Principal's Message....
Our Purpose: To prepare students to be active participants who will contribute to their community.
Tēnā koutou katoa, Malo e lelei, Talofa lava, Bula vinaka
We are well and truly in the swing of a new term that may be one of the busiest yet. Children will be working hard this term not only in the classroom but participating in a range of different activities ie. Youthtown, Kapa haka and Pasifika groups that have performances, and winter sports just to name a few.
I have loved watching our students participating in their winter sports activities and there was certainly a real buzz at the netball courts last Friday. Thank you for your support in getting your child to and from their training and games. Thank you also to those parents who have had to step in and help coach or manage a team. We really appreciate it!
We only have a small number of students away at the moment either isolating or with COVID. If your child is away from school for any reason please ensure that you use Skool Loop (free app) and their class teacher knows before 9am. With the weather getting cooler we also have the normal cold and flu bugs around. Here at OIS, we are still encouraging students to regularly hand wash and not come to school when they are sick. Thank you for your support with this.
Next Friday our students are encouraged to ‘Wear something Pink’. This is a nationwide campaign to raise the awareness of Bullying. Pink Shirt Day is an anti-bullying movement that celebrates diversity and creates environments where all people can feel safe, valued and respected. Each year, workplaces, schools, organisations and individuals join the movement to make a stand against bullying. I encourage you to also wear something pink to your workplace on Friday 20 May, and stand with your child and us in celebrating diversity and STAMPING out bullying in our community.
At OIS we have an open-door policy, where students and whānau are always welcome to speak with their teachers about any concerns they are having. I often have students coming in to speak with me, the majority of it is about bullying and inappropriate behaviour. We are dealing with this at the moment and the majority stems from social media - either from gaming or chat groups, none of which happens during class time, however, it takes a lot of precious teaching time to get to the bottom of it.
If your child is using a social media platform, I can’t urge you enough to please take the time to check who they are connecting with, what they are doing online and that the conversation and messages being sent are respectful. We do not encourage chat groups and we certainly do not promote class or school groups being made. Ensure that you have robust systems and expectations in place. A sound piece of advice I heard from a parent this week was, “nothing good happens for students on social media after 9 pm” for that reason in their house they leave their phones on the kitchen table for the night. You would be surprised by the number of students who are still online after 9.00 pm.
We have exciting building projects happening around the school, not only do we have a class block upgrade but we also have the Administration and Library block upgrade about to begin. This week we will be packing up our Library for 4 weeks, if your child has library books at home that they have finished reading we would love these to be returned.
Have a wonderful, safe weekend
Rebecca Meek, Principal
Ki te Taumata - Get there with Learning