Whenuakura 

School 
 
Newsletter 
 

 
 
‘Growing Personal Excellence’ 
   

Thursday 8th August 2019 

Term 3 Week 3 

Our Crazy Tuakana Hive today.

Hi everyone,
The new term is well underway and the progress already made by our learners in the first half of the year has
been impressive. The ‘C’ in our CORE school values is ‘collaboration’ and the high quality teaching and learning is
the result of a community effort. Thank you to our staff, BOT, whanau, and the wider community for your
support.

School Water
We are unable to drink our school water at the moment, so can you please make sure your child brings a
bottle of water to school each day. This will be for the next week.

CRAZY For Kids Can

What a lot of “crazy kids” (and teachers!!) arrived at school
this morning. Our learners were buzzing with their craziness!!
Many thanks for
the donations
which will be
passed onto the
Crazy for Kids
Can organisation.
Community Minded - Next Gen

Our community is our classroom and we are teaming up with the Carlyle
Women’s Institute for our new programme NEXT GEN - learning a skill and
building intergenerational relationships in our community.

Thank you Rose Cowley and the Carlyle Women’s Institute for your time.

Brain Break
At 10 am every morning we have our Brain Break. This is when our learners
choose some “Brain Food” from their lunches. Can you please ensure the
lunch boxes have some brain food included - ​this needs to be a piece of fruit
or vegetable.

Touch
We have had a fantastic response for our touch teams and will be entering three teams! Numbers are slightly
lower in our year 1 & 2 team so strong commitment is necessary. Thank you to our coaches.

Year 1 & 2 - Coach Conna Smith

Macy, Eric, Leah, Vienna, Amaiah, Quentin, Kayson, Lachlan

Year 3 & 4 - Coach Paul Mitchell

Comien, Aidan, Rhylan, Malachai, Jekani, Sophie, Thomas, Crisharna, Mekah, Aiden, Pippa, Wesley, Sofia, Jack K,
Aiden

Year 5 & 6 - Coach Lani Phillips

Oliver, Tewaiarani, Lorcan, Jack H, Isobelle, Kyvarn, Daehsanea, Hemi, Lorcan, Zhane, Maddie

Board of Trustees Update

T​he new Board of Trustees had their first induction meeting on 4 June where we went over the governance role
we are to undertake. The New Zealand School Trustees Association (NZSTA) training modules were explained as
well, which will be a valuable tool for us all. Our new roles within the Board of Trustees were also determined.

On 26 June we had our first official meeting, we covered many areas. Of note was the discussion of the school
wide data for 2019 which analysed our students’ performance in three areas - reading, mathematics and writing.
Data was compared to the previous year, however it was noted that 50% of our roll had changed since then so it
was difficult to compare accurately. In saying that some valuable learning’s were identified and the teaching staff
and board were able to help pinpoint areas requiring focus.

Last week our board members attended a NZSTA Governance Essentials course which talked us through our
responsibilities, expectations, frameworks, priority groups of learners and key documentation.

Our roll sits at 49 children.

Pet Day
Our annual Pet Day is on Tuesday 17th September. As
we said in the last newsletter we will not be having
calves this year. The Board have made more enquiries
around this, and are still being advised that we should
not have them. The risks are still too high, and the
logistics around it would be far too complicated. We appreciate your understanding around this, and look
forward to seeing your lambs or pet.
Raffle
We are very fortunate to have had half a beast donated from Andrew and Alison Hurley for a raffle.This will
be beautiful meat that will fill your freezer. Each family will receive 5 tickets to sell ($5 each). If you would like
more tickets please contact the school office. Many thanks to the Hurleys for this generous donation.

Dates to remember:

Fri 9th Aug Assembly, 2.30, Teina Nest

Wed 14th Aug Board of Trustees meeting, 6 pm

Fri 30th Aug Assembly

Tues 3rd Sept Learner Led Conferences, No Classes

Fri 6th Sept School Cross Country

Mon 9th Sept Cluster Cross Country, Kakaramea.

Thurs 12th Sept Touch starts, Hawera

Tues 17th Sept Pet Day

Fri 20th Sept Assembly, 2.30 pm

Wed 25th Sept Taranaki Cross Country

Wed 25th Sept Talent Showcase

Fri 27th Sept Last day of term 3

Regards, Whenuakura School Staff