Kia ora Koutou

It’s been an exciting first two weeks of school.  A big thank you to Tracy Wiltshire for organising our pet day and Leighton Croft for organising the Agri Sports.  The children had loads of fun!  It was great to see so many members of our community there as well.  Trophys for pet day will be given out in our assembly this Friday.  Congratulations to the following 1st place winners:

• Best lamb - Alice Barnes
• Best dog - Allie Lowry
• Best miscellaneous animal - Evie Croft
• Lamb drinking competition - Lily Banks
• Best dressed animal - Evie Croft

We’ve also had an exciting week with our staffing organisation for next year.  I have applied to the Ministry of Education for an extra teacher and through a long process we have managed to secure extra funding for 2018, so we can now confirm there will be a teacher in each class for 4 days a week.  The BOT will still be funding part of a teacher, but it won’t be as much as we had first anticipated.

Jo Richards has decided not to apply for a position for 2018 as she would like to spend more time with her family, especially before Arlo starts school during next year.  Jo has been a real asset to our school and the children absolutely love her, so she will be missed.  Hopefully we will see her to relieve throughout the year.

We had very experienced teachers apply for our recently advertised position and were able to appoint two teachers.  Katherine Hanna will be teaching in the senior class 4 days per week and Jennie Manson will be teaching in the junior class 4 days per week.  I will teach in each class one day per week and sometimes they will combine on a Friday.

Katherine is currently teaching at Broomfield School, and has been at Loburn and Rangiora Borough prior to Broomfield.  She has years of experience throughout all of the year groups.  Jennie has two young children.  Since going back to work she has been teaching at Tuahiwi School and Kaiapoi Borough School across a variety of ages.  Katherine and Jennie will come in this term to meet the children.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Principal        
P: 03 314 5857  E: principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Pool Keys
The pool is going to be ready to use again by Show weekend.  Families are welcome to use the pool outside of school time.  There will be a charge for the key which will contribute to the maintenance cost of the pool.  If you had a key last year and no longer require it, please return it to our school office.  If you would like one this year, you can purchase these from our school office or email Ruth on office@omihi.school.nz.  They are $50 (school families), $70 (non-school families) and there will be a $20 refund when the key is returned.  There is also a contract that all families with a key must sign.

School Fundraiser
$10 a ticket.  You can either donate $10 onto www.givealittle.co.nz/org/omihischool or drop $10 into school.  Every $10 you donate puts you in the draw to win a prize.  Prizes are on our website - https://www.omihi.school.nz/school-fundraiser/.  Prizes will be drawn on Friday 1st December at 2pm.  Thanks to all of those that donated at the Amberley Show!

John Parsons - Cyber Safety
John Parsons is an Internet Safety and Risk Assessment Consultant.  He runs workshops all over the country.  I have seen him twice and he is brilliant.  He has very relevant information for our students, right from Year 1 - 8 and he has great tips for parents and teachers on how to keep our children safe online.  John is going to be working with Amberley, Broomfield and Leithfield School in term 4, and they have very kindly said we can join them.  Our students and staff will be part of his workshops, plus he is running a parents session which I highly recommend all parents attend.  The parents session will be at Amberley School on Wednesday 22nd November - time TBC.  For more information on John - http://www.johnparsons.nz/.  Our school have recently purchased his book and are happy to loan it to parents if you would like to read it.

Jan and Mark Archbold
I would like to say a big thank you to Jan and Mark who deliver our newsletters out to our community.  We really appreciate your contribution to our school.

Concerns
If you have any concerns about our school or ideas for us, please feel free to contact Maree on principal@omihi.school.nz.  If you would like to make it formal, please follow the correct procedure on www.schooldocs.co.nz.  Our username is omihi and password is glenmark.

Small School’s Athletics - Year 4-8
This is on Thursday 2nd November at Waipara School.  We would love to see our community there to support us.

Junior School Assembly is this Friday at 2pm.  Everyone is welcome.

Community Notices

Kia ora Koutou

After a week in Fiji for our honeymoon, I feel very refreshed and ready to go for term 4!  Talking to the children this morning it sounds like they had a wonderful break and are very excited about being back at school.

At the end of last term I went to the NZ Principal’s Conference, which was focused around Hauora - Health and Wellbeing.  I wanted to share some of the valuable points that I took away from it from three of the many speakers:
 

View fullsize

Steve Francis

• You choose your attitude
• Attitudes are contagious
• As a leader of the school, your attitude is the most important.  Is your attitude worth catching?
• Avoid D.H.S - deferred happiness syndrome (need to live in the moment)
• Keep perspective- in one year's time will this still matter?

Dr John Edwards

• School is to find your passion and your reason to be alive on this planet
• The learning pit - you need to go through this to learn. It is often uncomfortable. You can feel overwhelmed and confused while in the pit before going up the steep learning curve.
• It doesn't matter where the child is at - the secret is to know where you can take them and how.

Mike King

• Reach out, tell your children how much they mean to you, remind them how special they are.  
• Show that you believe in them.
• Show them you are human - take off your masks.
• Attitudinal change is the only thing that will make a difference to the the health and wellbeing of our kids.
• Our kids have self-esteem issues. Resilience doesn't always work. We need to help them with self esteem. Be proactive.
• They need and want their thoughts and opinions validated by the significant adults in their lives.
• A kid with great self esteem and inner strength will not be affected by an online bully.
• We need to create a society where it is ok for people to ask for help and to say they have a problem.
• Make it ok to spread the message and say we care about you.
• Our kids just want permission to tell their friends they love them.
• If we want our kids to open up and talk, we need to open up and talk. Model it.
• Sometimes it's not the best solution to give your own children advice if they are in crisis. Find someone that loves them that they could talk to.

As I’ve said before, I believe health and wellbeing is so important.   I believe this is just as important for us to be teaching our children as reading, writing and maths.  It is something that along with our whanau and community, we can help to build strong, resilient, confident young people with high self esteem.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Principal        
P: 03 314 5857  E: principal@omihi.school.nz


School Notices

Welcome
A big welcome to Gineva and Ava who have started in our junior class today.  We are also excited to have Zac starting his school visits later this term.

School Fundraiser
$10 a ticket.  You can either donate $10 onto our givealittle page or drop $10 into school.  Every $10 you donate puts you in the draw to win a prize.  Prizes are listed below.  www.givealittle.co.nz/org/omihischool.  Prizes drawn on Friday 1st December, 2017 at 2pm.

Sam the dog
I'm sure a lot of you heard that our gorgeous school dog Sam sadly had to be put down in the holidays.  The children wrote letters to him today and we are thinking about a way to honour him in our school so his legend carries on.

Principal’s Award
Congratulations to Evie Croft who received the Principal’s Award at the end of term 3.

Kapahaka
We are very excited to be joining up with Greta Valley School to form our first Kapahaka group.  Matua Rihari Walker will be coming out every Thursday to work with our students.

Pet Day
This is on Wednesday 25th October.  Ag Sports in the morning and Pet Day starts from 12pm.   All of the community are welcome.

End of Year picnic
This is on Monday 11th December at Motunau beach from 11am - 1pm.  We would love to see our community there.  Feel free to bring down a picnic lunch and join in or watch our games.

Personalised Calendars/Diaries/Notepads/Cards
The whole school will be working on a piece of artwork in the next couple of weeks.  This will be used to create personalised calendars, diaries, notepads, cards and mouse pads that parents/community will be able to purchase.  Order forms will go out in week 3.

Important dates for this term:
October
18th - Superhero mufti day - celebrating community wellbeing week
25th - Pet day

November
2nd - Small school athletics - at Waipara School (7th postponement)
10th - Field of crosses - Amberley
16th/17th - Teacher only day/Show Day                  
21st - Grandparents day
22nd - Cyber Safety - John Parson’s Parent session - Amberley School   /  Kowai Tabloids
28th-1st - Senior camp to Queenstown

December
11th - Community Picnic at Motunau Beach
13th - Seniors at Sport Challenge
14th - Last day of school.  Assembly at 11.30am

Omihi Fundraiser

A big thank you to all of our sponsors

Tickets - $10.  You can donate on www.givealittle.co.nz/org/omihischool or drop $10 into school.  Every $10 gives you one entry.  Make sure you add your name and phone number to the givealittle donation.

Prize 1
1 x25 minute helicopter flight with Richie McCaw for one person : city and harbour scenic, donated by Christchurch Helicopters

Prize 2
Trailer of firewood delivered to within an hour of Christchurch ( donated by Omihinui and Carleton Dairies)

Prize 3
A 30min Podiatry Assessment with Bruce Baxter from Podiatrymed and Physiotherapy, worth $115

Prize 4 - Kid’s Pack
Antarctic Centre Voucher - one child GA, and Hanmer Springs pool pass for 2 adults and 3 children

Prize 5
Piece of Artwork, painted by and donated by Robyn Smith

Prize 6
$50 Little vintage voucher and $40 Out of the Bleu voucher

Prize 7
Mosaic table, handcrafted and donated by Alison Sloss

Prize 8
Scentsy prize pack donated by Michelle Paton and $25 McDonalds Rangiora voucher

Prize 9
South Pacific Seed pack and $25 McDonald Rangiora voucher

Prize 10
More FM tour of the studio, wine with Gary McCormick and a coffee with Simon Barnett

Prize 11
Bottle of Wine and a $25 voucher from Waipara Springs

Prize 12
A luxury facial from Amberley Beauty Clinic

Prize 13
$100 Countdown voucher donated by Andy Horn Fencing

Prize 14
12 bottles of Fancrest Estate Pinot NoiR

Prize 15
Black Estate bottle of Riesling

Prize 16
6 x bottles of Torlesse Sauvignon Blanc

Prize 17 - Amberley Fashion

• $50 Bax and Berg voucher, Clutch bag from Mumma T’s (worth $40)
• $50 voucher and 2 kids gift packs from Ruby 6, $25 voucher from Sally Macs

Prize 18
$100 Z fuel voucher, donated by Longsilver Construction

Prize 19
A box of Roseglen Tea, donated by Jennie McWannell

Prize 20
1 x $50 Vintage Cafe voucher donated by Hurunui Labour Solutions

Prize 21
1 x $50 Vintage Cafe voucher donated by Hurunui Labour Solutions

Kia ora Koutou

What a wet, miserable day it is today!  Luckily it is still warm and cosy in our classrooms for our Community Evening tonight.  We are very excited about showing off our gorgeous school, but also talking about the exciting things that are happening at Omihi.  We look forward to seeing you tonight at 7pm.

This is the last newsletter for the term and what a busy term it has been!  I feel so lucky and privileged to be Principal at Omihi and have truly loved getting to know our students, staff, parents and community this term.  We have a lot more exciting things planned for term 4, so we will keep you up to date through our fortnightly newsletters, Facebook and Instagram.

Ngā mihi

Maree Lucas
Principal        
P: 03 314 5857  E: principal@omihi.school.nz

 

School Notices

Principal Awards
We give out Principal Awards at each assembly, which happens three times a term.  This term we have had two assemblies so far.  Congratulations to the following students who have received Principal Awards for term 3:

• Allie Lowry
• Lily Banks

John Parsons - Cyber Safety
John Parsons is an Internet Safety and Risk Assessment Consultant.  He runs workshops all over the country.  I have seen him twice and he is brilliant.  He has very relevant information for our students, right from Year 1 - 8 and he has great tips for parents and teachers on how to keep our children safe online.  John is going to be working with Amberley, Broomfield and Leithfield School in term 4, and they have very kindly said we can join them.  Our students and staff will be part of his workshops, plus he is running a parents session which I highly recommend all parents attend.  The parents session will be at Amberley School on Wednesday 22nd November - time TBC.  For more information on John - http://www.johnparsons.nz/.  Our school have recently purchased his book and are happy to loan it to parents if you would like to read it.

Mt Grey Walk
As part of our lead up to camp and getting 'mountain fit', the seniors will be walking up Mt Grey from Lake Janet on Wednesday 27th September at 9am.  Jaz and I would like one parent to accompany us.  Please let me know if you are available.

Waikari School Cultural Festival
While the seniors are walking up Mt Grey, the juniors will be going to the Waikari Cultural Festival at Waikari School on Wednesday 27th September at 11am.  If you are able to take a car to this, please let Jo know.

Personalised Calendars/Diaries/Notepads/Cards
The whole school will be working on a piece of artwork at the beginning of term 4.  This will be used to create personalised calendars, diaries, notepads, cards and mouse pads that parents will be able to purchase.  It is a small fundraiser for the school, but that is not our focus, we thought it might be something that you would all like and appreciate - plus great Christmas presents!  There will be an opportunity in week 3 to order what you would like.

Change of dates
We have had to change our camp dates to a week later: 28 Nov - 1 Dec, which means this clashed with our Grandparents Day.  So Grandparents Day will now be on Tuesday 21st November.  

Kiwisport Sports Day
This is tomorrow at the Waikari Domain for the whole school.  If the weather is terrible, the postponement date is Thursday 21st September.  We will put it on Facebook as soon as we hear.

Omihi School Raffle
Thank you to everyone who has donated to our raffle.  We are starting to get a great prize list together. If you would still like to donate something, please contact me on principal@omihi.school.nz

School Calendar
Keep up to date with what's going on - https://www.omihi.school.nz/calendar/

Community Notices

Safety around Trains

• Always expect trains from either direction and at any time
• If you are in a car, always slow down as you’re approaching a level crossing and be prepared to STOP
• Look out for trains, and obey signs and signals
• Stay off railway tracks. Only cross the railway at approved railway level crossing points

PGG Wrightson
If you shop at PGG Wrightson, please register at the following website to help raise money for Omihi School - http://www.cashforcommunities.co.nz/. Or contact us and we can register for you.

Hurunui Foodbanks

Kia ora Koutou

I really enjoyed the Canterbury Principal's Conference a couple of weeks ago.  Lucy Hone and Steve Francis were the speakers, and both were very inspiring.  Steve talked about work/life balance and strategies to help with these and Lucy focused on Resilience.  Lucy is a prime example of showing a great deal of resilience after the tragedy she had in her life 3 years ago.  Here are some key points I took away:

View fullsize

• A resilient person can focus on what they can change. 
• Too much challenge causes anxiety.  Too much skill and not enough challenge causes boredom.
• The skills of wellbeing, resilience and character can all be taught (and learned).
• People have activity strengths and character strengths
• Identify yours and your child's character strengths on this website by taking the free survey - www.viacharacter.org
• Character strengths are not traits, they are not fixed
• Unwanted & unexpected change is often forced upon us, while we cannot control our life circumstances, we can control our response

• Greater awareness and use of character strengths is associated with:

  • Improved school performance (Quinlan, 2014)

  • Engaged learning, increased happiness

  • Enhanced class climate

  • Greater odds of having higher wellbeing (Hone 2015)

  • Improved physical health

  • Greater goal achievement

The wellbeing of our students and staff is so important to me.  It is critical that we teach our children how to be resilient and how to grow their character strengths.  We will be integrating this more and more into our daily classroom programmes.  If you would like to find out more, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Ngā mihi

Maree Lucas
Principal        
P: 03 314 5857  E: principal@omihi.school.nz

Community Evening
The BOT welcome all school families, children and members of our community to come along to our Community Evening on Monday 18th September at 7pm.  This is an opportunity to have a look around our school, hear about our goals for the future and socialise with the community.  Tea/coffee and cake will be provided, so please RSVP to office@omihi.school.nz or 314 5857 for catering purposes.

Fundraising for 2018
The fundraising committee met last week to work out our fundraising for the next year.  We have some exciting things coming up and have tried to make it as easy as possible for parents and our community to be involved if they want to, without taking up too much of their time.  We know how busy parents are these days.  We are planning on two events a year, so once these are confirmed we will inform you.  In the mean time we are organising a 'Givealittle Raffle'.  This is a chance for people to buy a 'raffle ticket' from all over the world for $10 each.  We will advertise it in our newsletter and Facebook page and ask our families to share the post on their own Facebook.  What we need help with is finding prizes for the raffle.  If you have anything that you would like to donate or know of any businesses that may be able to support us, please get in touch with me - principal@omihi.school.nz by the end of the term.

Speeches and Inquiries
Our seniors are currently working on a speech of their choice and the whole school are working on their own inquiries around Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  We will be sharing our inquiries and our speech finalists with the community on Wednesday 27th September at 2.00pm.  We welcome you to come in and see our learning.

Three Way Learning Conferences
A reminder to book in for your three way learning conference on the Google Sheet.  Let me know if you need me to send it to you again.

Ski trip
It's our second ski trip tomorrow, I'm looking forward to seeing all of our children extend their learning and skills since our last ski trip.

Old Crockery
We are looking at completing the lizard mosaic in our garden and would like donations of any old crockery.  If you have any please let us know or bring it down to the container at school.

Elections
Omihi School will be a voting place for the coming elections on Saturday 23rd September.