Newsletter 12, Term 4 Week 8 2021

What a year! For many of you, this year has been one filled with many changes, with a few setbacks thrown into the mix. However, hopefully what we have learnt from these experiences has made us stronger. Words such as kindness, helping others and resilience spring to mind as I think about the challenges that have been met by the Rewa Rewa community this year. For this, I say thank you – thank you for being there, for sticking at things and for your smiles on days when it might have been hard to do so. We wish you all a well-deserved, restful break wherever you decide to recharge your batteries and that you can spend quality time with those who are important to you.

Community Feedback Survey

Thank you to the 29 families who responded so quickly to our Parent Voice survey. We really appreciate your thoughtful feedback, as it will help us to consider what is important for our community in 2022.

Our School Board and staff will be unpacking your suggestions as to what to keep doing, what to stop and what to introduce. At the start of the new school year we will share these ideas with you, so that you too can see how you have helped to shape our school community for the year ahead.

Community Spirit

Thank you to all of our families who were able to support the Breeze/City Mission Pack the Bus initiative, which helps others to share joy at Christmas time. Each year we are in awe about your huge generosity. However, this year you have surpassed yourselves! Go team Rewa Rewa – a team that says we care.

2022 Term 1 Parent Interviews

Next year we begin our new initiative of meeting parents during the day on Monday 31 January, two days before school starts on Wednesday 2 February. Book online as from this Friday (when you receive your child’s 2022 class information), at www.schoolinterviews.co.nz using booking code jz7ua – please bring yourself and your child to this meeting.

Class Names

We have listened to our community and sought advice from our Māori representatives as to appropriate names for our 4 class groups next year. Ahi (fire)and Wai (Water) were originally suggested at a community hui last year, as these were the names given to the two Rewa Rewa trees that were gifted to our school. Using these words for our classes meant that we needed to also add tahi, rua, toru, iti and nui to distinguish each class, but feedback from our parent community has suggested that a simpler set of names would be appreciated. So, after further tweaks, in 2022 the four classes will be named after the elements: Wai (Water), Whenua (Earth), Hau (Wind) and Ahi (Fire).

2022 Organisation

Each year the board and I look at our staffing and the numbers of children in each year level. Our aim is always to try to create the optimum win-win solution using the information that we have available for the start of each year, as well as informed predictions as to what the rest of the year is looking like. This is why, if you intend to send your child to our school, we request their enrolment form from age 4, so that we can also consider long-term trends.

At the start of 2022, classes/teaching team will be:

WAI           Year 1 – 2  Avi Jayasekara and Helen                     Pine

WHENUA  Year 3 – 4  Frances Reilly

HAU          Year 3 – 4  Liz Martindale

AHI           Year 5 – 6  Charlotte Hills

You will notice that we have been able to revert back to the usual year 3- 4 composite grouping, which was not possible this year, due to the numbers of students at each year level. Our current Year 2 group has 34 students and as they continue to travel up through the school, this group will continue to have an impact on how we organise our classes/staffing.

ASC & Holiday Programme Bookings

Please enrol online at Out of School Care – Y Central for the Y holiday programme and After School Care at Rewa Rewa school.

SCHOOL BOARD NEWS

Covid-19 – Traffic Light System

There is a lot to take in as this new system becomes the norm. Although the whole country is now working under this system, as of Friday 3 December schools have been instructed by the MOE that they will not switch to this system UNTIL 1 JANUARY 2022.

This means that we continue operating under our current rules until the end of term:

• Students and adults will use sanitiser when they enter the buildings
• Parents are encouraged to remain outside the school gates to drop off/collect their children
• Adults who come onsite must wear a mask, scan our QR code and keep 1 metre from other adults. Only staff and students may enter the classroom block.
• Visitors to the school must wear a mask, scan our QR code, sanitise and sign in at the office.

This week, in your child’s report envelope you will find our first bulletin describing how the traffic light system will look at Rewa Rewa School. Last week I attended a meeting held by the MOE’s Wellington Director of Education (Ron Sye), and his key message was that schools can expect that what might be happening at one school, may look very different at another. In the meantime, my message to all of our parents is, please continue to follow news in mainstream media, but wait until schools have been directed by the Ministry to hear from us as to how changes may affect our school context.  My expectation is that with the current spread of Covid, we can expect that cases will appear once again in our community, at some point in the future.

School Board 2022

Primary school board elections will be held in September 2022 (term 3). Current Board members have worked hard during their 3-year term to ensure that our school offers the best for all of our students. We are expecting that there will be up to 3 seats available at the next election. So, it will be very important that we fill these with the best candidates possible.

In term 2 our current board will hold two events – an information evening and  an invitation to attend a board meeting in session. Expect to receive your personal invitation at the end of term 1. In the meantime, check out our website to meet our current board and we encourage you to chat with any of them about this role in the lead up to term 3 2022.

New Curriculum 2022 launch

One of the biggest shake-ups to primary education since the 1980s is the new curriculum, which was unveiled to the teaching community Monday 6 December. We feel quite excited about this, as many teaching professionals, as well as community partners, have contributed to this major work over the last 2+ years.  We look forward to seeing how this document will help us to shape our own local curriculum at Rewa Rewa School.

As our lead teacher for Māori tikanga at our school, Charlotte Hills will also be sending a newsletter out in the New Year to all of our Māori families about how the new curriculum will be meeting the learning needs of their children and inviting you to join us in shaping Rewa Rewa School’s direction.

Garden Working Bee

Our next gathering will be in the new year. Thank you so much to those who continue to support our school. We say a huge thank you to Lynnda and Tony Bouzaid for their tireless work around our school. Native trees will be planted very soon on our school bank to encourage birds to visit us. Thank you to Guadalupe for starting a worm farm with our students – it is a great way of using up all the food scraps from the staffroom to produce worm fertiliser for our gardens.

Special Thanks

We would like to thank the many helpers who have supported our school this year. Without this help, there would be so many things that we would be unable to undertake. Normally we would have a morning tea for you to attend, but under the current rules, we have had to leave this off the 2021 calendar. We just wanted you to know though, how very special you all are!

The year 6 Leavers assembly and special certificates assembly will be held in the last week of term. We wish all of our year 6 students who are leaving us, and their families, the very best for 2022 – we will miss you all!! 

Monday 

School Photos

Term 4

Mon 18 October – Wed 15 December (1pm)

Labour Day Mon 25 October – School Closed

Term 1

Wed 02 February – Thursday 14 April

Mon 07 February – Waitangi Day Statutory Holiday Observed, School Closed

Thu 14 April—Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Fri 15 April—Good Friday, School Closed

Term 2

Monday 02 May – Friday 08 July

Fri 03 June—Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Mon 06 June—Queen’s Birthday, School Closed

Fri 24 June—Matariki, School Closed

Term 3

Monday 25 July – Friday 30 September

Term 4

Monday 17 October – Thursday 15 December (School closes at 1pm)

Mon 24 October—Labour Day, School Closed