Kia ora everyone,

We have had a busy couple of weeks with some wild weather but thankfully the days we have had events such as the Eastern Waikato Country Schools Cross Country and Rippa Rugby, the skies cleared up for us! 

A couple of weeks ago our staff attended a Professional Learning Day with our Kaahui Ako. Our Kaahui Ako is a group of 21 ECE’s, Primary Schools and High Schools in the Waikato that are working together to meet the outcomes for all our learners across the cluster of schools. The teacher-only day was set up to help build the knowledge and capacity of all our teachers across the cluster. The focus of the day was around the Aotearoa Histories Curriculum, with a particular emphasis on sharing stories from Ngaati Wairere. We also had the privilege to listen to Professor Rangi Matamua who taught us more about Matariki. He shared some of the traditional narratives around Matariki, what the stars of Matariki stand for, the lunar phases and how Matariki can be celebrated. I didn’t realise how much I didn’t know about Matariki until I learnt more about it! His website is livingbythestars.co.nz and he has some really interesting content there. 

Matariki will be a learning focus across all of our spaces next week, leading into the long weekend. 

Our teachers have recently finished making their mid year Overall Teacher Judgements, deciding the Curriculum Level each child best fits into. Our senior leadership team has started analysing this data and because at the end of last year we were unable to make Overall Teacher Judgements, we have been comparing this year's mid data with the previous two years mid year data. 

As we all know, the past two years have been very disrupted and for some of our young learners, their whole schooling experience so far has been that of disruption. This of course impacts the learning for many children. We will share our data report with the Board once it’s complete.  Also, each child Years 1-8 will be receiving their Mid Term Report at the end of week 9. This report has a Powerful Learning comment and the achievement graphs for Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Then in Week 10, we will hold our Student Led Conferences where you will be able to gain further information about how your child is progressing with their learning. We hope you can make it to these in Week 10. We will send out the booking information closer to the time. 

We won't be having another newsletter before the Matariki public holiday, so we hope all of you get a chance to celebrate with your loved ones, reflect on the past, celebrate the present and plan for the future. 

Kia pai te toenga o to wiki. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Ngaa mihi

Nyree