ora whānau,

Today we went to Wharerangi Kindergarten and taught them ‘Tūtira Mai’. They taught us one of their wāiata it is called ‘Tēnā Koe’, it was very exciting. Then they showed us around. They showed us the play dough and we made one big ball.Then one of them took Kaedyn to the sand pit and RJ said “Do you want to see me break dance?”. Some of the kids copied him. RJ was showing them how to dunk with his jacket in their basketball hoop and then he was using bean bags.

- RJ Paku and Kaedyn Ransfield

Congratulations to Reweti and Michelle Andrews who are the winners of the Home and School Group Firewood Raffle.They are the lucky winners of two cords of Radiata Pine offcuts from Tumu Firewood. Well done our own Sapphire Kewley for selling the winning ticket!

Thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket, we look to have riased well over $2000.

A huge thank you to Tumu Firewood for donating the prize and to our Home and School Group for their organisation of this raffle. This pūtea will go toward wet lunch time games and activities for our Learning Teams - rawe tō mahi tātou!

Team Toru and Team Whā have recently been involved in a programme called Food for Thought delivered by The Heart Foundation.

Food for Thought is a nutrition education programme for tamariki aged Year 4-6. Our tamariki have learned valuable skills to make informed choices through this programme. These skills include understanding how to read the nutritional labels on food packaging in order to make choices around nutrition.

This learning culminated in our tamariki heading away to Tamatea Pak n Save so be involved in a scavenger hunt activity that incorporated the use of these skills.

Here's what Tevita Feao, Year 6 learner, had to say about his learning;

Let me tell you about our trip to the supermarket with Nova as part of our Food for Thought learning.

First I had to pick a buddy. My buddy was a he - Te Kahurangi. So first me and my buddy went to the supermarket, we had to walk there. It wasn’t tough, it was actually really fun.There was a teacher there to greet us - Nova.

They gave each of us a worksheet on paper, that had some things like protein, sugar and other stuff to look out for. It wasn’t confusing for me because we learned all of this already in class, so off into the supermarket we went.

When me and my buddy went into the supermarket, it was so big. But first we had to go to the bread aisle and we had to find the healthiest bread, so we searched and we found it. This bread had the least sugar. Me and my buddy weren’t trusted with the bread which I see now. It was so fun searching and reading the labels. Off to the muesli bar section we went next. We also had to find the healthiest and unhealthy muesli bar. We checked sugar, carbohydrates and fats, as well as protein.

When we did all of that there was another worksheet. It was good learning for us about how to read food labels and find the healthy options.

We walked home and my buddy and I talked about video games all the way back. That is my story.

- Tevita Feao

Get onto the HERO app and read your child's Reading Rich Record of Learning!

Find some time to sit with them and korero about this rich record. If you have time, give this HERO post a like and and comment.

These are a significant part of our assessment and reporting annual calendar.

Many thanks to our dedicated teaching staff for their hard work and effort putting these awesome posts together for our tamariki and whānau.