Upcoming marae trips:

• Thursday 13th & Friday 14th June: Kahikatea/Kauri/Totara & Pohutukawa will have an overnight stay at Taiporohēnui Marae. 

• Tuesday 18th June: Rata/Kowhai/Kawakawa & Nikau and will have a one day wānanga (learning experience) held at Aotearoa Marae.

• Wednesday 26th June:  Koromiko/Rewarewa/Puriri/Manuka & Rimu will have an introductory experience at school, led out by our staff alongside some of our senior students.

• Just a reminder seniors are required to pay $10 to cover your their kai for the upcoming marae trip to Taiporohenui. Please do this by the end of this week. Internet banking is fine - Tawhiti School BOT 15-3950-0412950-00. Include your child's name and marae as reference. 

School photos:

• School Photos will be taken on Monday 10th June (week 7)
• Students should have come home with a flyer last week that includes all of the information you need.
• You will receive a photo keycode via email a couple of weeks after the photos have been taken to place your order - you don't need to do anything yet.
• If you would like to have a sibling photo taken, please complete the back of the flyer and return it to the school office before Monday. Siblings must be attending Tawhiti School to have a sibling photo taken together.
• Please ensure children are at school on time on photo day, the class photos start at 9am and the photographer's run to a tight schedule.
• Students need to wear the correct uniform (they will have bare feet for the photos).

Other reminders:

• Lucky book clubs are due back Friday 17th June
• We are a water only school 
• Children are asked to take their rubbish home each day in their lunchboxes. We encourage you recycle this with your child at home. 

Our writing skills have been going from strength to strength and I am incredibly proud of our tamariki (children)! This piece was written by one of our Year 2 learners, Oli Pick. Look at the sentences she is casting and her mastery of that pesky comma! AMAZING...

Last Friday our teachers were engaged in maths professional learning. New Zealand has refreshed their maths curriculum and schools have until the start of 2025 to implement this. This new curriculum sees some significant jumps in expectations - particularly around number knowledge in the junior school and mastery of times tables in the middle school. Our kura (school) is well ahead of the game with the curriculum refresh...our teachers have a great understanding of the new curriculum, our maths goals have been updated to align with this, and we are in the process of rolling it out. Due to this change, you may notice that there are some gaps on your children's maths dials on HERO - dont stress. Teachers are working incredibly hard behind the scenes to update data. By the end of this term, the dials and graphs will be complete and will give you accurate information against the updated curriculum. 

Attached is a snippet of the latest attendance data that we receive from the Ministry of Education. Some key trends and themes from our report:

• Friday is the day of the week where we have the lowest attendance
• Our attendance data is similar to that of Term 4 last year

The Ministry of Health has recently put out guidelines to support parents to make decisions around whether their child is well enough to go to school. This includes information about all sorts of illnesses and the lengths of time children should stay home for each. Please take the time to have a read - it is linked here

Proposed Enrolment Schemes at Tawhiti School and Turuturu School

The Ministry of Education are working in collaboration with the boards of Tawhiti School and Turuturu School to develop enrolment schemes under section 72(1) of the Education and Training Act 2020.

The purpose of an enrolment scheme is to:
• avoid the likelihood of overcrowding at a school
• ensure that the selection of applicants for enrolment at a school is carried out in a fair and transparent manner
• enable the Secretary to make the best use of the existing network of state schools

Together with the Tawhiti School and Turuturu School boards, and the boards of neighbouring schools, proposed enrolment schemes have been drafted and can be viewed in the attachment above or at the school office.

As part of this process, we would like to consult with the school community and with people living in the area for which the school is a reasonably convenient school. We are therefore holding community engagement meetings at each school.
• Tawhiti School – Community engagement meeting at 3:30 pm on Wednesday 12 June 2024, to be held at Tawhiti School, Galt Road, Hawera.
• Turuturu School – Community engagement meeting to be held at 3:30 pm on Tuesday 18 June 2024, at Turuturu School, Glover Road, Hawera.

To help us with planning, could you please advise the relevant school office if you are attending.
If you are unable to personally attend either meeting, or would prefer to respond via e-mail, please feel free to comment or ask questions by e-mailing John Dale, Senior Adviser Network via: John.Dale@education.govt.nz

A huge thank you to Lou Berry and Grace Hornby who have been giving up their time to come into school and organise sports during break times. Grace has our little people dribbling like pros around the basketball court and Lou has been wearing our seniors out on the rugby field. We really appreciate you both! 

If you are a sport lover and have some time to kill during the day, we would love to hear from you...

Winter Tournament teams have been selected and final team lists are below (no changes will be made). Well done to those who made the teams. For those who didn't, please continue to build them up...it takes a lot to put yourself out there and it is always disappointing when you miss out. Rest assured, there will be plenty more opportunities.