From The Principal's Desk

Dear parents and caregivers

This year has been a wonderful year. I would personally like to thank all the teachers, staff, parents and students for their contributions and support to all the learning that occurred this year, along with all the events and opportunities.

One of the highlights would have to be our Installation Inspiration. This has been an inquiry focus for the children for term 3 and half of term 4. We had over 210 families attend our Installation Inspiration sharing and it was wonderful to see so many people talking and connecting with each other, plus several families brought in picnic dinners which was lovely to see. We have had some fabulous feedback on the night:

• I can see the warmth coming through the school
• Colour is everywhere – it's great
• Arts are so important, good to see them in our school
• I love my child taking me around the school and showing me
• The school looks great

We have even had people from our local community, parents of ex-pupils comment when they have walked through the school saying they feel inspired.

It has been a truly wonderful experience for students and teachers. Teachers commented that it was great to soak it all up and talk with parents.

In regard to learning we would also like to mention Zhiyuan Yu - year 4, room 1, who attended an event at the University of Auckland where he received his medal for receiving top marks in Mathematics across New Zealand and Australasia in 2019. It was my privilege to attend this event along with Zhiyuan's family. 

We have all been waiting upon the completion of our new building. We are looking forward to beginning our teaching next year and we know that Mrs Karyn Bell and Miss Tyler McCurdy (who will be teaching year 6 together in the downstairs area) will make a fabulous team, upstairs we have Mrs Susan Hall, yr 6, and Mrs Gemma Drummond (who has taught in our school before) year 5 along with Mrs Aimee Scott. We know that these teachers will provide and cater for an exciting and stimulating environment and great learning opportunities for our students to fulfil their potential and expand their learner agency.

In the meantime we need to come up with a more suitable name for these areas rather than New Build 1,2,3,4!

Room 12 will be demolished over the period of Jan 6-16, there may be some asbestos in the beginning of the demo, so please be aware if you are walking through the school. We intend to move into the new build on 20 January.

Many of you will have heard or read about donations not needing to be paid, because the government will pay a pro rata amount to the school for each child. We are not able to be part of this initiative as it is for decile 1-7 schools only. Without your support with donations and fundraising we would not be able to provide the great support and opportunities we do for our children. We are keen to keep doing this. Our current donations have not been raised for the past 10 plus years and to keep up with costs we will be suggesting our donation is $360, rather than $340 for one child next year and $700 for two or more children.

I would like to acknowledge our PTA and parents for all the hard work that they have put into fundraising for our school, along with you as parents, in supporting our fundraising events. Special thanks to Dawn Gillard our PTA chair for overseeing all these events.

We look forward to a new term of learning next year starting on Monday 3rd Feb. To ensure the safety of all our students in the playground and on trips, all of our staff will be attending a Teacher Only Day on Friday 7th Feb. This is a full day course to ensure our staff are all up to date with the latest approaches.

To give you a heads up for any holiday plans, the first day of Term 2 is Monday 27th April, ANZAC day. As a staff we will be partaking in coaching professional development and this will take place as a Teacher Only Day on Tuesday 28th April 2020.

Thank you also to our Board of Trustees for their role in governance of our school and the time that they have given to this role. Your interest and commitment to our school is appreciated.

I am truly amazed at our talented teachers, they are a delight and pleasure to work with, we and our students are so lucky to have them. I'd also like to thank our supportive and flexile learning assistants, they are a real asset in the classroom. Our office staff are also a real blessing they are helpful and positive, even when things get super busy as they do at this time of year. We are also so lucky to have our caretaker extraordinaire, Mr Costello, or 'Mr C' to the children, his initiative and hard work is so appreciated.

I would also like to thank the senior managers, Paul, Judy and Hayley for their support and leadership throughout the year, along with our team leaders Mrs Bell, Mrs Craig and Mrs Elliot.

To our families that are leaving us or parents of our year 6's, I have included a link here to my speech from the year 6 graduation. I wish you all well for your futures as you continue learning to navigate our changing world.

Finally, to you as parents and whanau, thank you for your involvement this year. Your child and children are a joy and delight to teach. I am proud of Mellons Bay School, it is a great school. I wish you all the best for Christmas, I hope you have a safe and happy break and look forward to 2020.

Ngā Mihi

Colleen Margison

Principal 

News Bites

Kindo is here!!

This is a cashless and simple payment system designed for schools.  Going forward we will be putting all school related costs on Kindo to make life easier for all.  School donations, uniform shop purchases and all school events and activities.  We invite you to see it in action and register.

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