Kia ora koutou, nau mai, haere mai.

Welcome to the 2024 school year, and also a very warm welcome to the new families who have joined our Puketaha School Community. We hope you all managed an enjoyable break with your whaanau and feel ready for the term ahead. We look forward to having the students back tomorrow.

Our staff have been on-site over the last week, preparing for the new year. During this time we took part in some whole-school professional learning and team building. We have been building our knowledge on the benefits of social and emotional learning for students and what this looks like in practice. We also had fun taking part in a challenge called Hamilton Scramble. It saw us racing around the CBD in teams and completing challenges, some of which took us out of our comfort zone. Along the way, we were also learning about effective communication strategies when working collaboratively. Having a strong team culture is something we value and is essential for our effective co-teaching teams, so we can support and challenge each other for the benefit of the learners.

"Accomplishing the maximum impact on student learning depends on teams of teachers working together.” John Hattie 

Towards the latter part of 2023, our Board of Trustees were working on our school’s Strategic Direction. You may remember having the opportunity to take part in a survey regarding the school's direction for the next two years. We also consulted with the staff, collated informal feedback received from whaanau as well as interviewed students. We bought this information together alongside the National Education and Learning Priorities and other legislated requirements and created our Strategic Direction for 2024 - 2025. 

Our school has three overarching goals for the next two years.

1. Child-Centred…To enhance the learning capacity and mana of our aakonga/students by providing future-focused and child-centred learning programmes.
2. Quality Curriculum…To provide a rich, balanced learning programme focusing on aakonga/ students progressing and achieving in relation to the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC).
3. Continuous Growth…To develop and enact systems and practices that promote future growth and ensure sustainability.

We then have 'Initiatives’ to help us meet these big-picture goals. Each initiative is played out in detail within our Annual Implementation Plan. The leadership team and the teaching team use the Annual Implementation Plan to inform our actions and internal self-review.

We have our Meet the Teacher Picnic coming up next week on Thursday 8th February at 5 pm on the school field. This is a chance to informally meet the teachers and visit the learning environments, as well as enjoy a family picnic. The PTA would like to welcome all new families to this event and will be putting on a complimentary sausage sizzle for all. 

In Week 3, we will run our Teacher/ Whaanau Catch Up’s on Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th of February, from 3.15 pm- 5.15 pm. These are 15-minute slots with your child’s teacher/ teachers which provide an opportunity for you to talk about your child, and discuss possible goals for 2024. We will send out the booking information for this on Monday.

We are excited about 2024, and we look forward to working with you over the year to support your child’s learning and success at school. 

Ngaa mihi,

Nyree Olliver

Principal