Newsletter 10, Term 4 Week 3 2023

We are looking forward to celebrating our connectedness and diversity with families in Week 8, later this term. We hope that all of our whanau will come along to share food/kai together, as we celebrate a very successful year at Rewa Rewa School. We would love to see people wearing their national costumes or clothing/items that remind them of what is special about their home country. Last year one of our students came dressed as a pavlova – a very NZ icon!! If you would like to share a dance, music or even art from your home country, please let your child’s class teacher know, so that we can weave this into the evening’s celebrations.

Thank you so much to our whanau for looking after your children at home on our Teacher Only Day yesterday. This was a really important day for the teaching team, as it enabled us to review our progress in understanding the Refreshed Curriculum, as well as setting our strategic direction for 2024. Following MOE guidelines, this year we introduced Aotearoa NZ Histories into our programmes and in 2024, English and Mathematics will be the focus of new learning for teachers, students and whanau.

Curriculum Hui – Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) Programme

Earlier this term we sent home paper copies of the overview of our draft RSE document. Tonight at 6pm in the staffroom we will meet with parents and caregivers to present this more fully.  Please bring your questions and ideas to this forum, so that these can be considered as we work towards finalising the programme for our school, due to start in 2024.  

Enrichment Programmes

Many of our Yr 5–6 students have been practicing their technology skills for the annual EPro8 challenge. Two teams were selected to represent our school at South Wellington Intermediate and for the first time since we began entering this competition in 2020, one of our teams has made it through to the Regional final! We wish Brennan, Connor, Arush and Ollie all the very best! Our thanks to Ian Svela (DP) for encouraging all of our tamariki to have a go and coaching the 2 finalist teams.

Bike Track Working Bee

This Saturday 28 October between 9am-4pm, we would love to see as many helpers as possible to help add the finishing touches to the Bike Track. Thank you to everyone who has RSVP’d so far!  In particular, we need help with shoveling soil to the edge of the track. Because our field slopes downwards, it has meant that one side of the track is higher off the ground and we need to resolve this before we can use the track. Please refer to the notice on our website emailed last week and if you can help, email office@rewarewa.school.nz before 9am this Friday. If you cannot make it on the day, but would still like to help, we would love a few donations of food to feed the troops. Please drop off to the staffroom on the day – thank you!

Wednesday Coffee Chats

If you would like to meet informally with others over a cup of tea/coffee, our staffroom will be open to parents/caregivers 2.30-2.55pm on Wednesdays, starting next week, Wednesday 1 November.  Feel free to drop in.

Juicies Fridays are back for summer!

$2 cash only, every Friday.  Must be in class before 9am to order with student leaders.  Fundraising for bikes/scooters for our Bike & Athletics Track.

This week’s flavours – Wildberry, Lemonade & Coconut-Pineapple

Staffing at Rewa Rewa School

Each year, either for professional or personal reasons, schools will have changes to their staffing. Although it is sad to farewell team members, we see this as a positive time to explore new options and refresh our direction. This term has seen two new teaching appointments and one teacher who is leaving our school.

This week, we farewell Liz Martindale, who has taught in our Middle and Senior classes over the last 2 years. Our staff and students thank her for contribution to our school and wish her all the very best for her next endeavours. We are holding a farewell assembly at 2.15 pm this Friday for Liz and school whanau are most welcome to join us.

We warmly welcome Kiera King, who is teaching in our New Entrants class, alongside Whaea Danielle. This appointment has allowed us to reduce the student:teacher ratio so that we are better able to support our learners. We thank our Board for the additional funding allocation in support this strategic decision, which enables our teachers to offer quality teaching and learning.

Starting from Term 1 2024, Samantha Huang will be joining our school as a permanent teacher. Samantha comes to us from a local Wellington school and has a bundle of enthusiasm and teacher strengths to share with our students. Although a Kiwi by birth, she a fluent speaker of Mandarin, so will be a very valuable addition to our team with the growing diversity of our whanau.

A notice regarding 2024 class placement and teacher for each child will be sent home in week 9, on Friday 8 December.

Board News

This term your school board will be processing a lot of information, including curriculum reports prepared by curriculum leaders (eLearning, Te Ao Māori, Literacy, PE & Health, Mathematics), reviewing end of year data and approving budgets for 2024.

Our board recently attended an NZSTA presentation to all school boards within our local cluster. The topic was Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi and how to give effect to this in our schools, particularly for Māori students and their whanau.

We continue to engage with the MOE to resolve our urgent need for more teaching spaces, due to overcrowding. Your board’s role in this matter is to ensure that the learning, physical and emotional needs of all of our students are being met. Having urgent access to existing purpose-built spaces would support this primary objective. At this point, however, the MOE has suggested that in Term 2, 2024 some of our students be situated in short-term relocatable prefabs, whilst the RTLB service remains onsite in our existing buildings. At our next meeting we will be considering our response to this.

Naomi Godfrey (Presiding Member), David Nowak, Tanya Radford, Jared Simons & Miranda Zander

Welcome to Cohen, Harrison, Matisse, Royden, Mata, Bianca & Han, along with their families.  We hope you enjoy learning with us!

Monday 06 November

School Photos

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

Tuesday 24 October – Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Term 1

Tuesday 30 January—Friday 12 April

​Monday 06 February—Waitangi Day, School Closed

Friday 29 March—Good Friday, School Closed

Monday 01 April—Easter Monday, School Closed

Tuesday 02 April—Easter School Holiday

Term 2

Monday 29 April – Friday 05 July

Monday 03 June—King’s Birthday, School Closed

Tuesday 04 June—Teacher Only Day, School Closed

Friday 28 June—Matariki, School Closed

Term 3

Monday 22 July – Friday 27 September

Term 4

Monday 14 October – Tuesday 17 December (School closes at 1pm)

Monday 28 October—Labour Day, School Closed

Tuesday 29 October—Teacher Only Day, School Closed