Tēna koutou e te whānau,

Have you popped into school over the past fortnight? We have had our new courts installed. They look fantastic and have really tidied up the uneven concrete and court surface that we had. Our courts have been a project that was started in 2023 and have just been completed last week. We are still waiting for the lines to be drawn onto the netball and basketball courts. The court surface is unique and currently there are only 11 schools in New Zealand with this surface. The surface is made with 100% recycled plastic. The children have been really enjoying playing on our new courts.

Teina Cross Country

We were incredibly fortunate with the weather last Wednesday and we managed to run our Teina cross country in between rain showers. It was such a great display of support and encouragement from our Tuakana (older children) towards our Teina (younger children). I really loved seeing the enjoyment and enthusiasm of our children who were racing and participating. Congratulations to all our tamariki who participated.

Stranger Danger

We had an unusual incident this week of a car driving very slowly and then stopping to talk to one of our students who was with their older sibling. This incident occurred on Grenada Street about 500m away from the Grenada Street crossing and made the student feel uncomfortable. This is a timely reminder to speak to children about a safety plan for walking to and from school. As a school staff, we are monitoring Grenada Street. We have a staff member on the crossing every afternoon from 2:45 - 3pm.

Friends of the School

Thank you to all our tamariki for their participation in our mufti-day last week. We raised another $400 towards our van. Also a big mihi and thank you to Fulton Hogan Civil. We are incredibly grateful for their donation of $5,000.00 towards our school van. Alongside our fundraising activities, we have a parent - Lucy MacDonald who is writing and applying for grants on behalf of our school with all grant applications focussed on going towards our van.

The Friends of the School are planning and organising our upcoming Disco’s on Thursday 20th June, and another big fundraising event in Term 3.

Matariki

Friends of the School are running their annual Matariki Breakfast for all our tamariki and their whānau. This is a time where we can give back to our community. The Matariki breakfast will be on Thursday 27th June. The breakfast will be from 8am - 9am in the hall. Children and their whānau are invited to come and have breakfast together as they arrive at school. We will also have our classrooms open from 9:00 - 9:50am for our tamariki to share their learning with their whānau. Following this, we will conclude our morning celebration of Matariki with a whole school waiata at 9:50am.

Structured Literacy Whānau Workshop

We had over 40 parents attend our structured literacy whānau workshops last week. The parents who attended gave feedback that they found the workshops informative and helpful. We shared how we teach structured literacy at Arataki School and how you can help your tamariki at home with their reading. Thank you to Nadine Mackie and Sheree McNaught. They are our structured literacy leaders at school and they facilitated our workshops. If you missed out, we will run another workshop next term.

I hope you have another great fortnight and as always, please remember, if you have any questions, queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Ngā mihi nui

Vicki Hiini

Tumuaki