Principal's Message.....

By Rebecca Meek | Posted: Thursday March 2, 2023

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 

Thank you to all of you who donated to our appeal through our Mufti Day for the North Island floods on Tuesday. The students raised $578.50. Our thoughts are with everyone working through the devastation this week and in the weeks to come.

This week our students have had the opportunity to take part in two sporting events, with a Rippa Rugby Tournament on Monday and our Swimming Sports today. Sport is a wonderful thing for teaching our young people skills in teamwork, resilience and goal setting, as well as the obvious spin-off it has for physical and mental health. As we gear up for winter sports trials, please encourage your child to consider playing a sport and signing up for a team. A huge thank you to Hannah Johnston and Sharon Wilson who are putting a lot of time in to organising these events.

Unfortunately this week, we have had a number of students absent due to colds, vomiting bugs and COVID. With winter just around the corner, I wanted to remind our whānau that while we will always endeavour to keep students in routines and at school learning, this may not always be an option. Please continue to support us by keeping your child at home if they are unwell. If your child becomes unwell during the school day we will phone you to come and collect them. 

Last year we gave every student a hard copy learning pack that they could utilise in the event they were learning from home however, we are looking at ways we can reduce our footprint and with this in mind, we have decided to only give hard packs to those students who are unable to access our online learning from the website. Often we have to make the call with very little notice and we really appreciate your support with this.

If you require a home learning pack, please complete the following form. https://forms.gle/RWo8rdwhvkj6oxnk8

This week I spoke at Assembly about students being upstanders and not bystanders, showing courage, compassion and leadership to stand up for what is right. At O.I.S we talk a lot about being IDEAL and using our voices to seek help and call out bad behaviour and is important in both school and our wider community. I would love for you to have a talk with your child about what your family values are and how these link with our IDEAL values.

At O.I.S 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 talk to me where the majority of conversation 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 things.

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 9.00 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 9.00pm.

Finally, it has been great to see students taking more responsibility for the gear they need during the day. One way you can support your child is to ensure you read your weekly email from your child’s teacher. It will have important information for the up and coming week. If you need to contact your child’s teacher during the day, the best port of call is via email. Teachers check their emails in the morning and afternoon, obviously, if it is urgent please phone the school office on 03 4370822.


Health Nurse Information

Fiona Stratford is the Public Health Nurse for O.I.S. Her role within O.I.S is to promote health and provide health information to parents, students and teachers, with the goal of enabling everyone to make good choices around their health and wellbeing. She is at the school on Tuesday mornings and has free, confidential clinics where students can pop in for a chat about their health or wellbeing concerns. 

Students can text or email Fiona or make a time to see her. 

Parents can also contact me directly or often have discussed their child’s needs with the teacher, who can refer students as well. 


Rebecca Meek, Principal