Kia ora Koutou

Thank you to those parents who were able to come along to listen to John Parsons. If you weren't able to make it, we have purchased the book and are very happy to lend it out. John has some very strong messages about keeping children safe online.

I have listened to John a number of times, and I pick up new things every time. We have very active social media pages for Omihi and I make sure I follow John’s advice on these. I never put children’s last names with their photos. I seek permission from parents, plus I regularly talk to the children about what I'm putting on social media. One of the things John talks about is showing children the photos before they go online and making sure they are ok with them. This shows them that their identity has value, they own it and have power, control and influence over what is done with it.  Here are a few of his messages:

• Empower our children to live in the online world safely and ethically

• Educate our children to understand the value of self, to respect and protect family and friends and to broadcast decency and positive values across the internet

• Encourage children to remember your family values when they are online.

• Teach children to be ‘powerful and connected’ online. Share photos online that show them with family, friends, their school. Not photos that show they are vulnerable.

• Help your children create a positive online profile. This is where future employees will be looking when they apply for jobs. Being a part of school websites, Facebook, etc is a great way to do this.

• If your child has a social media account, ensure it is private and you are a part of it. They shouldn't have more friends online than they know in real life.

• Ask your child what they have been doing online. Take an interest. Find out about the online games, social media if you don't know much about them.  Keep an open line of communication with them and don’t overreact if you see something that alarms you.  Make sure the games are appropriate.  There are a number of R18 games that young children are playing.

• Teach your child never to give out private information online - just like you would in the real world.

• Keep devices out of the bedroom

Reading the book there are so many more helpful things I could write here.  Get in touch.  Borrow the book and read it for yourself.  We are off to Queenstown for our senior camp this week.  We are looking forward to all of the amazing experiences Miss Lotz has planned and will share them with you via social media.

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

School Notices

Grandparents Day
Thank you to all of our wonderful grandparents that came along to school last week.  We loved having you at our school.

Bus Driver
We have been lucky enough to have Sue Parish driving our bus for the last 35 years. Sue will be continuing this next year, but is looking for someone who may like to job share later in the year and then potentially take over the bus run. If you might be interested in this and being a relief driver for us, please contact me on principal@omihi.school.nz.

Principal’s Award
Congratulations to Zoe Wiltshire who received the latest Principal award.

Wellbeing Survey
If you haven't already, please remember to fill out the wellness survey that we emailed out a couple of weeks ago.

Omihi Fundraiser
Thank you for all of the support for our Omihi fundraiser. This is the last week to purchase tickets. If you haven't done so yet, either pop into school or go to our Givealittle page. Tickets will be drawn at the end of the week. Any ticket money or unsold tickets need to be returned asap please. Winners will be announced on our Facebook page and next newsletter. Prizes can be collected from school or we will organise for delivery if you are out of town.

School Calendar
Remember to keep an eye on our school calendar on our website to keep up to date with things going on. It's a busy time of year. If you would like me to share the google calendar with you so you can have it on your phone, just let me know.

School Working Bee
We have a school working bee on Saturday 9th December at 8am.  We haven’t managed to find many people that are interested in helping with the gardens.  If you are able to come down for an hour or so, we would love your support.

End of Year Prize giving
This is on Thursday 14th December at 11am.  All of the community are most welcome to attend.  This is our final day for the year.

Kia ora Koutou

After announcing our two new teachers last week, we are excited today to introduce seven new children to Omihi.  A big warm welcome to Stanley, Daisy, Tom, Zac, Taylor, Christian and Billy.  Tom has started already and the other children are coming every Monday, then will start full time in 2018.  We now have a roll of 27 children, which will be 24 at the start of next year when the Year 8’s have left.  We only need 2 more children to enrol to increase our staffing.  We will be able to use this staffing to employ a teacher to help with learning support and also to work in specialist areas.  Our children are very lucky!

I had a very inspiring day last week listening to Jan Robertson, who is an Academic Leadership Consultant.  Jan talked a lot about leadership within schools and how we can coach our staff and children to become leaders.  There was so much learning from this day.  Here are a few of the main points I took away:

• Create leaders that are more than you have ever been yourself
• Use questioning - give students/teachers a chance to reflect and discuss their thoughts and ideas
• The leadership coach is a learner.  Not an expert or a knower.  They want to learn with and from the person they are coaching
• Support and challenge thinking
• Great leaders know how to really listen
• Active listening - be present and focused.  No questions.  No judgement.  No advice.  No conversation.  Actively listen to learn.
• Leave time for the pause.  Be comfortable with pauses
• Reflective questioning after actively listening
• Use a growth mindset.  Mindfulness.  Resilience.  Wellbeing.  Sustainability - all part of being a leader

Also a reminder that we have a parents evening with John Parsons (Cyber Safety Expert) on Wednesday 22nd November at the Leithfield Hall at 6pm.  I highly recommend all parents should go to this.

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

 

BOT Chairperson Report

Welcome to the first BoT section of the newsletter. We’ll have a regular section every few months to give you information and updates about what’s happening at the board level.  The board of trustees is responsible for the governance of the school, it sets the direction and outcomes for the school and establishes the policies. Maree as principal is responsible for the management of the school which is concerned with how the direction and outcomes are achieved.

The current board members are Sarah Barnes (chair), Ruth Lowry (deputy chair and secretary), Bridget Banks (treasurer), Nick Hamilton (health and safety) and Leighton Croft (property). Miss Lotz is our staff representative.  Maree, as principal, also sits on the board and has input into the governance function.

We are about to start training to help us better fulfil our obligations in respect of student achievement. This training was recommended after the ERO review and Debbie Dawson is coming out on Monday to run a session on the governance role which will be new to some of us and a refresher for others.  The board meets twice a term, generally in weeks 4 and 9, and parents are welcome to attend meetings. If you have any questions at all about the board or governance please feel free to contact me on 314 5979 or samsarah.barnes@yahoo.co.nz.

School Notices

Principal’s Award
Congratulations to Jack Little who received the Principal’s Award at the last assembly.

Grandparents Day - Tuesday 21st November, 9am - 11am
We ask that all families please bring in a small plate of food to have a shared morning tea with our grandparents.

Tiromoana Walk
The seniors are doing the Tiromoana Walk on Tuesday.  We will be leaving school at 9am.  Check the Facebook page in the morning for any cancellations.

GRIP Leadership Conference
Some of the seniors will be going to this on Wednesday 22nd November.  The children attending need to meet at school at 7.30am.  Please note the normal bus run will not be running this day.

Community Working Bee
We are having a community working bee on Saturday 9th December from 8am.  If anyone would like to help, please feel free to let Maree know on 314 5857 or principal@omihi.school.nz, or just come down and join us.  We will be doing the following:

• Gardening
• Putting bark on the playground
• Tidying the container, garden shed and cleaners cupboard
• Filling the potholes in the driveway
• Building a bus shelter
• Painting the bench and shed door in the pool area
• Staining picnic tables
• Take tiles off and painting the lizard

Next year we will have a caretaker/gardener a few hours a week to keep everything maintained.  So I would like to get it all up to scratch before they start.

Cleaner
We are looking for a cleaner for 2018.  If you are interested please contact Maree on 314 5857 or principal@omihi.school.nz.  The hours are flexible.

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.  There are also tickets for sale at Fossil Point Cafe.

Community Library
We are thrilled to announce that we are joining with the Hurunui Library, so our school library will be a community library in 2018.  We will let you know more details of opening times, etc nearer the time.

End of Year Prizegiving
This is on Thursday 14th December at 11am.  All of the community are most welcome to attend.  This is our final day for the year.

2018
School will start on Wednesday 31st January and will finish on Tuesday 18th December.  There will be a Teacher’s only day on the Thursday before Show weekend.

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:
 

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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