Dear Parents, Caregivers and Students, 

Welcome to our final newsletter for 2019. On Monday evening we had our final Board of Trustees meeting for the year. At this meeting Katherine, Nyree and I shared our school's achievement data in Reading, Writing and Mathematics. The sharing of data is always a wonderful context to discuss learning, supporting our children's progress and how we as a school can best resource this. As a community you can take comfort that we have a Board of Trustees that is very well led by our Chairperson Phil Webster and who are somewhat uncompromising in their commitment to ensure we have a school that is extremely well resourced and supports the professional development of our staff. On behalf of our community and our team I would like to thank them for the time and support with governing our school. On that note it gives me much pleasure to inform you that a the end of this year we have 93% of children considered to be succeeding or exceeding the NZC in Reading, 88% in Writing and 91% in Mathematics. 

On another positive note next year we have signed up to the $150.00 per child government scheme. This means that as a school we will no longer be asking for the $100.00 donation, any expense incurred with visiting authors and performers, Class trips (with the exception of Overnight Camps), Footsteps or Mathletics. In addition we will be giving all children from Year 3 and up a Mathletics account for free. We believe this is a significant win for our families and I am delighted to be able to offer these savings to you.

The only fee we will requesting is a Sports Fee of $50.00 for Years 5-8 and $25.00 for Years 3-4. This fee covers the rental of your Sports Top, buses to and from Interschool Sports Events and our Interschool Membership fees. 

As Christmas looms around the corner, for many of us it is a time to reflect and be thankful. For me, giving thanks and being thankful always works. It doesn’t seem to matter what country or what your culture is, being thankful resonates with all. It often creates a positive cycle of thankfulness amongst others. So as we sometimes default to the business and stresses of life, take a moment and reset your default to having gratitude. 

Merry Christmas and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible tomorrow night at our Christmas Family Picnic.

Warm Regards

Geoff