Please take a few minutes to catch up on what's been happening at school this week, coming events, or things to plan for with your children.

WELCOME BACK
Welcome to term 2 and an exciting term of learning and opportunities at Whangaparaoa School. We hope you all had some great family time and fun together over the last two weeks. We extend an especially warm welcome to all our new families and students who joined us for the first time on Monday.

SABBATICAL
Monday was a fantastic day for me personally as I came back to school and saw all our students and staff. The opportunity to have some time to do lots of things away from our school setting was both appreciated and valued. After my ten weeks though, I was certainly chomping at the bit to jump back into our school environment and enjoy the many highlights of our days with students and staff.

I would like to thank Warren, Gordie, Jo and our supportive staff team who capably led the school in my absence. It is reassuring when you take time away to know that things will continue to run smoothly and be managed professionally. I certainly rested knowing this was the case in our school. Well done for the great teamwork. 

I would also like to sincerely thank our Board of Trustees for supporting my sabbatical, and enabling this fantastic opportunity.

WHAT NOW ??
Thank you to the many people who have expressed interest in my travels, what I got up to and enjoyed. By the end of this term I will to be presenting my sabbatical report to the Ministry of Education. This report will be made available to our BOT, staff and community.

During Term 3, there will be opportunities for the BOT, staff and community to hear some thoughts that may be part of taking our school forward over the next 3 year period. Everyone will have the chance to give feedback on the ideas and be part of helping to formulate this strategic plan with our new BOT and staff. I am very excited to have the opportunity to share these ideas and extend the learning opportunities and possibilities for all our children, and our school.

LOOKING AFTER OUR TEACHERS
We are very lucky to have committed and hard working teachers in our school. We have systems and people in place to observe, support and develop our teachers to be the best they can be. Every staff member in our school has things they want to work on, to try and to be better at. Please realise that as much as they want to, they can not be all things to all people.

To help them in their job, they have a buddy teacher, a team leader, a management person and curriculum coaches. These positions are held by staff who have considerable experience and success in schools, they also know the teachers and their current workload and pressures. They regularly go into classrooms to work with the teachers to give them feedback and feedforward to help them grow.

We are also lucky to have caring parents in our community who are frequently asking what they can do to help. Here are a couple of suggestions.

• If your child has learning concerns, ask the teacher how you can help them and work together as a team to help your child.
• If your child comes home with a worrying statement, please find out all sides of the story before jumping to conclusions. Your child will see things from their perspective which can be very different to others’ perspectives.
• When your child comes home and you want to ask about school, ask for a highlight in the day or a positive thing they did to make someone else’s day, what they thought their best effort was or did anything funny happen?
• Our teachers are all very different in terms of experience, curriculum strengths, sense of humour, sporting expertise and personality. This is our strength as a staff and why we select them. Please celebrate this diversity with us.

PAID UNION MEETING - Monday 6 May 2019 from 12:50pm
As much as we know this is a big inconvenience, it is again time to take action to ensure work conditions and pay will support quality people being attracted to the teaching profession, and ultimately teaching your children. The union meeting is on Monday 6th May 2019. Children will need to be picked up from their classes at 12.50 pm.

Parents have asked in the past if their children can stay at school. We ask our parent community to support us as much as possible in this difficult situation as most of our teachers will attend this meeting to fight for better pay and work conditions. If you are unable to help us this time, your child will report to the library at 1 pm and be supervised until 3 pm by a couple of staff who will stay behind. If your children normally walk home from school, you will need to email your child’s teacher before 11 am to confirm this please. After School Care will run from 3 pm as usual.

Thank you for your anticipated support.

UNIFORM
We take pride in being “Whangaparaoa School” and therefore have high expectations around our ORCA values of Ownership, Respect, Collaboration and Achievement. We also take pride and own how we look and present ourselves. Parents in the past have voted for a school uniform and we have clear expectations around what is expected in this area. Students who are not complying with these expectations will be given a letter and up to 2 weeks to work through any uniform items that are inappropriate. Our aim is to help every child feel successful, so if you need any support to comply, please let us know and we will help out.

INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL DOCS
Our school has been working with SchoolDocs to create a website for our policies and procedures. We are excited to announce that the site is now live.

SchoolDocs provides us with a comprehensive core set of policies which have been well researched and follow the Ministry of Education National Administration Guidelines. We work alongside them to maintain, update and review our policies. These policies and procedures are tailored to our school, and we have supplied specific information such as our charter, and procedures such as behavior management and reporting to parents.
SchoolDocs updates, modifies, or creates policies in response to changes in legislation or Ministry guidelines, significant events, reviews/requests from schools, and regular reviewing from the SchoolDocs team. Our BOT has the opportunity to view changes / additions and comment on them before they are implemented. We will advise you when policies are up for review and how you can take part in the review.
We invite you to visit the site as http://wgp.schooldocs.co.nz/ (note there is no www). Our username is wgp and password orca.

It is great to be back. Have a fantastic week.

Kevin Cronin
Principal

MUFTI DAY FRIDAY 10 MAY WESTPAC CHOPPER APPEAL 2019
Next Friday 10 May we are having a whole school mufti day to support our Chopper School fundraiser to help raise funds for the Westpac Chopper Appeal. Westpac has been supporting the choppers for over 35 years. Please bring a gold coin donation to support this fundraiser.

DATES TO REMEMBER

• Union Meeting 6th May (see above for more information)
• Bingo Night - Saturday 25 May
• Photolife Term 2 - Monday 27 May & Tuesday 28 May
• Swimming Lessons- Leisure Centre - Y3 to Y6 will be starting  27th May.

A MILLION DREAMS

ROAD SAFETY WEEK 6th- 12th MAY 2019/ WALKING SCHOOL BUS/PARKING

Click on image below for further information

SPANISH LESSONS
Classes now available. Always wanted to learn another language? Spanish Lessons at an affordable price. Learn from a native Spanish teacher. Only $15/Lesson. Lessons are held at your school. Please contact Cristina Ph: 0210734528.

YUMMY STICKERS 2019
Hello Yummy Sticker Family! We have had a great response so far and already completed stickers sheets are rolling in. All I can say is "Thank you and keep them coming!" The term is only 10 weeks long so Go hard and Go Yummy!

It's time for a wee taste of freedom. It's time to have some laugh's at Bingo, followed by a good dance. So, invite your mates, plans some nibbles and drinks (cause it's BYO), book the baby-sitter, and get ready for a great night out!

We have even picked a dress up theme that we know you are going to love - so dig out those wardrobe treasures and dress up for 'Why do I still own this!'

At $25 a ticket it's a great price for a night out. Follow this link to get your ticket now

Look out for more fundraisers this term:

• Travel Raffle - towards the end of Term 2
• Student Disco - date TBC

STUDENT SUCCESSES

*BMX Champ

* Student Writing