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A warm welcome to Harvey Bennett
Teenaa koutou katoa,
Last week we held our Roopuu Kaakano swimming displays as well as our Roopuu Maahuri and Puaawai Swimming Sports. We were really grateful we could manage spectators onsite for these events and having an audience gave the students some extra motivation. There was some exciting competition in the A division and lots of smiles on children’s faces as they showed off their swimming skills.
The P.T.A has their annual Golf Fundraiser coming up on April 3rd and there is still space to enter a team. This sounds like a really enjoyable day and an excellent way to support our P.T.A with their fundraising efforts. They are still looking for sponsorship so if you are able to help in this way then please get in touch with the P.T.A or get your friends together to enter a team!
Yesterday the Government announced some changes to the Covid Protection Framework for the Red setting. Once we have the updated Framework, we will be able to re-evaluate aspects such as school assemblies, parents being onsite and outdoor mask wearing requirements for school visitors. It also appears that school events will be easier to manage with fewer restrictions around gatherings. We will keep you infomed as to what these changes mean for us as a school.
This week we have had a bit more of an influx of COVID cases than what we have had previously. This was to be expected as other schools have experienced the same. We do have a number of staff members now isolating at home and we are operating the school with reduced staff. Fortunately, our team teaching spaces work well in situations like this as the remaining teachers have been able to make adjustments to the groupings and classroom programmes have been able to carry on without too much disruption. Our Puketaha staff are a collaborative bunch of people who willingly step in and cover where needed, so thank you to all of them. We have also continued to be thankful for our Puketaha whaanau for their continued support and co-operation.
The whakatauki displayed on Maahuri’s wall is quite relevant…
“He waka eke noa”
“We’re all in this together”.
With cases occurring more frequently, we have simplified our systems for notifying our families about COVID cases at school. The feedback from parents is that they prefer to just have the app notifications. So from now on, we will app out the cases that are occurring at school and keep you informed that way, rather than emailing families as well. Please make sure you have our school app installed on your phone. If you don’t, you can search ‘SchoolAppsNZ’ in the app store.
For the children learning from home, we have enjoyed seeing your Dojo posts showing us what you have been up to and we look forward to seeing you all back at school soon!
Ngaa mihi mahana,
Nyree
PTA News
Time is marching on as we have made it to week 7 of the school calendar. We had a PTA meeting on Tuesday (we have two per term) and from that I can update you on a few things.
The Puketaha Golf Day is happening on Sunday April 3rd, (I did say the 10th in the last newsletter but there was an event clash so we had to bring it forward a week.) We are looking for a few more Hole Sponsors ($100 per hole) and there are a few spaces available for teams ($120 per team of 4.) This is a fun event so don’t be shy. We are also on the lookout for some icepacks if anyone has any Hello Fresh Ones(or similar) spare, that we can use to keep frozen goods chilled that we have for raffles and prizes. Icepacks can be dropped off to the PTA freezer in the back corner of the PAC.
We have been gifted a Business Mentoring package from KPMG to use as an Auction Item for our Golf Day Fundraiser. Because of its wide-ranging appeal, we have decided to advertise it here to the whole school community as it will be of value to any small and medium enterprise. If you (or someone you know) would like to bid on this can you email or text me with your name, phone number and bid so we can keep you informed of where bidding sits. As with any auction we must start somewhere so please do not hesitate to get the ball rolling here. Details of this opportunity are outlined below:
Business Strategy Session with Dylan Shell, Director, KPMG.
Preparing and planning for an uncertain world
The survival and success of your business will be a top priority during these uncertain times. Dylan Shell, Director at KPMG is offering a targeted business strategy session to the winner of this auction which will support owners and management teams of SME businesses in developing and implementing an action plan that will help:
Address critical issues to stabilise and protect the business
Unlock immediate opportunities to capture new revenue streams
Build resilience in the business so that it can operate successfully in a post-Covid-19 world
Provide clarity and confidence to navigate your business through these challenging times and ensure its long-term success.
How Dylan will work with you
Dylan’s approach reflects the importance of ensuring your plans are flexible to enable you to move decisively when required.
Assess
Gather your thoughts and provide Business Critical Information that will help you and Dylan gain a snapshot of the business, as well as potential challenges and opportunities.
Build
In a 3.5-hour workshop, Dylan will help you develop a highly focused Action Plan
Activate
To support activation of your action plan, Dylan will check-in with you to discuss progress and any new issues you’ve encountered and help adapt your plan to ensure you are responding effectively.
Thank you so much for this Dylan, I know your sage advice and strategy session will be invaluable for the winner of this auction and could be the best money they invested in their business’s development, and the school benefits as well. We all love a win/win arrangement.
Nothing Naughty Protein Bars
This promotion is underway and your eldest child hopefully will be bringing home an order form for these. Please note they are sold in boxes for 10 at $25 per box. I am only hearing good things about how nice they are. Please share this with your family, workmates and friends to widen the net to those we get to support our school’s endeavours. Orders close April 7th 2022. For those families who are isolating at home with COVID there is an order form is available here (Plus, I hope you get well soon)
Scrap Metal Update
Staff shortages and a subsequent backlog at SIMS have meant we have had to push the date out again for this but are looking to lock in the weekend of 14/15th of May for this to proceed. We will need helpers (especially with trailers) so if you are or know someone who is free that weekend, please let me or Troy Boniface know. Also, if you are prepared to take any scrap yourself to SIMS Scrap Metal in Te Rapa and say it is for Puketaha School they will weigh it and keep a tally of donations and add it to what we collect in the future.
Firewood
We have been gifted some macrocarpa trees that were felled a couple of years ago in the Greenhill area. We again are looking to have a working bee for splitting and delivering it so will need some helpers with this. We are also trying to gauge expressions of interest for firewood at $120 per cubic metre plus $20 delivery within the Puketaha community area. Please email me if you can help or are interested in firewood.
Merynn Connors
PTA Chairperson
M: 027 629 6820 E: pta@puketaha.school.nz
