Kia ora Koutou

In the last assembly of term two, I was presented with a gift and a card from our students and staff congratulating me on my two years of principalship. I wanted to share one of the comments that really resonated with me.

This is a photo of it. It reads ‘You have made many mistakes and you have been inspirational at all times, but you always strive forward and want to learn from your mistakes and you are a naturally nice person and that is why you’re the best principal we’ve ever had’. Jack.

When I first read it, I wasn’t sure how to take it. I talked to Jack about it so he could clarify it for me. I asked if I often talk about my mistakes. He said, ‘yes you do and you are always asking us for feedback and finding out how you can do your job better’.

That really stuck with me and I was so proud that without realising I was modelling that it was ok to make mistakes and ok to keep trying to improve and be a better person, whether it’s in your personal life or in your work life.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Principal’s Award
The latest Principal’s award went to….Violet Inkson.

Whānau Liaison
Jaz Hazeldine is our whānau liaison. In the past, Omihi parents have made dinners for other families in times of need, such as illness, new babies, etc. We would like to know if you want this to continue. If you would like it to continue, we would make a list of parents that Jaz can contact when meals are needed, so we aren’t always relying on the same people. Please email myself or Jaz and let us know, firstly if you want this to continue and secondly, if you would like to be on the list.

Pick up Pies
If you ordered Naked Baker pies please can you pick them up on Tuesday at 3pm. We don’t have the space to store them at school.

Ski Trip
The ski trip forms will be sent home today. Please have these back by Friday. The two ski trips are on the 8th and 13th August. There will be a message on our Facebook page by 6.30am in the morning if it is cancelled.

Car seats
A reminder to please send along car seats for our trip to the Recycling Centre tomorrow.

Omihi Bus
There are a few trips this term where we need to use the Omihi bus, so there will be no Omihi bus on the following days:
* 31st August
* 2nd August
* morning of 7th August

Teacher’s only day
A reminder we have a teacher’s only day on Friday 30th August. There will be no school on this day.

Pet Day
Last year Julie Wells organised our school Pet Day. We are looking for someone to help Julie with Pet Day this year. Please let me know if you are available. It is on Wednesday 30th October.

Mindfulness Course
We welcome our community to our second Mindfulness workshop on Tuesday 6th August from 3.30-5pm.

Community Notices

Winter Ball
We would love the support of our school families for our ball. The Omihi Community Hall is a valuable facility that we are able to use, so it would be great to help fundraise for it.

Kia ora whānau

This is our last newsletter of the term. There has been so much learning and growing going on in our school this term. Our steps to becoming an Enviroschool are very exciting and it’s wonderful to see our students becoming more and more intuned with positive education and looking after their physical and mental wellbeing.

I would like to say a big thank you to our kaiako for their hard work on report writing. A lot of time and thought goes into these. Reading through them, it shows how well they know your children. These will be sent out digitally next Monday. Please take the time to read through them with your children.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Principal Award
The latest Principal’s award went to…Billy Esler.

Celebration of Learning
We welcome our whole community to our celebration of learning assembly this Wednesday at 2.30pm.

Teacher Only Day
We have a teacher only day with our Kahui Ako on Friday 30th August. There will be no school on this day.

Our wonderful posties
A huge thank you to Jan and Mark for delivering our newsletters every fortnight for us. We really appreciate your support of our school.

Pick up from Belfast
We are still looking for some autex to be picked up from Belfast before the school holidays. It will need to be on a trailer or in a ute. Please let me know if you are available.

Mud Kitchen
We are wanting to create a recycled mud kitchen for our students. If you are able to help create this, please contact Jennie - jennie@omihi.school.nz

Community Survey
If you haven’t already, can you please fill out our community survey by the end of the term. Let me know if you would like a hard copy of it.

ICAS tests
ICAS tests are optional tests for Year 4-8 students. They cost $15 each. Please let Maree know by the end of this term if your child would like to do any of them.

Community Notices

MAKING SENSE OF SCHOOL MATHS:  Sue Graham is a former principal and is a specialist maths teacher and advisor to schools,  who knows how to make maths fun and understandable. She’ll explain the hows and whys of modern maths teaching so that you can help your children enjoy the subject and build their confidence. Her popular workshops for parents offer practical tips and resources you can use to support children develop a positive mindset toward maths. This approach can help them see maths’ relevance to other aspects of learning too.

7 – 8.30pm, Thurs 27 June, Leithfield School. Cost: 1.5 TimeBank Hurunui credits or donation appreciated. Register: 03 314 3406 or tbhlearningexchange@gmail.com.

Winter Ball - Omihi Hall fundraiser
Tickets are well under way for our winter ball. If you would like tickets or to purchase a table (tables are limited to 15), please go to www.iticket.co.nz. We have had a couple of questions regarding the dress code - long or short dresses are fine and guys can wear suits, shirt and tie or just a nice shirt.

Kia ora whānau

Last week I was away at the NZEI Rural Principal’s Conference. Not only was it a great opportunity to visit local schools and meet other Principals in similar size schools, there were also fantastic speakers. One of the most inspiring for me was Sir John Jones. He is a 69 year old ex-principal from Liverpool. He spoke for 3 hours and had the whole audience engaged, entertained and inspired. There were so many take aways from his talk, but here are a few that stood out to me:

Give our children:
* Opportunity
* Passion
* Belief
* Time
* Role models

Be the leader you’d want to be lead by. Be:
* Authentic
* Believable
* Competent
* Dependable
* Empathetic

Also one thing he talked about always trying to teach his students, is to:
* Notice
* Appreciate
* Thank

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Principal’s Award
The latest Principal award went to…..Daisy Kay.

Cross Country
Congratulations to Violet, Jack and Charlie who have all made it through to the Canterbury Cross Country.

BOT
Welcome to our new and re-elected BOT members:
Ingrid Davis
Leighton Croft
Jaz Hazeldine
Julie Wells
Nicholas Brown

No Omihi bus on 20th June
A reminder there will be no Omihi bus run on the 20th June as we are using the bus to take the Year 6-8 students to a leadership conference.

Year 0-4 Amberley Trip
Year 0-4 will be visiting the Amberley Library and Oakfields Preschool on Friday 21st June.

Kate Valley Trip
This week each class will be visiting the Kate Valley landfill as part of our ‘Me in my Environment’ inquiry. Year 6-8 will go on Wednesday and Year 0-5 on Thursday. Please send along carseats for the bus.

Movie Night
The senior leaders have organised a movie night at school for Friday 21st June as a fundraiser for their senior camp. The movie will start at 6pm and they will be selling tickets over the next couple of weeks. Tickets are $5 and there will be opportunities to purchase popcorn on the night. Please send along water bottles with the children. During the movie, the parents are very welcome to join us for a chance to socialise and catch up in Tūpari. Parents please bring along a plate to share. We will be handing out a survey on the night to gather your feedback.

Ski Trips
In term 3 we go on two ski trips to Mt Lyford. They are on the 8th and 13th of August. The cost is:

Students:
Skiing
$30 per trip - ski pass and lesson
$40 per trip - ski pass, hire of skis, poles, boots and lesson

Snowboarding
$40 per trip - day pass and lesson
$50 per trip - day pass, hire of boots and snowboard, lesson

Parents:
Skiing
$40 per trip - day pass
$50 per trip - day pass and hire of skis, boots and poles

Snowboarding
$50 per trip - day pass
$60 per trip - day pass, hire of boots and snowboard

Parents are responsible for their children on the day. So you either need to be up there with them, or organise for another parent to be responsible for them. If you don’t have a 4WD, we can organise for you and your child to get a ride with someone else. It is a really fun day and a great opportunity for children to give it ago, especially if they have never skied before. If you haven’t got ski clothing, please see me before you buy any, as I’m sure there are some people that have spares that wouldn’t mind lending them for the day.

Community Notices

Kia ora whānau

Last week Neil Wilkinson was in school. He is my appraiser and he came in to talk to our students, our teachers and some of our parents. I really enjoy the appraisal process and having that time to reflect on myself as a Principal and to gather feedback from others on what is going well and anything I can improve on. It’s a great learning opportunity and a good chance to be able to talk through my goals and ensure I’m on the right track. I really do feel lucky to be Principal in such an encouraging, collegial, and supportive community.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Parent Liaison
Thank you to Jaz Hazeldine who is going to be our Parent Liaison. Jaz will get in touch with new whānau to our kura and make sure they are settling in ok. She will be an extra support, alongside our staff, if parents have any extra questions. Jaz will also help us to organise baking, etc when we need to support families. Rather than email everyone, she will contact different people each time to share it around.

Pie Orders
A reminder that all senior school pie orders and money need to be in by Tuesday 4th June. Year 0-4 pie orders need to be in by Monday 17th June.

Cross Country Bus
The Omihi bus will still be running tomorrow morning, but it won’t be running in the afternoon after cross country.

No Omihi bus on Thursday 20th June
On the 20th June I will be taking the Year 6-8 children to Rangiora to a leadership conference so there will be no Omihi bus on that day.

Strike on Wednesday
We greatly appreciate the community support that we have already received following the decision by teachers and principals to strike on Wednesday 29 May. The decision to take further strike action was not taken lightly by any of us. For the first time, both primary and secondary teachers are striking together because the crisis in education hits us all very hard and we need the Government to understand how serious it is.

Schools are grappling with the fallout of a 40% nosedive in the number of people training to be teachers between 2010 and 2016, even while the population grew by 400,000.  While the situation improved a little last year and the Government has announced an urgent $95m package to recruit teachers, this is not sufficient to address the crisis.  Schools struggle daily to find enough teachers to meet their relief teacher needs and this will worsen as winter approaches. There is also a desperate need for more support for children with additional learning needs.  

The fact is that teaching is no longer considered an attractive profession due to long-term under-funding of the education sector. A significant pay jolt is part of the solution, alongside significant improvements to our heavy workloads. Otherwise our schools will end up with larger class sizes and more teachers leaving.

On Wednesday 29 May we hope you will join us at our local public event in Rangiora, likely to be from midday. We would love to see you and your children standing with us – together we are a community and we can make a difference. We will advise you of further details when they are confirmed. 

Community Notices

Omihi Hall Committee AGM
This is on Monday 27th May at 7.30pm at the hall. Everyone is welcome.

Winter Ball
Tickets go on sale 1st June at 9am. There will be bus pick ups from Rangiora, Waikuku, Ashley, Sefton, Amberley, Waipara, Greta Valley, Cheviot, Scargill, Waikari and Cheviot (numbers dependent). Keep an eye on the M Factor Events Facebook page for Pre-sale ticket info.