Term 3 Week 2

Term 3 Week 2 Newsletter

Principal’s Message….

Staffing update

The big news at the moment is that we will be losing the wonderful Nat Lagah next year. Please see the letter that went home last week for more information. You may be wondering what will happen in terms of her replacement. It looks like we will have to wait until we get our staffing allocation confirmed by the Ministry later in the year to know whether we can appoint a permanent teacher, a fixed term teacher, or simply a part time teacher. This is all to do with our roll hovering around the threshold of 50 kids. Having to wait until this allocation is published is very frustrating and so the Board will seek to speed up this timeline if we can. 

What are the priorities for Pirinoa School?

With our 2021 – 2023 plan coming to an end it is time to have a think about this. For those of you I grabbed during parent interviews this will be familiar. Those conversations gave me a chance to get some initial thoughts from you and get a feel for what’s important to you as parents. 

What was pleasing is that the general feel is broadly supportive of what we do here at school. 

The key focus areas for the 2024 – 2025 plan at the moment are:

• What the kids learn
• How they learn it
• Eg hands-on vs desk work
• How individualized we are able to be
• What are the different priorities amongst things like
• Students choosing some of their own learning pathways
• Leadership and responsibilities
• Behaviour and social skills
• Field trips 
• Computer use
• The different subjects e.g. science vs the arts 

I think most people would agree that we want to do it all, but some things inevitably get more of a focus depending on what people consider is important. 

The other interesting question when it comes to priorities is: whose voices do we include? Clearly the parents, teachers and the children themselves. But what about the wider community e.g. the businesses in the area, the marae, the community in general? 

The idea being that everybody who has a voice also has an opportunity and a responsibility to contribute to the goals being achieved. So, keep an eye out for one or more community events to pin down these ideas into a plan. In the meantime, fire through any thoughts you have to me or one of our Board members.

School Uniform

We now have all school uniforms here at school, you will no longer be able to order online.

Just come on down to the school to try and buy 🙂

Item of the week is the Pirinoa School jacket, we have all different sizes and only $50!

Take a look at the wonderful Te Kohatu modeling our jacket.

Room 1 News

In maths this term we are learning about Algebra (patterns) in Maths.  

Room 2 News

Room 2 has had a busy start to term settling back into our learning routines. We have begun our inquiry topic about leadership, we are focusing on what makes a good leader and how we can show great leadership in our classroom. We have also had a few visits from Greytown the cat! She is a great cuddler. 

Room 3 News

Room 3 have settled quickly back into a new learning routine, remembering to be respectful in our classroom and working on keeping our noise level down. We’ve started a new reading topic based on earthquakes and tectonic plates, a new mental health unit focussed on the usefulness of making mistakes and failing as well as being good students and good people, and a forging ahead with our fractions unit in maths. We are full of questions and excited for a good, busy term in Room 3.