Hi everyone

This is our last newsletter of the year. I want to start by saying a huge thank you to all of our staff for their hard work, dedication, passion and love of our kura. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful team. Kat and Jen, we wish you all the best for next year and we are going to miss you.

Thank you to our BOT and our community. Everyone is so supportive of our school and that makes a huge difference, and helps us to flourish.

We truly are lucky to have such amazing children to teach. We are one big whānau. We say farewell to Lachie and Isla, but we know you will be back to visit. We look forward to welcoming two new Year 1’s at the start of next year and also our Lucas baby will be joining the whānau mid way through the year!

Have a safe and happy holiday. Meri Kirihimete!

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Principal Award
Congratulations to our latest Principal award winners…….Ace Evans and Isobel Harris!

Government School Investment Fund
You may have heard about the money the government is putting into schools to assist with projects around the school. We will be receiving $50,000, which is on top of the $400,000 for our new building. We will keep you informed in the new year as to where this will be spent.

Omihi Raffle
Thank you so much for all of your support with our raffle. You helped us raise over $5000 for our school! Winners have been announced on our Facebook page and have been contacted.

Christmas Cards
Some children have been bringing Christmas cards for their friends. We are very happy for this to take place, but we ask for there to please be no chocolates or sweets given as gifts. We are encouraging our students to give ‘acts of kindness’ as gifts instead.

Omihi School Farm Race
Early bird entries have opened! Please help us spread the word. All details are at www.omihi.school.nz/bikerun.

Thank you to our wonderful posties
A big thank you once again to Jan and Mark for delivering our newsletters every fortnight. We really appreciate your support!

New Teachers
Next year we welcome Penny Vincent to Paemoana and Megan Jacobson to Tūpari. We will share their introductions at the start of 2020.

Whānau picnic
We look forward to seeing you at the Waikuku playground at 10am on Wednesday, where we will start the day with some games, lunch and then go over to the surf club for a swim. The day will finish at 2pm. It sounds like all families are sorted to get there, so there will be no Omihi bus on this day. A reminder that Pita pit will be delivered to Waikuku for us.

Omihi bus
There will be no bus on Wednesday and no bus on Friday afternoon.

Prize giving
We look forward to seeing our community on Friday at 12pm for our prize giving. School will be finished for the day after prize giving.

Reports
An email was sent home today regarding reports. They are now live on Linc ed and ready for you to read with your child. A lot of time and thought goes into these, so we hope you enjoy them. A reminder that once you log in, click on your child’s face and then the comments are on the Reading, Writing, Maths pages, and all other comments are on their class page.

Basketball uniforms and library books
Please return these asap.

Community Notices

An Evening With Jake Bailey and Guests.
A couple of local ladies from Amberley, Geraldine and Jennie, are organising a joint fundraiser to support Ronald McDonald House Christchurch and Westpac Rescue Helicopters - we would love you to come along if you can .... this will be an informative and inspirational evening for parents / teenagers / young adults to come along to.

Jake Bailey is coming to Amberley to speak at this fundraiser. Jake is the former Head Boy of Christchurch Boys High School who was diagnosed with cancer just days before his farewell assembly in 2015. He gave an inspirational speech that touched many and went global.

This event will be held on Thursday 19 December, at the Tin Shed, Amberley Domain, Amberley from 7pm.
Ticket Prices ....$25 for adults, $10 for children under 16, Family of 4 for $60 (extra children $10 each)
This price includes supper.

Tickets will be on sale from 16 November from Sally Macs and Arthur Burkes in Amberley and this event will be advertised on Facebook soon. For any questions, or ticket orders please contact. Geraldine Hassall on 027 289 3505 or Jennie McWhannell on 021 987 358 or mcwha@xtra.co.nz.

Kia ora Whānau

Ex-Omihi pupil Fraser Doake came to school to teach our tamariki about Micro-plastics.

We’ve had a wonderful couple of weeks of sport. It was great to welcome Leithfield, Broomfield, Amberley, Waipara and Sefton School to our school to host the Sports Spectacular last week. The North Canterbury Sports Trust do a wonderful job of organising this. We also had a number of children participating in the Kowai athletics and we now have three children heading in to compete in the Canterbury Athletics. Good luck to Daisy, Charlie and Tom! Also good luck to Billy and Sylvia who are competing in the Canterbury Triathlon this week.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Principal Awards
Congratulations to the latest Principal Award winners….Monty Croft and Liam Galbraith.

Pita Pit and Sushi
A reminder that you can order these lunches every Wednesday through www.lunchonline.co.nz. When we have our Whānau picnic at Waikuku Beach in the last week of school, Pita Pit will be delievered to us at the beach. Parents are welcome to order these as well. A big thanks to Jaz for delivering our Pita Pit and Julie for delivering our Sushi.

Omihi School Farm Race 2020
Our race is on Sunday 22nd March, 2020. Earlybird entries open on the 1st December at www.iticket.co.nz. Please help us spread the word and get as many people as we can along to our race.

Stationery for 2020
We will be sending out the link to order your stationery for 2020 this week. It will be the same as this year, where you order all the pens, pencils etc through Office Max online and then we invoice you for any books you need next year. There are a few children that have received new books in the last term and haven’t been invoiced. This will be added to next year’s invoice, rather than sending an invoice for $3. When you receive your stationery please send it all in to your classroom teacher.

Omihi Bus
If you know your child is not going to be on the bus after school, please let me know as early in the day as possible.

Motorbike Trail
There was a bike trail run a couple of weekends ago over local farms. There was $1000 earned from this that has been donated to the school. A big thank you to Todd McBreen and the organisers.

Santa’s Grotto and Amberley Rest home
Paemoana will be visiting Santa’s Grotto in Rangiora this Thursday and then the Amberley Rest home on the way home. Jen will email you with further details.

Year 5-8 Assembly
We welcome our whole community to our final assembly of the year this Friday, 29th November at 2pm.

End of Year Prize Giving
Our End of Year Prize Giving is on Friday 13th December at 12pm. We welcome our whole community along. This is our last day of school for the year and children go home after the prize giving (approximately 12.30-1pm).

Tūpari Tiromoana Walk
On Tuesday 10th December we will be doing the Tiromoana Walk in the morning. We are looking for one parent to come along with us. Please let myself or Kat know if you can come.

Whānau picnic at Waikuku Beach
On Wednesday 11th December from 10am - 2pm we have our end of year Whānau picnic at Waikuku Beach. We will be meeting at the playground at 10am for some games and lunch, then will walk over to the surf club to go for a swim. We would love to have as many families there as possible. Please let me know if your child needs a ride to get there, so we know if we need to take the Omihi bus or not. Children are allowed to wear mufti, but it must still comply with our Health and Safety Policy - covering shoulders and wearing a hat.

The Vine Run at Pegasus Bay
The Vine Run organisers have approached us to see if we have anyone available to marshall at their event. It is on the 26th January at Pegasus Bay Winery. They will help promote our race in return. Please let me know if you are available.

Community Notices

AmberleyNZ Christmas Festival
Thursday 5 December 2019, 4pm-8pm
Come along and enjoy Markets - Art + Craft - Buskers - Food + Drink as well as the shop holders being open late.  Come along for great food entertainment, kids activities, get your Christmas shopping started and enjoy a fun, family evening out. 
Visit www.amberleynz.nz and follow us on Facebook

Kia ora Whānau

We have exciting news to share with you. We have been granted just over $400,000 from the Ministry to create a new 95m2 multi-purpose building for our school. We have started the process by visiting other schools with similar spaces and will be discussing with our BOT, our teachers and our students about exactly what the priorities are for our school.

We are engaging with a project manager to come up with a design that suits our needs and we will keep you updated with the process.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Principal’s Awards
The latest Principal Awards went to…..Monty Croft and Liam Galbraith.

Pool Keys
Pool keys are available now to purchase from the school office. They are $50, including a $20 bond.

Swimming Pool
The pool is now up and running so please send togs and towel each day. As a school we promote children wearing rash vests if they have them, as an extra protection from the sun.

Teacher only day - Thursday 14th November
A reminder that school is closed this Thursday.

School Photos
Thanks to Claire for taking our school photos this year. You can order these online at www.claireinkson.com and click on Omihi School 2019. Password is weloveourschool.

Camp 2020
The Year 5-8 children will be trying to head back to Arthurs Pass for their camp in 2020. The dates are confirmed for 29-31 July and the cost will be similar to this year. We will be in touch regarding fundraising for this in the new year.

Kowai Sport Spectacular - Year 0-3
This is being held at Omihi on Wednesday 20th November from 10-2pm. It will be across the road at the rugby grounds. All parents are welcome to come and watch.

Creative Communities
We applied for the Creative Community Grant from the Hurunui District Council and are excited to share that we received $3,000 to cover the cost of our Kapahaka lessons for 2020.

Enviroschools - Energy
As part of our Enviroschools programme we have been focusing on energy this term. One initiative that the children have come up with is to use our pie warmer less. They have decided that in the summer terms it will only be available on a Tuesday and a Friday.

Raffle Tickets
Thanks to all of you who are getting out there and selling our raffle tickets. We ask for the tickets and money to be back by Friday 22nd November please.

School Docs Policy
Each term we review our policies. This term we would like parent input as well. Please click on the following link and use the username and password below to review the Sun Protection and EOTC policy.
http://omihi.schooldocs.co.nz            Username: omihi             Password: glenmark

Missing Merino Jersey
Toby is missing his merino school jersey. Please could you have a look at home and see whether you have an extra one.

Community Notices

Kia ora Whānau

As a school we are really excited that we can offer three classrooms and have such small numbers in each class. As a BOT we have discussed this long and hard and have decided we really want to still try and make this work, as it is important to us as a school. It has meant we will have to shuffle the hours around slightly, but we are committed to ensuring your children have small class sizes and a smaller range of year levels in one class.

The Ministry only fund us for 2 teachers, so the Omihi School Farm Race and our raffle are big fundraisers that make this happen. Thank you for your continued support in these areas.

We will confirm by the end of this term what the classes will look like for next year and who will be teaching them.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

North Canterbury Sports Awards
Our Omihi School Farm Race has been nominated at the North Canterbury Sports Awards on the 2nd November. This is an honour and a privilege and we look forward to sharing the results with you.

Pita Pit/Sushi
A reminder that Pita Pit and Sushi are running each Wednesday. Pita Pit on odd weeks and sushi on even weeks. All orders through www.lunchonline.co.nz. Thanks to Jaz and Julie for delivering for us.

Amberley A&P Show
We will be selling raffle tickets at the Farmlands tent at the show from 10-4pm. Thank you to those that have signed up to come along and help on the day.

Adrenaline Forest
We had originally planned to go to the Adrenaline Forest in term 4, but due to height restrictions it wasn’t going to work for our senior class. Instead, we have used that money to bring Pedalmania into school.

Omihi School Farm Race - Sunday 22nd March, 2020
Early bird registrations open on the 1st December. We would love to see our whole community there.

Technology
We were not successful in our application to cater for our own technology for our Year 7/8’s in 2020, but we will be talking more with Hurunui College and applying again for 2021. We will keep you informed of any updates.

Pet Day Timetable - Wednesday 30th October
We still need helpers for Agri Sports in the morning and also 2 cakes for the judges. Please let me know asap if you can help with either of these.
9.30 - 11.30am - Agri Sports  (morning tea in the middle)
11.30am - Early lunch
12.00pm - Pets arrive
12.30pm - Judging begins
1.30pm - Lamb drinking race
1.45pm - Fancy Dress competition
2.30pm - Prize giving

Small Schools Athletics - Thursday 31st October
Year 4-8 Athletics at Waipara School. Children need to arrive by 10am, and it runs until 2.30pm. Information attached. Transport information attached.

Mufti Day - Friday 1st November
Please send along a gold coin donation. We are raising funds for the Waikuku Surf Life Saving club.

Dates for 2020
The first day of school will be Monday 3rd February.
Last day of school will be Wednesday 16th December.
There will be one teacher only day each term. In term one the date will be Monday 2nd March. Other dates will be on the calendar as confirmed.

Triathlon - Year 5-8
The Primary Schools Triathlon is on Wednesday 27th November at Pegasus. Please let me know if your child would like to enter. It would be your responsibility to get them there on the day.

Community Notices