Term 4 Week 6

Term 4 Week 6 Newsletter

Principal’s Message….

It’s really ramping up around the school at the moment as I’m sure it is for many of you. Planning for Prizegiving is well underway, Big Day Outs are being planned in earnest and the teachers are busy working with the students to prepare the end of year reports for you.

Meanwhile we have a number of works around the grounds in the pipeline before the end of the summer break. Thanks to the parents who have signed up for our new way of doing working bees, (an ongoing list of jobs and people sign up for a job and a time that suits them). At this stage it looks like we will be renovating the PE shed, trimming / removing some trees, installing a new staffroom kitchen, moving classroom furniture for the Rm 1 and Rm 3 swap, and fixing a collapsed fence. If more people sign up, we can get more done, so see Richard, Jess or Marcus if you want to help.

This week I took the Year 8s to the Moving On Conference held at Kuranui. This annual event gives a valuable taste of the bigger world that awaits them next year: more experiences, more challenge, more people. But all in a vibrant, safe community. The Year 8s had a go at things like cycling, dance, car mechanics and had talks by Fire and Rescue and a local professional musician / singer. Thanks to REAP Wairarapa and the principals of the SW Kāhui Ako for organising. 

Bruce Wenden who has been mowing the lawns and doing various other caretaker tasks at school for a number of years is finishing up with us in December. I’d like to thank Bruce for his hard work and dedication. I especially appreciate that he has been so flexible in carrying out his work. Bruce travels quite a distance to get to us and of course it’s not easy juggling weather conditions and rampant grass growth with very limited times for getting into school to do the mahi. Our fabulous cleaner / caretaker Marijke Henderson will pick up the lawn mowing duties with some assistance from the Admin team (Jess and myself!)

Ka Ora / Ka Ako – Free Lunch Programme

Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback to me over the last few weeks. It seems pretty clear that a one term trial is warranted. This will start at the beginning of the school year next year. More information will follow. 

Te Āo Māori Strategy

Pirinoa School would like to increase the use of Te Reo in our school and help our students be confident in their use and understanding of tikanga. This will start to ramp up in a number of ways into 2023 through a number of strands: regular visits to Kohunui Marae; more te reo integrated into the classrooms; a reinvigorated Kapa Haka programme with the goal of presenting at the schools Kapa Haka festival in term 3; and the ‘Karewa’ programme introduced into Rooms 2 and 3 – this is a resilience programme delivered by Manaia and Iraia from Te Hau Ora (the Room 3 kids love Manaia!) using waiata, kapa haka, games etc. 

Swimming Pool

Will be open next week!