Kia ora koutou

The smiling faces of Liza and Kaisa.

With this terrible weather, we have some exciting news leading up to our summer! We have installed a heat pump for the swimming pool, and have purchased a new thermal cover. This means we should be able to use the pool for a longer period of time in terms 1 and 4, and it will be lovely and warm for our swimming lessons!

Thank you to those parents who were able to make it to our movie night and strategic plan update on Friday. It was great to have the opportunity to share our progress on our plan, that you helped us create. Thanks to the teachers who took the time to create a presentation to share. If you weren’t there, here are the slides that you are welcome to look through - structured literacy, positive education, cultural responsiveness. We are happy to go through them with you as well, just let me know. We are proud of what we have achieved as a kura already. We also shared a document showing our curriculum coverage this year so far that you may like to have a look at.

As always, our doors are always open, so please feel free to pop in or touch base if you have any questions or would like further clarity.

Ngā mihi

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

School Notices

Board of Trustees
At the close of nominations, as the number of valid parent nominations was fewer than the number of vacancies required to be filled, the following nominees are therefore officially re-elected in a non-voting election to the school Board of Trustees:

• Julie Wells

• Emma Hughes-Games

• Craig Tomlinson

Georgie Smith has also been elected as the staff Board of Trustees member.

This Board officially takes office on 10 August 2022. A big thank you to Julie, Emma, Craig and Georgie for putting themselves forward for these roles.

Bryleigh Kingston-Rodgers
Returning Officer

Character Strengths
Liza (Year 6) - My top 3 character strengths are curiosity, creativity and bravery. Curiosity helps me to try new things. Creativity helps me to see lots of different ways to do my learning, and it improves my art. Bravery pushes me out of my comfort zone and helps me try things even if it looks hard.

School Photos
Camera and Digital Photography are doing our school photos this year. These will be taken at 9am on Thursday 22nd September. There will be an option for individual and sibling photos as well.

Grandparents Day
We are so excited to welcome our Grandparents back into school! This is on Wednesday 28th September from 9am - 10.30am. We ask each family to provide a small plate of food to share with our grandparents for morning tea please. We are asking Grandparents to wear a mask as well please.

Online Auction
A big thanks to Anna Williams who is organising our online auction. This will be going live on Facebook at 7pm on the 12th September. If you have any contacts or suppliers that may be interested in donating an item, please let Anna know. We aren’t asking families to donate to this, Anna is contacting outside businesses.

Kapahaka Festival
The Year 4-8 students are participating in the Kapahaka Festival, that Tuahiwi School organise, on Thursday 22nd September. They need to be there from 12.30pm - 2.45pm. We will be taking the school bus, and will need a couple of cars. Children are welcome to go home with parents afterwards. Tickets for parents to watch are $10 each. Please email Bryleigh if you would like to order tickets and let Sally or Georgie know if you can take a car.

3 Way Learning Conferences - 29th and 30th August
We are excited to be able to run these in person again. Please sign your child and yourself up to have a time to meet with their teacher to discuss their learning. We ask that parents please wear masks during the meeting.

Pet Day/Agri Sports
Our Agri sports/pet day is on the 19th October. Julie and Leighton have run this for the last few years. Thanks to Kurt who is taking over the organising of the Agri Sports. We are now looking for someone to take over the pet day organising. Julie will be able to support you this year. Please let me know if you would be happy to take this on.

School Docs Policy
These can all be accessed by clicking here and entering the following case-sensitive login details:
Username: omihi Password: glenmark This term we would love your feedback on the following policies:
Student and Staff wellbeing and Safety.

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou

I feel so grateful to be in a profession where every 10 weeks we are able to have a break. Even though teachers and myself still work through some of the holidays, we encourage our staff to take time out and have a good break so they come back refreshed. These holidays my family went to Rarotonga, and what a treat it was to have some sunshine, warmth and relaxation. Delilah especially loved playing with all the dogs she met along the way.

Logan, Fergus, Andy and Hamish happy to see each other again after the holidays.

It was lovely to see all of our tamariki again this morning, and hear about their holiday stories - whether they enjoyed family time, played some new games or went away somewhere. They also seem refreshed, and we hope to continue to keep the winter bugs away from school. Thank you for your support in asking students to wear masks while indoors.

We look forward to seeing you this term at our assemblies, movie night, ski trips, camp, 3 way learning conferences, preschooler morning, or just popping into the classes to say hello.

Ngā mihi

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

School Notices

Strategic Initiative Update
Positive Education - Sally Mickleson
Our school first endeavoured on our Positive Education journey in 2019. Since then, Maree and I have attended Positive Education conferences, engaged in professional development courses and facilitated discussion groups in this domain at our school, and across our kāhui ako. As a school, this year we have further progressed our Pos Ed journey by implementing the Positive Education Enhanced Curriculum created by Geelong Grammar School (Melbourne) into our kura. 

So what is Positive Education? 
Geelong Grammar School defines Pos Ed as;  “Positive Education brings together the science of positive psychology with best-practice teaching and learning to encourage and support schools and individuals within their communities to flourish.”  And  “Positive Education teaches skills and knowledge to help prevent illbeing and promote wellbeing within the context of living a good life.” (Geelong Grammar School, 2022) 

Every Friday our tamariki engage in explicit Positive Education lessons. It has been wonderful to see our tamariki soaking up the key messages in these lessons, and applying the skills and virtues they have learned into their daily school lives.

Principal Awards
Congratulations to our latest Principal Award Winners……Fergus and Andy!

Yamaha Omihi School Trailride
We are excited to announce that we have a new major fundraiser this year - the Yamaha Omihi School Trailride. It is on Sunday 30th October on a number of farms at the end of Reeces Road. Thanks to Todd McBreen and James Blanchard who will be running the event on the day, and to Yamaha for sponsoring this event. Nearer the time we will be asking for volunteers to run the BBQ on the day, and to help with the registration. We need one person to lead the organisation of the BBQ. If you are happy to do this, please let me know. Tickets will go online on the 1st September. Please help us to spread the word!

Movie Night
The Year 8’s are organising a movie night on Friday 5th August at 6pm. There will be a movie for Year 0-4 in Paemoana and one for Year 5-8 in Awaawa. Children are asked to bring their own water bottle, an empty coffee cup (for the popcorn) and there will be popcorn and corn chips to purchase for $1 each. We ask parents to please bring a plate to share with adults and we will meet in Tūpari. A 30min update on our strategic plan first, then a chance to catch up with each other. Parents and children Year 4 and up - we ask that you please wear a mask.

Year 5-8 Camp (14-16 September)
Camp invoices were sent out at the end of last term. Please can these be paid prior to us going on camp. Feel free to come and talk to me if you would like to look at payment options or need some support.

Ski trips (17th and 24th August)
The ski trip forms will be going home this week. As it is parent’s responsibility to take your own children up to the ski field, you are very welcome to bring your whole whānau with you - preschoolers and children who attend other schools. It’s a great family day out!

Sexuality Education
Here is a link to the parent’s guide so you can see the lessons that each year group will be doing over the next few weeks and can continue conversations at home. Paemoana will follow the Year 1-2 guide, Awaawa will follow Year 3-4, and Tūpari will follow Year 5/6. Sally will be in touch with the Year 7/8 parents regarding their content. Please feel free to touch base with your child’s teacher to find out more.

Omihi Library
We are so lucky to have our Omihi Library linked with the Hurunui Library. This means that you can order books online at Hurunui to pick up at Omihi, and issue and return books in both libraries. Our librarian, Yo Turnball, is here every Monday from 2.30pm and we welcome parents and our community to come in from 3pm-3.30pm if you would like to get books out. We have an adults section, and some great books for preschoolers.

Thank you
A big thank you to Jan and Mark, our posties, who continue to deliver our newsletter for us!

Other dates for term 3:
Whole school - speeches/poetry - week 1-3
Year 3-8 ASB Getwise Financial literacy workshops - Tuesday 9th August
Year 5-8 Cantamaths teams go to Ohoka - Wednesday 10th August
Year 5-8 Assembly - Friday 19th August, 2pm
3 Way Learning Conferences - 29/30th August
Preschooler morning - Wednesday 31st August, 9-10.30am
Year 5-8 Top Team Challenge at Amberley Domain - Wednesday 7th September
Life Education - Tuesday 20th September
Year 0-4 Assembly - Friday 23rd September, 2pm

2022 School Board Parent Elections (all info on the newsletter section of our website)
Nominations are open for the election of four parent representatives to the school board. Your nomination form has been emailed to you, or please contact Bryleigh, the returning officer, if you wish to get a copy - office@omihi.school.nz. You can use this form to nominate yourself or someone else in your community.

Nominating yourself or someone else - If you are on the voting roll and eligible to vote, you can nominate yourself. Please remember to sign both parts of the form. If you are nominating someone else, complete the nomination form and make sure it includes all the required contact details and signatures. You can post, hand deliver or email your nomination form/s to the returning officer: Bryleigh Kingston-Rodgers, Omihi School, 990 Omihi Road, RD3, Amberley 7483, office@omihi.school.nz. Nominations close at noon on 3 August 2022.

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou,

Nominations are open for the election of four parent representatives to the board of trustees.

All eligible voters have been emailed a nomination form and a notice calling for nominations – you can use this form to nominate yourself or someone in your community.

If you need hardcopies of the nomination forms, please contact the school office during school hours.

Nominations close at noon on 3 August 2022. You may provide a signed candidate statement and photograph with your nomination.

The electoral roll is held at the school and can be viewed during normal school hours.

As nominations are received, there will be a list of candidates’ names kept at the school up until election day, which you can view.  

Voting closes at 4pm on 7 September 2022.

Ngā mihi nui
Bryleigh Kingston-Rodgers
Returning Officer

Kia ora koutou

Cadence, Ava, Jonty and Jack

I hope you had a lovely Matariki weekend with your whānau. We loved celebrating Matariki with our tamariki on Thursday and would like to thank Leighana for coming in and helping us to make fry bread. We look forward to sharing our learning with you at our end of term assembly.

This is my last newsletter for the term and I just wanted to say how wonderful it has been to have our parents and wider whānau back in our school this term. It’s been lovely to make connections again and touch base on school trips, at assemblies, whānau picnic, preschooler morning and before and after school. We really value the importance of working alongside whānau for the best results for our tamariki, and Covid has made that difficult over the past couple of years, so it is lovely to start getting back to normality as much as we can.

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

School Notices

Character Strengths
Jonty (Year 6) - My top 3 character strengths are kindness, bravery and humour. Kindness helps me be kind to my friends and everyone at school. Bravery helps me stick up for others and try things if I have never done them before, I just give it a go. Humour helps me to cheer people up if they are sad by telling them a funny joke.

ERO - Education Review Office
We have been working with ERO over the past 18 months. Their model has changed, where they now work alongside the school (BOT and staff) over 3 years and are continuously reviewing with us. It is a really positive experience and we are excited to share with you our current reports (on our website) that they have produced. Through looking at our data and strategic plan, our focus is on writing, and they were impressed with what is happening in the school already and our strategic goals around this area over the next 3 years.

Movie Night
The seniors are organising a whānau movie night on Friday 5th August at 6pm. There will be two movies playing in Paemoana and Awaawa, and we welcome parents to come along to Tūpari. We would like to take 30mins to share our progress on our strategic plan, and then have an opportunity for parents to catch up. There will be popcorn available for children to purchase and we ask families to please bring along a plate to share with the adults.

Relationships and Sexuality Education
For the first few weeks in term 3, our health focus will be Relationships and Sexuality Education. There is information online for you to read so you understand what your child will be learning about. Please have a read through this and let us know if you have any questions or would like to talk further with your child’s teacher.

Junior Assembly
On the last day of term we have our Junior Assembly. This is at 2pm either outside or in the Omihi Hall. We welcome our year 5-8 parents to this as well, as we are performing a whole school dance that we have been learning this term.

Playhouse Theatre 
On Thursday 30th June the Playhouse Theatre is coming to Omihi to portray the story of “The Emperor's New Clothes”.  The cost of this is covered from this term’s activity fee.

Community Notices

Together Hurunui will be launching a wellbeing project over World Wellbeing Week (27 June - 1 July) to highlight five ways we can add to our mental health. The campaign will run online for five days focusing on a challenge/activity each day.

To follow the online campaign over the week visit:

• https://www.facebook.com/hurunuiyouthprogramme

• https://www.instagram.com/hurunuiyouth/