Motto:
To be the best
we can be
Kia eke ki nga taumata

Vision:
Connect Challenge Empower
Hono - Whakatara
- Whakamana

Mission:
Together we inspire learning
Whakahui, whakamanawa, tatou, ako

O R C A

Ownership
Rangatiratanga

Respect 
Manaakitanga

Collaborate 
Whanaungatanga

Achieve 
Ako

UPCOMING EVENTS

WALKING SCHOOL BUS

GIFTED LEARNING AND COGNITIVE ABILITY SCREENING TESTS

Dear Parents and Students

Kids aged 11+ plus Road - A Good Idea? This week we are continuing our focus on safety. The section below is adapted from this website and would be very worthwhile for all parents to take time to read.

Is the traffic around your place busy? Are all the roads leading to school busy with traffic every morning and afternoon? So why would you want your child to bike on the road by themselves? What are the road rules for children cyclists? Well if you’re anything like me you just get sick of being in the car.
The traffic situation is entirely different to when we were young and the infrastructure around cycle lanes and pathways is far from ideal, but giving your kids the opportunity to be independent of you is a great gift. The suggested age for kids to ride on the road by themselves is 11 but this is entirely at your discretion. It is dependent on the type of child you have and the skill levels they possess.

Bike skills your child will need to ride on the road by themselves:

Ask yourself if they are good at making a decision, have they interacted with traffic enough to understand what cars are likely to do on a road? This can involve all sorts of things from crossing a road, to realising how fast a car moves, to having knowledge of intersections/roundabouts.
Can your child take one hand off the handlebars safely so that they can use hand signals – do they know what the hand signals would be? Could they look over their shoulder for traffic without weaving all over the road?

Tips for beginning:

• design a route that is the “safest”, taking advantage of cycle pathways and minimising interaction with traffic
• practice in quiet times before launching them out into traffic
• increase their confidence and skills on a bike by making it an important part of your family lifestyle from an early age/from now!
• make sure their equipment works
• make sure they are visible – think lights, reflectors, bright jackets, bright school bags
• encourage your school to have cycle skills training sessions with qualified instructors
• read the NZ road code for cyclists together and get into conversations about the road and traffic. They need to understand NZ road rules and you want them to be an environmentally aware cyclist who is engaged in and scanning the environment (that is concentrating on the task at hand) for the entire commute

Warren Steel
Acting Principal

DATES TO REMEMBER

• School Assembly - Monday 11 March 10.20-10.50am
• Triathlon - Wednesday 13th March - more info and times here
• Netball Final Registrations - Wednesday 13 March - 3pm - B1
• Paid Union Meeting - Tuesday 19th March - more info here
• Swimming Sports Yr 5 & 6 - Friday 22nd March
• HBC Interschool Swimming Sports - Thursday 28 March
• School Gala - Saturday 30th March
• Swimming Lessons - at the Leisure Centre - Y3 to Y6 will be starting Term 2 - more info soon