Tēna Koutou

Year 6-8 Speech winners for 2021.

This week Year 5-8 are heading off to Wainui for school camp. Miss Mickleson is leading the camp, and with Miss Smith’s help they have done a wonderful job of organising it. So much thought, time and planning goes into a school camp, so I would like to thank Sally and Georgie for this.

Camp is about building relationships, trust, resilience and stepping outside your comfort zone. It is a chance for our tamariki to push themselves and try new things. It can be nerve wracking being away from their family and we know some children feel a bit anxious about this, but it is so wonderful to see them challenge themselves and thrive in the activities. They always come away feeling so proud….and tired!

A big thanks to Aaron, Nathan, Jane and Carl for coming with us. We look forward to sharing photos with you of our three days.

Ngā mihi

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

School Notices

Principal Award Winners
Congratulations to our latest Principal Award winners - Acacia Stevens-Pugh and Macy Finlayson. They will be heading to Fossil Point for a hot chocolate at the start of term 4.

Omihi School Online Auction
We would love your support with our auction now that our other fundraisers have had to be cancelled. You can go to the Omihi School Facebook page and the album is pinned to the top of the page, or click on this link. The auction finishes on Friday 24th September at 8pm. Please share it on Facebook for us and get your bids in. We also have a Fisher and Paykel cooktop on Trade me that was donated to us.

3 Way Learning Conferences
These were postponed during lockdown and we are struggling to find set days to book them in, plus we know parents are busy. So instead of booking in set days, we are going to leave it as an optional 3WLC and let you organise a time with your child’s teacher if you would like to catch up about your child's progress. If we are still in level 2, you will need to sign in and use the Covid scanner. Report comments will all be coming out in term 4.

Character Strengths
Character Strengths is a big focus for us as part of our Positive Education Curriculum. Everybody has character strengths and we help our students to identify them and utilise them. Students and staff complete the VIA Character Strength Survey online to find out where their strengths lie. Each newsletter we are going to showcase one of our students or staff, what their character strengths are, and how they help them. Macy, Year 6 - My top character strengths are kindness, love and teamwork. These help me to make friends and to engage in conversations with others.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori
We loved celebrating te reo last week. Our tamariki are definitely getting more confident when using te reo, as are our staff. We are challenging ourselves to continue to learn new kupu (words) and phrases. Ask your tamariki what they can say to you in te reo….

Speech Competition
We were so proud of all of our tamariki last week. Each and every one of them stood up and either performed a poem or presented a speech. It was so lovely to see their progress from last year. It blew me away seeing the confidence in some of our children who previously have been very shy when presenting speeches. In our Year 6-8 competition we would like to congratulate Jeremy for coming 1st, Daisy 2nd, Macy and Acacia 3rd equal.

Upcoming work at school
Today we were really grateful to have Pone Taite (Kaumatua) and Melanie Taite-Pitama (Tuahiwi Education Team Member) bless our new multipurpose space for us. The name gifted to our building is Kahiwi (mountain). It goes perfectly with our other buildings - Paemoana (sea), Awaawa (valley), Tūpari (mountain cliff). These capture our local environment. It was a wonderful learning experience for our tamariki to be a part of this.

The furniture has been delayed due to Covid, but hopefully that should start arriving early next term, so we can start using Kahiwi. We are excited to move our library in there, plus start using it for assemblies, music, break out spaces, groups of students working with adults, BOT meetings and much more! It truly will be an asset to our kura.

In the October holidays there are also a few other jobs happening - a new roof going on the office and the children’s toilet block, a new master key system being installed in all of the school buildings and gates, stage two of our playground and outdoor learning space will be started…..and thanks to a very kind member of our community and the money we raised from our virtual walk - we are having solar panels installed on the classroom roof! This is another step towards our sustainability goal and we are excited with the learning that will be able to surround this as well. We look forward to when everything is completed and we can invite you all in for our official opening in term 4.

Dates for 2022
Start date: Thursday 3rd February. Finish date: Wednesday 14th December

Pet Day
Thanks to Kurt who is going to take over Agri Sports from Leighton next year. We are still looking for someone to organise pet day. It doesn’t have to be a farmer. It would be great to have someone that could work with Julie this year, and then do it on their own next year. Please let me know if you are interested.

Swimming Pool
We are looking for someone to help us run the pool. In order to keep the pool going, it needs to be tested each day, including throughout the holidays. We could set up a roster if we can’t just get one person to do it. If you are interested, please let me know. There is training available if you haven’t looked after swimming pools before.

Sushi
Thanks to Dave.E for picking this up for us on Wednesday this week.

Upcoming Dates:
Term 3:
Camp (Year 5-8) - 22-24 September
Positive Education Week - week 10 (celebrating 5 fingers of kindness, resilience, character strengths and mindfulness)
Term 4:
Dental van - 20/21 October
School photos - Thursday 21st October
Student teacher Joella Haglund joins Paemoana - start of term 4
Labour Day - Monday 25th October
Athletics (Year 1-3) at Waikari School - Tuesday 26th October
Agri Sports/Pet Day - Wednesday 3rd November
Athletics (Year 4-8) - at Waipara School - Thursday 4th November
Assembly (Year 0-4) - Friday 5th November, 2pm
Teacher only day - Thursday 11th November
Assembly (Year 5-8) - Friday 26th November, 2pm
Grandparents Day - Tuesday 30th November
Kapahaka Festival (Year 4-8) - Thursday 2nd December

Community Notices

The Hurunui Theatre Group production of "Spamalot" is on hold and will be rescheduled to to a date that suits all parties and conditions. Tickets already purchased will be transferable to any of the new dates, or refundable, with online bookings to be re-selected.

Amberley Tennis Club have a registered Professional for coaching and are the furthest club North offering team entry into the North Canterbury Tennis competitions. Subject to grants, heavily subsidised coaching to children has been available for some years now which has led to a revival in the sport locally, with some great players coming through. Hopefully we can do this again this 2021-2022 year. Social hit and registration: Please come along for a hit and a catch up Saturday 25th September and we can put you into a team or sort out coaching for the season. Juniors from 10am and Adults from 1pm.

We request that everyone complies with the government’s contact tracing policy and signs in on the day. We will limit the attendance to 100 persons for the outdoor event and will be following the L2 protocols as required. Please bring your masks for any spectators/parents.

Competition players: We are looking for numbers this year to make up some short teams in all the grades. We are particularly interested if there’s any A graders out there wanting to play some great competition tennis and put Amberley on the map again this year. We are always looking for the more mature players (35YO) for President competition grade 1 & 2 (doubles only) players to make up the teams even if you only wish to play casually. It often helps. 

Simon Bennetto 03 314-8338,

Kate Dodd 021-509-955  

Kylie Chapman 021-816-564

Vegan Expo Christchurch
Haere-Roa (UCSA, 90 Ilam Rd)
10am – 4pm
Sunday, November 7, 2020

Enjoy great vegan food, watch top veggie chefs display their cooking secrets, learn about plant-based living and enjoy celebrating cruelty-free, pro-planet lives with Christchurch’s vegetarian and vegan community. Whether you are vegetarian or not, you will love the variety of foods and entertainment on offer, which includes a special kid’s zone, bouncy castle and activities.

Eftpos and plenty of free parking will be available.

Kids free (12 and under), adults $5 if bought online now (veganexpo.co.nz/christchurch) or $6 on the door.  

More info: veganexpo.org.nz/christchurch
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veganexpochristchurch
Instagram: www.instagram.com/veganexpochristchurch 

Please note: The Expo will only go ahead if we are in Covid-19 alert level 1. If the event has to be cancelled, refunds will be issued to anyone who has purchased tickets. 

Delilah is loving having her Mum and Dad out on the farm. We are grateful for beautiful days like today.

Kia ora whānau

Thanks for all of your support over the past few days. We have done this before and are able to slot back into home learning again. Your child’s teacher has sent out their home learning this morning. Please keep in touch with them if you need any support or would like any further learning. If there is anyway we can help, we are here for you.

We have some disappointing news that goes with us being back in lockdown - we are cancelling our Spring Ball. This is the second year we have had to cancel our major fundraiser and it’s not a decision we take lightly. But with the uncertain times ahead we can’t take the risk of it being cancelled last minute if we are still in level 2. We have items ready for a silent auction and a raffle, so we will still put these together for an online fundraiser. Thank you to everyone that has helped so far and those that have donated. At the NZ Principal’s Conference I was at a couple of weeks ago, Sir Ian Taylor talked about focusing on the ‘opportunities’ rather than the ‘challenges’. So let’s try and do that and be creative about our fundraising opportunities in the future.

On a positive note, at our BOT meeting last week we made the decision to continue with 3 classrooms next year. Even though we haven’t had fundraisers this year, we had some BOT funds put aside to go into the new building, but as we were under budget, we haven’t had to do this, so we are putting it into our teaching staff. I’m really excited to announce we have the same, amazing, dedicated team next year:

Tūpari - Sally Mickleson
Awaawa - Georgie Smith
Paemoana - Penny Vincent

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Welcome to our Omihi whānau
Welcome to Annie and Scarlett who have started full time in Paemoana.

Postponements
Our Grandparents Day and Year 0-4 assembly have been postponed. We will inform you of dates when these are confirmed.

3 Way Learning Conferences
These are on Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st August. They will go ahead either in person, or via zoom. Please make a time to meet with your child’s teacher. I have shared the link in the newsletter email.

Speeches
These will be completed at school once we get back to level 2. Unfortunately parents won’t be able to come in to watch, but we will record them all and add to Hero.

Report comments
Your child’s maths comments will be coming out via Hero at the end of this week. If you haven’t managed to log into Hero please get in touch with your class teacher.

Dental Van
The dental van will be at school on Friday 17th September. Please see further details below.

Year 5-8 Camp
I have had questions around camp, it is not something we will make a decision on yet. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will have more of an idea if it can go ahead.

Community Notices

Tena koutou whānau

Last week I was at the New Zealand Principal’s Conference in Rotorua. It was such a great opportunity to meet a wide range of Principals from all of NZ and hear some really engaging speakers.

One of my favourites was Sir Ian Taylor. He is a 71 year old Māori/Pakeha man who has had an incredibly interesting life, from being a presenter on Playschool to creating an animation company and flying around the world tracking thousands of sporting events.

He talked a lot around Cultural Responsiveness, STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and the importance for our tamariki learning about the history of Aotearoa. You may have seen his company’s work on animations for the top sports games in the world. He has now been part of setting up this innovative website to help us to teach our tamariki about Aotearoa - www.maatauranga.co.nz/. Feel free to check it out with your children.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Multipurpose Space
Our new building is just having the final few things completed on it and hopefully when it dries out a bit we will start with the landscaping around it. We will be holding a blessing for the building in the next couple of weeks with our tamariki and our Board of Trustees, led by Pone Taite (Kaumatua) and Melanie Taite-Pitama (Tuahiwi Education Team Member), then we will have an official opening in term 4 where our community will be invited.

Agri Sports/Pet Day
For the last few years Leighton Croft has organised our Agri Sports and Julie Wells has organised the Pet Day. We are looking for new people to help with this year’s event, so they could then take it over next year. Please let me know if you are keen.

Spring Ball
A reminder to please send in a grocery item for our raffle at the Spring Ball. Plus tickets are on sale and we would love to see you there. It is a great opportunity to catch up and have a dance! Or just enjoy the band and yummy food! Tickets are at www.iticket.co.nz.

Ski Trips - 10th and 17th August
I will email everyone and put a message on the school’s Facebook page at 6.30am to let you know if the ski trip is going ahead or not.

ERO - Education Review Office
In two weeks we will be meeting our ERO evaluation partner, which we are really looking forward to. Our last review was in 2017 and we were thrilled with our report. There is a new approach since that last review and our evaluation partner will be with us for a longer period of time now and working alongside us to review our kura. We look forward to keeping you updated along the way.

Community Notices

Resilient Hurunui presents guest speaker John McCaskey talking on "Water - A lifetime of living and farming in drought-prone Waipara". On August 19th at 7.30 p.m, Amberley School, Douglas Road, Amberley. $5 donation appreciated. All Welcome. All Resilient Hurunui talks can be found on YouTube.

Mt Cass Wind Farm
The Mt Cass Wind Farm project team continue to work hard to get the project ready for financial close. If you would like to be kept updated about progress, sign up for the Mt Cass Wind Farm newsletter - https://www.mtcasswindfarm.co.nz/

They will be hosting a series of community meetings around the region closer to construction. These meetings will be an opportunity to meet the project team and hear about what to expect during the construction phase of the project.

Kia ora koutou

I hope you’ve all had some great family time during the holidays. I know it can be a busy time, especially if parents are working, but from talking to the kids it sounds like there have been some fun experiences happening, as well as time for children to recharge and energise again ready for school.

On the top of Queenstown Hill.

George, Delilah and I had a great time down in Queenstown and loved catching up with friends in Auckland. Delilah certainly helped us add some km’s to our virtual mission! That was an exciting end to the holidays - we managed to get all the way from Omihi to Christ Church School in London….over 26,000kms! I would like to acknowledge the dedication, perseverance, and grit that our students put in with our daily runs to help us get there. Plus the support from our Omihi whānau and extended Omihi whānau adding in all their kms. It was a great motivation for us to get out and get exercising during a cold few months! Christ Church School in London made us a little video and we were mentioned in their newsletter as well. You can see them on our Facebook page. It was a fundraising opportunity, but most importantly a chance for us to work on a goal together as one big whānau.

With our ski trips and camp this term, we have lots to look forward to. Plus we can’t wait to welcome our grandparents in for Grandparents day on the 26th August.

You will see our new multipurpose space is nearly finished, it won’t be long until we can start utilising this. The rest of the outdoor learning space will start this term and aim to be finished by term 4. We look forward to welcoming you to an official opening of our multipurpose space and playground in term 4.

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

School Notices

Welcome to our Omihi whānau
We welcome Jonty who has joined our Awaawa class and Mackenzie who has joined our Paemoana class.

Spring Ball
We now need everyone’s help to promote our Spring Ball and sell tickets. This is our major fundraiser of the year and can only be successful if we have everyone behind it. Tickets are on sale at www.iticket.co.nz. I will be in touch with parents who have put their name down for jobs as needed. If you haven’t got a job and are still able to help, please let me know or add you name to the doc. The main things we still need help with are:
* a photographer
* organise the silent auction
* sell raffle tickets on the night
* someone who will be coming on the bus to check everyone off as they get on

Keeping Ourselves Safe
This term we will be running the ‘Keeping Ourselves Safe’ programme. There is information online so you can see exactly what we will be covering. Constable Ken will be working alongside us to deliver this to our students. The teachers will let you know in their newsletters when this is being covered. We encourage you to have a look at our ‘Child Protection Policy’ on School Docs. The login details are: omihi, password - glenmark.

Community Defibrillator
Please note this has now been moved from Omihi School, across the road to the Omihi Hall. It is on the side of the building and more accessible without having to go through the school gates.

Ski Trips
We are looking forward to our two whole school ski trips on the 10th and 17th August. I will share the further information with you today. Please check your child is in the correct group and has the gear selected if they need to hire, plus add in your car details at the bottom if you are driving. If you would like to meet halfway up the mountain and get a ride on the Mt Lyford bus, please contact Hamish directly on - lyfordski@xtra.co.nz. If you have any questions please let me know. If you need any ski clothing please let me know. There are often families that can lend these out, rather than having to buy new.

School Calendar
We have a lot of things coming up this term, so please keep up to date by keeping an eye on the calendar on our website. If you would like me to share it with you so you can add it to your Google calendar, please let me know. We would love to see you at our two assemblies - Year 0-4 on Friday 27th August at 2pm and Year 5-8 on Friday 17th September at 2pm.

Teacher Only Day
Please note there is a teacher only day on Monday 27th September.

School Docs Policies
Please take time to read through and review our school policies and procedures that are under review in term 3. These can all be accessed by clicking here and entering the following case-sensitive login details below. This term we are reviewing - Behaviour Management and Concerns and Complaints.
Username: omihi
Password: glenmark

Community Notices

Scargill/Motunau Playgroup
The Scargill/Motunau Playgroup runs during the school term for children under 6 and their caregivers. We meet at Scargill every Wednesday morning to learn through play. New families welcome anytime, please contact Lisa for more information on 021 223 8029.

The Hurunui Theatre Group presents Monty Python’s SPAMALOT.

Book and lyrics by Eric Idle; music by John Du Prez & Eric Idle. A new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Show runs from the 26th August – 4th September at the Waipara Memorial Hall.

Tickets available from Sally Mac’s, Gas Waikari from August, or online bookings and more info at www.hurunuitheatre.org

Yoga
A yoga practice can facilitate the journey to and maintain wellness. The postures and breath are an element of the whole practice of yoga. Group sessions can be the catalyst for great change and development, a dynamic element of a wholistic approach to health and wellbeing.

Singing bowls 🥣, Sound and music through high quality speakers in my private sessions.

My classes are $12, $13 for drop in. Omihi Hall, Thursdays 5.20-6.20pm. www.facebook.com/AliceArcherYoga

Please get in touch with any questions and to book.