Newsletter 2

Nga Mihi nui koutou

 It has been a great start to the year with the exception of a few weather events! The school has settled into a lovely routine with most of our students starting the year with a new teacher. Building new relationships is critical. Students need to feel safe, valued and respected so they are ready to challenge themselves and throw all they have into their learning. This is fairly easy for the student / teacher equation as teachers at Mangonui value the relationship factor. You see this every day. Getting to know your child’s teacher and understanding their learning is really important. Education will never be a two way street. To be at its most potent it will have a third element...the whanau. We try to provide lots of opportunities for our parents/caregivers to come into school. Teachers are also available after school most days. Contacting teachers directly or through Angela at the office is a good way to set this up. We have a Whanau BBQ on the 27th February. Classrooms will be open for you to have a look around and then we have some fun games planned. This starts at 5pm and finishes at 7pm. We hope you will be able to make it.

 School camps are coming up over the next five weeks. There will be notices coming out giving you an outline of where these are and what gear is required. Camps are one of the best opportunities to meet your child’s classroom whanau. This is where relationships are born between teachers and parents. Making an opportunity to attend these is really worthwhile. Please make sure you are Police Vetted if you wish to stay the night on camp. See Angela at the office if you need a form.

 Last year we did a huge effort around gathering the ‘voices’ of our school community to develop a strategic plan for the next three years. These plans provide clear vision of where we are going. Our vision statement ‘Nga Rangatira mo apopo Leaders of Tomorrow’ sets a massive challenge. If our children are to be leaders then they need to know who they are and where they come from, they need a strong sense of identity. They also need to be fit mentally, physically and spiritually. A lot of the learning opportunities this year will be chosen based around supporting these concepts. We also want to ensure we offer lots of diversity. Learning needs to be fun and exciting providing opportunities for everyone to be successful. We have a fitness initiative with Sport Northland called Project Energize, KiwiCan teaching our students about life skills, Matua Billy teaching about Te Ao Maori, Matua Tups teaching music, KiwiSport with Ashleigh, Northland Football Federation coming in on a Friday and much more. Building our students sense of self and pride will only happen with lots of learning opportunities.

Last week the Kanui Ako o te Hiku cluster of schools had a hui with other groups from our community (iwi, health, social services) to listen, plan and create a vision of what Far North schools need to provide in order to help build healthy and successful citizens of the future. It was a powerful experience where collaboration was really evident. A commitment to work together, remove barriers and listen to each other was forged. A lot of the discussion was similar to what we gathered from our school community last year (which now forms much of our Strategic Plan). This connection is really exciting - connecting with our whenua, authentic learning experiences, getting outside of the classroom, learning that students can relate to….hopefully this sounds familiar!

 This year we have Shanny Maginness (Doubtless Bay Catering) doing the school lunches. The food is amazing! Shanny is passionate about her food and this is evident with the beautiful food our children have been receiving. Thanks Shanny it is definitely a lunch to look forward to!

This year (as part of our Strategic Plan) we are upskilling our te reo Maori through Far North REAP with Whaea Selena. Selena is awesome as she makes the lessons fast paced, fun and challenging. We will take this new knowledge and share with our tauira in their learning.It gives you time also to think about kupu (words) and their meaning. What a powerful word Manaakitanga is. My interpretation is that manakitanga is respecting everyones mana through respect. When I have a conversation with one of our students I make sure that their mana is in tact. What a beautiful way to treat each other.

Freddy Corden-Whyte has had a great start to the year. I was lucky enough to teach this young man, he was focused all day. Jahn Foster is always walking around our kura picking up rubbish. He genuinely cares for papatuanuku! Ace Skinner thank you so much for offering help when I was surrounded by tents that needed to be repacked into their bags - kaitiaki of others! Well done these students who got the Principal's award over the last couple of weeks.

Nga Mihi Dave Sedcole