News
Kia Ora Whanau,
What a great way to finish the first full school week of the year! I find myself reflecting on a very successful and impressive 2025 School Swimming Sports event. It was great to see so many students (a lot more than usual) not only attend the event, but actively participate as well. There was a change to the programme this year to better balance the competitive events and the fun, participation based events.
We wanted everyone to get something out of the day, and we believe this was achieved. A massive thanks to all the staff for their work to create such a positive event. It was also fantastic to see so many whanau present to support the school, so thank you and we hope to see you all again at other events. One of the main priorities for the 2025 school year will again be our attendance rate. It is no secret that high attendance ensures that each student will achieve well in all areas of the school. If a student attends school 90% of the time, that is 4 and a half days a week. They are still absent for 20 days or 4 weeks over the year. This is a significant amount of learning time that they are missing out on. Therefore attendance will be an ongoing focus all year to ensure our students attend regularly. We ask that whanau ensure their child is at school as often as possible, simply so they can get the most out of what this school can offer. We were very pleased with the attendance rates from last year. Our aim is to improve on them this year and have even more students in class, more often.
The new school lunch model, with new providers has so far been a success for our school. The food portions are well matched for our age group, the food is hot, and the taste and quality is of a high standard. The meals have been delivered on time and have had minimal impact on our programme. Please discuss with your child that having access to such good food is a real positive for the school. Encourage them to at least try each meal before judging it, as they will be pleasantly surprised. Our aim is to keep having a consistently high number of students consuming the lunches, so this initiative remains in place. Students therefore don’t need to bring their own lunch each day, as there is one there for them.
There was a departure from the standard menu from our provider today with pies being delivered for our students’ lunch. The school was informed of this change last night and the provider recognised that this one-off meal doesn’t meet nutritional guidelines, but was done to enable them to get on top of their food production. The school expects this to be a one off occasion, and will monitor this carefully.
Have a great weekend.
Nga Mihi,
Mike Webster