Newsletter 6, Term 2 Week 9 2023

Kia ora whānau. We have been getting ready to gather our tamariki together to share their knowledge, art and waiata about Matariki, the Māori New Year. Matariki doesn’t officially begin until the week of 10 July this year and this date falls within the school holidays, so we decided to hold our performances before the end of term. Unfortunately, there are a large number of people away unwell this week, so we have had to postpone this event till next Wednesday 28 June for a 1.45pm Matinee performance and a 6pm evening performance.

With such a diverse ethnic population at Rewa Rewa, we are also hoping that in term 4 we can celebrate our different cultures which make up our very special school community. If you have any ideas about this, please let us know!

Board News

This week we welcomed our 157^th student to Rewa Rewa School. With in-zone enrolments still to arrive in terms 3 and 4, this could mean that we have 165+ students by the end of the year. We are thrilled to be celebrating this milestone, as our ideal roll number (160 – 180) provides the security of being a viable and sustainable operation, whilst retaining the special nature of our school ‘family’.  These roll numbers mean a wider range of friends, enough children to participate in team sports and a higher number of permanent staff.  Funding based on our roll size means that we are able to resource high-quality curriculum and enrichment support. We also believe that is very important that all of our local families continue to have access to their nearest school.

Next week, principals and board representatives from our Paparangi-Newlands cluster schools, including the college and intermediate, have requested a meeting with the Ministry of Education Resourcing and Property teams. These teams are responsible for making decisions about enrolment zones, projected school roll capacity and the property requirements required to meet these needs. Rewa Rewa School will be listening to how the Ministry plans to support our school to continue to thrive, including having appropriate learning spaces to accommodate current and future roll numbers. The Board will keep our school community informed about this. In the meantime, we have re-organised our Year 1-3 classes as from Term 3, to best support student learning using the spaces that we have. Thank you for your support!

Mid-Year School Data

At last week’s meeting, the Board was presented with mid-year data for Reading, Writing and Maths. Other data, such as target groups, wellbeing, school attendance and parent attendance at events are also reported on throughout the year, so that our Board can deploy resources and people where the management team recommends it is most needed.

With 6 months of learning still ahead of us, our mid-year data indicates that we are on target to meet end of year goals. We thank our teaching and leadership teams for the wonderful effort that they make to support our tamariki with their learning. A noticeable trend is the high number of non-English speaking students who have joined us this year. This is looking to be an area which will require careful consideration in the future.

N.B. The Ministry requires Boards to report on Māori student (26) achievement. We also include Pasifika student (7) achievement as well. Please note that the small numbers in these two groups slightly skew percentages. Therefore, we have also included the actual number of students in the chart above. Parents are welcome to request the full set of data presented to the Board. Full-Year Data for the previous year is available on our website.

ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Audit

In week 10, term 2 the MOE will be auditing our systems, programmes, teaching and how we support this group of students in our school. This is an opportunity to reflect on what we do and how we can make further improvements. At present we have 57 funded students spread across the school.

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) for Yr 4-6

The Ministry has turned down our initial application for teacher professional development funding in this area. However, we will be re-applying, as it is important that our teaching team be upskilled to to deliver high-quality programmes in these curriculum areas.

Mid-Year 3-Way Conferences

Parent attendance at these conferences was outstanding – the highest turnout we have ever seen, with 91% of families attending! Thank you for working with the school to support your child. We now have the results parent feedback via Survey Monkey and this is really important in helping us to improve how we report to parents.  Congratulations to Shona Atkins, who won the $30 Countdown gift card.

SchoolDocs Policies

All Rewa Rewa School families are able to access our school policies via the SchoolDocs website. Each term, policies are reviewed by the Board, following a 3 year review schedule. Parents are also welcome to review these and offer comment/feedback. If you would like to make review submissions, please email office@rewarewa.school.nz for login details.

MOE Term 4 Teacher Only – Tuesday 24 October 2023

The MOE has timetabled one day in term 4 where primary schools can close to undertake further training in the Curriculum Refresh. They have allowed the Newlands cluster to choose a date earlier in Term 4 and this will be Tuesday 24 October, the day following Labour Day (public holiday). Our hope is that this date will cause far less disruption for our parent communities. Thank you for your continued support.

Term 3 Community Hui

Each term we try to engage our community in school life, as well as decision-making processes. This term we have held 3-Way Conferences, a Yr 6 camp evening and surveyed our community about mid-year reporting.

In term 3, as part of the changes to how schools write their Strategic Plan, we will be consulting with whānau to help us design a plan which accurately captures our school community’s voice. Part of this consultation requires us to gather feedback, comment on it and report back. New legislation requires that Strategic and Annual Plans be submitted to the Ministry by 1 January 2024, rather than the traditional date of 31 March 2024. With only 2 terms in which to undertake this work, we need to work quickly to make this happen.

In 2022 we held a very successful ESOL evening for families who come from all over the world to attend. Watch out for an upcoming event in term 3, so that we can repeat this opportunity to gather and meet each other.

Enrichment and Engagement at Rewa Rewa School

Performance Group Kapa Haka meet each week to perfect their waiata and presentation. What an honour to receive an invitation Kura Ahurea for a small group of students to participate in the opening ceremony for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Wellington, which will be seen worldwide. Details coming soon.

Goodtime Music Academy will be visiting our school next week to conduct introductory music lessons with students. Click the link in their ad below, if you would like to enrol your child with Goodtime for private, group lessons at Rewa Rewa School, as from Term 3. Parents are welcome to attend the presentation at 1.30pm, Thursday 29 July.

If you were to visit our school at lunchtime you would regularly see the following groups in action…

Ukulele Club – enjoy learning how to play a musical instrument.

Student Leaders – Wacky Hair Day is now next week on Tuesday 27 June – students and staff can come to school with the craziest-looking hairstyle!  Please note the change in day.

Librarians – help keep our library tidy and encourage other kids to love books.

Our special thanks for all the extra time that our principal and teachers give each week to offer students these extra opportunities

Cross Country Finalist

Congratulations to Curtis (Yr 4), who just keeps on shining as an athlete.  Last week he placed fourth in the Inter-Zone Cross Country – what a great role model! All the very best to him next week, as he heads to the Regionals in Masterton – go Curtis!!! Who knows, maybe the Commonwealth Games next?!!

People in Our School

We love to hear about the successes of our students in their activities outside of school. Please let us know about these achievements so that we can share in your success.

We regularly welcome new families, some of whom have very little English. If you see a new face, do smile and say hello. If you would like to connect with other families who speak the same language as you, we would love to hear from you. Remember that our website allows you to translate much of the content, such as our school newsletter, into other languages.  If you don’t see your language in the options, please let us know, so that we can request that it be added.

Welcome to Benija & Connor, along with their families.  We hope you have a great time learning with us.

Wed 28 June           1.45pm

                                6pm

Thu 29 June             1.30pm

                                7-8pm

Thu 20 July              9-10.30am

Tue 12 – Fri 22 September

Thu 14 September   5pm

Mon 09 – Wed 11 October

Tue 24 October

Matariki Matinee Performance

Matariki Evening Performance

Goodtime Music Academy Presentation

NIS Open Evening for 2024 Yr 7 Students

NIS School in Action Morning

Bee Healthy Region Dental Service Onsite

Dancesplash, Michael Fowler Centre

Bee Healthy Region Dental Service Onsite

Teacher Only Day – School will be CLOSED

Term 1

Tuesday 31 January—Thursday 06 April

Monday 06 February – Waitangi Day Observed, School Closed

Friday 07 April—Good Friday, School Closed

Term 2

Wednesday 26 April – Friday 30 June

Monday 24 April – Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Tuesday 25 April—ANZAC Day, School Closed

Friday 02 June—Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Monday 05 June—King’s Birthday, School Closed

Term 3

Monday 17 July – Friday 22 September

Term 4

Monday 09 October – Friday 15 December (School closes at 1pm on the last day)

 Monday 23 October—Labour Day, School Closed