Principal’s Message….
This week I’d like to talk again about how I plan to use the school’s Strategic Planning as the basis of my work here as principal. I have to admit as a teacher I never used to pay much attention to the school’s big goals and when I was a parent of children at primary school even less so.
Now that I’m in the big chair I can see how they are actually very important and in fact quite genius. Schools are ‘self-governing’ and though sometimes we wished that the Ministry of Education was a bit more pro-active about some things (e.g. property maintenance) I think we’re all quite happy with being able to be in charge for the most part in the stuff that the kids actually do in the classroom.
What we do at Pirinoa is not the same as Kahutara or South Featherston or any number of schools. Whereas if we were a tiny school in the United States or France or China, we would have most of what we do in the classroom dictated to us. No thanks I say!
But we’re not in a little isolated bubble either and one of the ways we make sure we’re on the right track is through our Strategic Plans. So I reckon it’s pretty important that everyone from the new entrants right through to the grandparents understands what we do and why. And that we have good ways of getting ideas from everyone as well so that everyone can play a part in what makes Pirinoa School tick.
This week I’d like to pick up on one of our strategic aims which is to ‘develop our knowledge and practice of Te Ao Māori and tikanga’. Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori is coming up in September. I know there is interest in the school community in increasing our te reo and more. Coming up in term 4 is a process to establish a two year overview of where we would like to go with this. This will be a priority for me leading up to the end of the year. Watch this space for ways to contribute ideas and to see how we’re doing but in the meantime please feel free to drop in and see me or flick me an email with your ideas.
On that note here is a way to increase you and your family’s use of te reo. At Assembly on Wednesday I played a quick game with the students that could be fun at home too. Using the words ‘nāku’ meaning ‘mine’ and ‘nāu’ (nah-oo) meaning ‘yours’. I just chucked out some words or actions e.g. “brussel sprouts!” or “riding a bike”. The kids who liked that item shouted “nāku” and the kids who didn’t shouted “nāu” and pointed to a mate. The good thing is that it’s an opportunity to explore new related words like “ours” and “his” etc. And so much more.
Have a great weekend and week ahead everyone. You will notice that there are no class items in this week’s newsletter. All our hard working teachers are a bit under the weather this week so I gave them a free pass this round.
The photos below are from the social football tournament we attended last week in Featherston. I was very impressed with the attitude and behaviour of our students. And thanks to Lisa Portas for coming along to help.
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