Week 9 Term 1 Panui

Firstly, thank you for your support with the early finish on Friday to enable teachers to attend their Paid Union Meeting.

Values:

This week we launched our revised and simplified school values at assembly. Essentially we have merged our existing motto and values to reduce these from eight concepts to three.

Previously we referred to our motto as Be Kind, Be Safe, Be Fair and our values as Compassion, Respect, Integrity, Courage and Resilience. There was confusion around which of these were our values and they were hard for students and staff to remember. Our values are the cornerstone of our school culture and we have given careful consideration to the community, staff and student voice in determining future direction. We wanted our values to be simple to remember and educationally aspirational. We also wanted to honour the past while ensuring we evolved to meet the changing needs of our current students.

Going forward we will refer to our values as Be Kind / Kia Atawhai; Be Brave / Kia Kaha; Be Fair / Kia Tika. This change achieves simplicity and a degree of familiarity given that they encompass all of the former values. Being Brave rather than Safe offers a more educationally aspirational focus to meet the changing needs of our current learners. Starting from next term, these values will be explicitly taught in every classroom and teachers will have an acknowledgement system to promote these. Staff are currently finalising a matrix that defines what these values look, sound and feel like in different places around the school and we will share this with you in the next newsletter. Between now and the end of the term a class challenge has been launched to create a visual display that depicts the meaning of our new values from a student perspective. The best display in each team will be win a pizza lunch for their efforts!

Sporting Achievement:

Well done to the students who represented Witherlea School at the Marlborough Swimming Champs. You all performed extremely well and represented our school with pride. Congratulations to these students on their placings.

Annabelle H - 3rd place Year 5 girls 50m freestyle

Benson B - 2nd place Year 6 boys 50m breaststroke

Gus M - 2nd place Year 5 boys 50m backstroke

Witherlea School - 1st place Year 5 mixed 100m freestyle relay

Pick Up and Drop Off:

I have noticed a number of parents arriving at school very early for drop off and pick up times. To enable teachers to prepare for the day and classes to operate without distraction, we ask that parents don’t enter the grounds before 8.30am or 2.45pm unless there is an alternative purpose, e.g. pre-arranged meeting or parent help. Parents arriving outside of these times are welcome to wait at the front of the school. We ask anyone coming onsite between 9.00am and 2.45pm to sign in at the office to support our emergency procedures.

Attendance:

The government has a focus on improving school attendance as part of their strategy to improve student achievement. In 2023, national trends reflect less than 60% of students attended school regularly (>90%). If a student misses one day of school every two weeks, they miss a whole year of school by 16 years of age. As a parent or caregiver, you, alongside our school, play a key role in building strong habits of regular school attendance.

All students are legally required to attend school every day and it is a shared responsibility to make sure students attend and engage in learning from when they first start school. As we enter 2024, every day of school matters.

You must let the school know if your child is going to be absent for a day or intends to be absent for a portion of the school term for whatever reason, like a tangi or medical procedure. Family holidays or taking time off for extracurricular activities (not organised by school) are not acceptable reasons for being absent.

If you're struggling at home with getting your child to school, talk to us! Our school is committed to supporting your child to attend school and building a culture that fosters students to be empowered, confident and successful learners.

Our attendance monitoring system will send you an automated email once your child’s attendance drops before 90% or 5 days per term in any term. We will continue to follow up unexplained or significant absences with a phone call before making a referral to the local attendance service.

Road Safety:

Today, for the second time this week, a member of the community reported a near miss with a scooter rider. Teachers will remind children of our rules for safe scooter riding in class and we ask that you reinforce these messages at home too.

1. Always wear a helmet when riding.

2. Walk your scooter between the school entrance and McKenzie Street.

3. Use safe crossing points where possible and never cross between closely parked cars.

4. Stop and look both ways before crossing the road.

5. Walk your scooter when crossing roads.

6. Keep an eye out for cars coming out of ‘sneaky driveways’

Community Partnerships:

A reminder that everyone is welcome to attend our Friends of Witherlea Meeting tonight in the staffroom from 7.00pm. We would also love to see the whānau of any student/s who identify as māori attend a meeting next week to develop a plan to honour our obligations to Te Tiriti o Waitangi - see details below and please remember to RSVP for catering purposes.

Enjoy the long weekend ahead and please remember Tuesday is a nationwide school holiday!

Ngā manaakitanga,

Symon Beattie

Principal/Tumuaki