Kia ora whānau

As I sit here and write my last newsletter of the year, I am reflecting on a very crazy and unpredictable year we have had. A big thank you to our students, staff and community for their continued support to help us navigate our way through 2020.

We say thank you and farewell to Megan and wish her luck for her adventures back in the Wairarapa. Thank you to Tamar who has been a wonderful teaching assistant this year and we can’t wait to meet your new baby in the new year. Thank you to Ingrid, Wendy and Pete who helped us to look after our gardens throughout the year.

Thank you to our Board of Trustees for all of their support. Farewell to Ingrid, Jaz and Nicholas, and welcome to Emma who has been co-opted on from the start of 2021.

Farewell to our Year 8’s - Maggie, Tom, Violet, Xsara, Ace and Toby, we wish you all the best for your exciting year coming up. We also farewell Charlie and Arthur, and can’t wait to hear all about your new schools in Christchurch. We hope you come back and visit us.

Penny, Sally, Georgie and myself are on a planning day tomorrow. We have some exciting plans ahead for 2021, and look forward to sharing these with you in the new year.

Have a lovely holiday and a very Merry Christmas. We are looking forward to our first Christmas with our little girl.

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

School Notices

Structured Literacy at Omihi
This year we have started implementing a structured literacy approach to our literacy programme. Next year we will be moving forward with this throughout the school, as well as setting up an intervention programme that Penny will be leading in the afternoon. Below is some information around what structured literacy is, and in term one we will be running parent sessions around what it looks like for us at Omihi. We look forward to sharing more of this with you in 2021.

Information about Structured Literacy
Children in NZ schools are currently taught in a whole language programme. This is an implicit approach whereby children learn to read and write along the way through exposure to text. When reading children are encouraged to use strategies such as 'look at the pictures or the first sound' and take guesses at a word. Evidence based brain research has shown that this is not the way our brain learns to read. While some children are lucky to learn by osmosis through this whole language approach, many are not. It is currently common for 30 - 40% of NZ children to be below in reading and writing despite interventions such as reading recovery being put in place.

Structured literacy teaching means the knowledge and skills for reading and writing are explicitly taught in a sequence, from simple to more complex. Children learn to decode simple words such as tap, hit, red and fun before they read words with more complex spelling patterns such as down, found or walked. Decodable books with restricted spelling patterns are used in a structured approach that links with the knowledge and skills that children have been taught. Structured lessons also allow mastery of letter and sentence formation so progress is made in writing too. Structured literacy emphasizes oral language abilities essential to literacy development, including phonemic awareness, sensitivity to speech sounds in oral language, and the ability to manipulate those sounds. Structured literacy approaches will reach a much wider range of children and provide reading success for able and struggling readers.

Camp 2021
Year 5-8 students will be going to Wainui for our 2021 camp between 22-24 September. We will give you more details on cost in term 1 and will be asking for parent helpers closer to the time.

Kahui Ako - Community of Learners
Thank you to Sally who was our Within School Lead for our Kahui Ako this year. Sally did some great work around Enviroschools and Digital Technology. Penny will be our new Within School Lead in 2021 and will be focusing on Structured Literacy.

I am continuing as Support Principal for our Kahui Ako in 2021 and will be Acting Lead Principal for term 2, while our Lead Mike Hart is on sabbatical.

Prize giving
We welcome you to our prize giving on Wednesday 16th December at 11am. Our whānau picnic will follow from 12-1pm and the pool will be open during this time.

Kapahaka
Our students did us proud at Kapahaka last week! I have filmed each performance and will upload these onto Hero. Thank you to Matua Rihari, Sally and Megan for working with our students throughout the year.

Reports
The teacher and principal comment, along with Maths/Reading/Writing graphs will be published on Monday.

Stationery for 2021
You can order your school stationery here for 2021 - https://www.myschool.co.nz/omihi. It will be delivered straight to your home. The school books will be issued from school at the start of the year and we will invoice you directly for those.

Community Notices

Hello Summer Pool Parties
We are excited to be hosting a pool party at our school on Tuesday 19th January between 11-1pm. These are free, and all are welcome!

Kia ora whānau

Miss Smith has been relieving for us ahead of starting here in 2021.

Thank you to all the parents who have been helping with transport for our numerous events this term. Due to events being changed around throughout the year, we have ended up with a lot in term 4, so we appreciate your support. What lucky children to have so many wonderful opportunities!

On Friday I met with students regarding their feedback on what they love about our school and what we can do better. This is something I do each term and I truly love it. We call ourselves ‘one big whānau’ and we definitely are. I asked our students if we could share the feedback with parents this time as I was so humbled by the lovely things they had to say about their teachers, their school and their friends. You should have received this on Friday. Some of the trends that jumped out to me were that they love that we are a small school, that everyone plays together and the amount of opportunities they get from being in a small school. (Plus they love that we have a swimming pool, a basketball court and a school dog and ‘school baby’ ;) )

I feel lucky to be principal here.

Ngā mihi

Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Principal’s Award
Last week’s Principal award went to…..Charlie Murphy.

Welcome
Welcome to Liza Elphinstone who came to visit us on Friday. Liza will be starting in Year 5 in 2021. She has 4 year old twin sisters who will be turning 5 later in 2021.

Camp
Thank you to Penny who has organised our school camp. The children are very excited about going away on an adventure to Arthurs Pass.

Stationery for 2021
You can order your school stationery here for 2021 - https://www.myschool.co.nz/omihi. It will be delivered straight to your home. The school books will be issued from school at the start of the year and we will invoice you directly for those.

Library Books
Please can you ensure all library books are returned to school by Friday, 27 November. The Amberley library is going to be issuing every child with 10 books over the summer. Yo is picking them out to suit each child. Lucky children!

Kapahaka - Tuesday 1st December
Children need to be in their kapahaka uniform and meet at Ohoka Hall at 9.30am on Tuesday 1st December. The school bus will leave from school at 8.30am, so the normal Omihi bus run will not be running that morning. Here are the transport details.

Year 0-3 Sport Spectacular
The Sport Spectacular is on at Amberley Domain from 10-2pm on Wednesday 25th November. Mrs Lucas will drive all the children in the bus and Miss Mickleson and Tamar will stay with the children. We welcome parents to come along and watch. Please ensure children have their sunhats, lunch and a drink bottle.

No Lunches online this week
Due to Camp and Sports Spectacular there are no lunches online this week.

No school bus
The school bus is not running on the morning of Tuesday 1st December, due to kapahaka.

Mufti Day - Friday 4th December
Please can you send a can of food for the Foodbank on our mufti day.

Year 7/8 visit to ARA
As part of our Careers programme, the Year 7-8 students will be attending ARA with Waipara, Greta Valley and Broomfield School on Thursday 10th December. The students and Miss J will be travelling in the community bus that Waipara School are organising. We will let you know further details nearer the time.

Pool Key
The pool is now open and keys can be purchased from the school office. The cost for school families is $50 and you will be refunded $20 when you return the key at the end of the season.

Prize giving and whānau picnic
A reminder that our prize giving is on Wednesday 16th December at 11am, followed by a whānau picnic between 12-1pm at school.

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou Whānau,

Delilah and I at the top of Mt Grey.

It’s lovely to be back at school again. Delilah is nearly 6 months old and it’s been so nice having special family time with her at home. We had a month away in a campervan around the north island, which we all loved and have had lots of little adventures along the way! She will now be out on the farm with George, spending time with Grandparents or coming in to see her Mum and her Omihi whānau. She’s a lucky little girl.

Firstly I would like to say a big thank you to Penny for taking over while I was away. It was lovely to have complete trust in Penny and be able to just focus on our little girl. Penny did a fantastic job and I’m so grateful of the support she got from our board, staff and community. Thank you to Sally, Megan and Ruth for stepping up and taking on extra responsibilities while I was away.

I started back on Friday, all ready to help with the final stages of set up for our Omihi School Farm Race. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be and was out of our hands. Safety is our priority, so after seeing how wet and windy it got, I know we made the right decision. So much time and effort goes into an event that size, so it was a real shame to have to cancel again. We appreciate all of the time and effort that everyone put into it. A special thanks to Kate, Amy, Leighton, Nick, Sofia, Jane, George, Jeremy, Kurt, plus our whole community for donating your time and prizes. We are going to use the prizes for a raffle at the beginning of 2021.

Penny and I have been looking into our classes for next year. We are excited about our team and have had a small change around of year groups in each class. As we have more teachers for 2021 we aren’t going to be merging classes as often as this year. The classes for next year are:
Paemoana Year 0-3
Penny Vincent

Awaawa Year 4-5
Georgie Smith

Tūpari Year 6-8
Sally Mickleson

Awaawa will split on Monday afternoons and all day on Friday. Year 5 will go to Tūpari and year 4 will join Paemoana.

I will be covering release every Friday and across all three classes throughout the term. Sally and I will be working closely with the seniors and Penny and Georgie will work closely with their two classes.

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

School Notices

Principal’s Award
The latest Principal’s award went to…Christian Esler!

Teacher only day
A reminder that it is teacher only day this Thursday, 12th November and Show Day on Friday, so there will be no school on these two days.

Year 5-8 Assembly
We invite you to our final assembly of the year on Friday, 20th November at 2pm.

Reports
Your child’s maths comment will be published on Hero this Wednesday.

Grandparents Day
Grandparents Day is on Tuesday 17th November. We invite our grandparents in at 9am to have a tour of the school and join their grandchild’s class, then join us for a morning tea at 10am. If you are able to bring a plate for us to share, please let me know - principal@omihi.school.nz.

Athletics
Congratulations to everyone who participated in athletics last week. Good luck to Lily Banks, Rowan Inkson, Charlie Murphy, Leni Wilkie, Christian Esler, Billy Esler, Tom Hazeldine, Xsara Mann, Emma Waldron, Sione Lealiki Waldron, Jack Sloss, Georgie Macefield, Violet Inkson, Maggie Hamilton, Daisy Kay and Monty Croft who are competing at Kowai Athletics on Monday.

Kapahaka Performance - Year 4-8
On Tuesday, 1st December from 10am-12pm our Year 4-8 children will be attending and performing at the North Canterbury Kapahaka Festival at Ohoka School Hall.  Our school has 50 tickets only for this.  The cost per ticket is $5.  If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, please contact Ruth today. We will need transport to this event. Please let me know if you can help with transport or if you will be taking your child directly there - principal@omihi.school.nz. I will be taking the bus from Omihi as well.

Tough Kids Challenge
On Wednesday 18th November our Year 3-8 children will be competing in the Sport Canterbury Tough Kids challenge. This is being held at South Brighton and sells out every year.  This is a really fun event where children run/walk/crawl/jump/roll/climb/paddle their way through a range of obstacles and challenges.  We need parent transport for this, as we are not taking the bus. Please let me know if you can help with transport - principal@omihi.school.nz. Children need to be there by 12.15pm, ready for the 12.30pm briefing. It will be finished by 2.20pm. All information is on the Primary Sports Canterbury website.

Sports Spectacular
On Wednesday 25th November our Year 1-3 children will be heading to the Kowai Sports Spectacular event at Amberley Domain.  We invite parents to come and watch. I will be taking all children in the bus from Omihi. You are welcome to take your child straight home afterwards.

Camp - Year 5-8
A reminder to please send your camp forms back if you haven’t already.

Prize giving and whānau picnic
Our end of year prize giving is on Wednesday 16th December at 11.00am. We usually have a separate day where we have a whānau picnic, but we have noticed that parents are finding it harder to join us on this day due to it being such a busy time of year. So this year we will have our whānau picnic at school from 12.00-1.00pm after prize giving. A chance to catch up, eat some kai and celebrate our student’s successful year.

Community Notices

Tēnā koe,

Our Apps, Devices & Porn parenting evening is just over two weeks away (Thursday November 19th) and we would really appreciate your help in continuing to promote this within your networks. I know these conversations can be awkward, but the challenges are reality for our rangatahi and without courageous conversations change doesn’t happen.

This is an awesome chance for parents to not just gain knowledge, but more importantly the skills to have great conversations and support their young person to manage these often tricky subjects. 

This workshop will be really worthwhile for anyone with children of any age (it’s a conversation that’s best to start younger) and we’d appreciate your help in getting the word out!  Tickets are $5 but we don’t want anyone to miss out if this is a barrier so please get in touch if this is the case and we’ll get them sorted. 

For more information and registration you can check out Eventbrite or Facebook. Click HERE for downloadable posters and graphic for screens. Please let me know if you need any printed media delivered, and thank you for your support!

Ngā mihi,
Stephen McQuarrie, 0274659951, Rangiora Youth Community Trust, ryct.net.nz 

Biodiversity: Our Heritage & Our Legacy

The Hurunui Biodiversity Trust’s Invitation Address with Tā Tipene O'Regan has been rescheduled, for Monday 23 November. This will be an informative, entertaining and thought-provoking discussion with Tā Tipene, who is a distinguished Ngai Tahu kaumatua, scholar and advocate. He will explain ways Maori view the importance of our native biodiversity for its cultural and spiritual as well as ecological values, then discuss what sustainable custodianship of the land means from a Maori perspective and how to achieve this together so that our natural resources are in good shape to support generations to come.

 Time: 7 – 9pm, supper included. Venue: Omihi Hall, cnr SH1 and Reeces Road. $5 donation appreciated. RSVP by 19 Nov tohurunuibiodiversity@gmail.com, of via Facebook: Hurunui Biodiversity Trust

Kia ora koutou Whānau,

We have had a lovely start to our term. Agri Sports/Pet Day last week was a real highlight and we are looking forward to more exciting events coming up in the next few weeks. 

You will see from my notices below that this is a very busy term with lots of dates to remember.  Please go through and mark them in your calendar.  This term requires a lot of parent involvement with working bees, volunteering and transport of kids (and animals) to events.  I would like to thank our parent community for their continual support in helping us raise funds, keep our school clean and tidy and run and attend events.  We are incredibly grateful.

This will be the last newsletter that I write from the Principal’s Chair, as Mrs Lucas will be back on November 6th. We have been lucky to have her in for a few relieving days between now and then too. I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for your support whilst I have been Acting Principal.  It has been a privilege to take on the role in such a special school and community.

Ngā mihi
Penny Vincent
Acting Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Pet Day
Pet Day last week was a huge success. I would like to say a huge thank you to Julie, Nick and Leighton for organising everything on the day.  Thank you also to Nick Hamilton, Jeremy Kay, Leon Parish and Neil Evans for coming in and being our judges.  I am glad to say that with a bit of a community effort we managed to catch the chicken which escaped across the road the next day!  Please can you return prize giving cups from last year so we can engrave them.

Athletics
Next week is a very busy one with athletic events for all of our children.  On Tuesday 3rd November (pp 4 November) our Year 4-8 children are participating in the Small Schools Athletics event at Waipara School.  The event starts at 10am which means children need to be at Waipara School by 9.45am.  On Wednesday 4th November (pp 5 November) our Year 0-3 children will be participating at the Waikari/Greta Valley Athletics day. This event starts at 9.30am which means children need to be at Waikari School by 9.15am.  We are asking parents to transport their children to and from these events please.  If you are unable to transport your child and cannot organise them a ride with someone else, please can you let us know by tomorrow. If we do not hear from you we will assume your child has transport organised. 

 School Photos
School photos are now ready to order.  All you need to do is head to http://www.claireinkson.com/omihi-school and enter the password which has been emailed to parents. From here you will be able to view all the images, order what you would like and they will be shipped to you directly. A huge thank you to Claire Inkson for coming in and taking the photos. 

Working Bee
This week is our Working Bee week.  Thank you to everyone who has put their names down for a job.  If you have not been able to put your name down for a job, you are more than welcome to add your name to one of the gardening options as ‘many hands make light work’.  If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch and I can point you in the right direction. 

Farm Race
Our annual Farm Race event is coming up on Sunday, November 8th. We still have spaces on our volunteer form that need to be filled.  If you have not got your name down for anything and you or someone you know are able to help out, please email Jane ASAP at hamiltonglens@xtra.co.nz

Kapahaka Performance
On Tuesday, 1st December from 10am-12pm our Year 4-8 children will be attending and performing at the North Canterbury Kapahaka Festival at Ohoka School Hall.  Our school has 50 tickets only for this.  The cost per ticket is $5.  We will limit these tickets to three per family to start with.  If you would like to purchase a ticket, please email Ruth by the end of this week.

Grandparents Day
Our annual Grandparents Day was unable to happen earlier in the year because of Covid restrictions.  We now have a new date.  We will be holding our Grandparents Day on Tuesday 17th November.  This will run from 9-10.30 am.  Invitations will be sent home for this closer to the time.

Tough Kids Challenge
On Wednesday 18th November our Year 3-8 children will be competing in the Sport Canterbury Tough Kids challenge. This is being held at South Brighton and sells out every year.  This is a really fun event where children run/walk/crawl/jump/roll/climb/paddle their way through a range of obstacles and challenges.  Expect the kids to get wet and muddy!  More information regarding travel to this will come out closer to the time.

Sports Spectacular
On Wednesday 25th November our Year 1-3 children will be heading to the Kowai Sports Spectacular event at Amberley Domain. 

NZ Playhouse
We are looking forward to having NZ Playhouse come and perform their production of ‘Chilled’ for us this Wednesday.  I am sure the children will enjoy being the audience members instead of the performers this time around!

Amberley Show
All of our children have art entered into the Amberley Show this weekend.  Their amazing backdrop that they painted for production is also going to be on display.  Please head down and check it out.  Thank you to Jaz and Tom Hazeldine for helping with transport and setting up of our production backdrop down at the show grounds.

Reports
The teachers have been busy completing maths assessments over the past two weeks.  In week 5 of the term each child will have a maths comment posted on Hero.  At the end of the term children will receive a general comment and principal’s comment and their achievement sliders will be completed.

Community Notices

RESILIENT HURUNUI presents Dr Jo Fountain and Michael Bennett, Lincoln University. They will talk about the North Canterbury focused  Post-Quake Farming Project in the context of climate change and COVID-19, including opportunities emerging for Agri-tourism.

Thursday Nov 19th at 7.30p.m  Amberley School Hall $5 donation appreciated