From the Principal’s Desk -
Tēnā koutou katoa,
It has been absolutely brilliant to have our tamariki back in the school over the last couple of weeks.  I've loved reconnecting, and seeing learners settle into learning routines.

It was very exciting to be able to announce our 2025 group of student leaders last Monday.  This group of students will soon be involved in leadership training with a facilitator from Waikato Institute for Leadership and Sport Studies (WILSS).  They will learn the skills great leaders use to unite groups for a common goal. 
We are talking with the students too about how we can make sure their profile as a leader in our school is noticed and recognised.  Watch this space! 

2025 is going to be another big year.  I am excited to share some of the new initiatives that we are launching into.
Tier 2 interventions begin from next week.  A tier 2 intervention is the provision of support and time for students who need a little boost in their learning.  Tier 2 teaching is always in addition to the regular classroom programme.  We are fortunate to have been selected by the Ministry of Education to access resourcing for tier 2 intervention in literacy.  This will be offered to small groups throughout the year.  If your child is selected to join a group, we will be in touch to talk it through, and keep you updated on progress too.  We also found out just last week that we have been selected to run a trial with our year 7 & 8 learners in Mathematics.  This launches next week.  I look forward to sharing results with you.

Our year 7 & 8 students are also very soon to be introduced to a very special programme of learning just for them.  The Board of Trustees has supported us in offering the William Pike Challenge.  This is a really great programme of learning to develop these learners in their senior years with us.  We are planning now for the year of challenge ahead for this group of students. 
Our teaching team continues to grow capability also.  Prior to our students starting back, we spent two days together learning.  We have implemented consistent approaches to teaching the English curriculum this week, with a special focus on Writing.  Already, I am impressed with the quality of writing being produced daily by our learners.  We are working hard on writers being independent, and able to sustain focus and write fluently to complete texts.  Students may be noticing a change in the way their teachers help them, and you may notice a change in the way teachers give feedback or mark work.  Check in with your children and let me know what they're sharing.  And please do feel welcome to drop into classes any time and have a look at the writing books.  We are proud of what every learner is achieving in this space.
We also spent time with Nada Harpur in our teacher only time.  Nada is a Ministry of Education Curriculum Advisor.  She spent time supporting our team in understanding the new curriculum for Mathematics.  It was a brilliant workshop session.  While it is a big task to learn a new curriculum, our team are really excited about the opportunities this presents.  We can see the benefits for learners, and we hope you do too.  To continue to support the team into excellent teaching practice, we will be working with highly-regarded Maths facilitator Bruce Moody.  Bruce will spend 4 days here at school with us over terms 1 and 2, modelling in classes and sharing his deep understanding of Mathematics with our team.
The teachers who have not already received Ministry of Education training in structured literacy approaches are also heading into workshops over the next few weeks.   Our school has taken a structured approach to teaching literacy for some time now, and this ongoing learning continues to be an excellent  way for us to maintain top quality teaching and learning.
As you can see, there is a LOT going on.  This is an especially big year, but then it often seems every year is! 
I am very much looking forward to connecting with families at our first assembly of the year on Friday.  We will have coffee, tea, and biscuits available before and after the assembly.  Please feel welcome to join us.

Ngā mihi
Lisa

With the support of an external Health and Safety consultant, I have been carrying out a full audit of our policies and procedures for keeping staff, students, and community members safe and well in our kura over the last couple of months.  The pool has been a big focus, as with all things water-related, there are more risks to manage.  

There are new procedures for class swimming, new mats in change sheds to prevent slips, updated documentation for the chemical shed, and the Board are working this week to confirm new signage too.  We hope to see it in place soon.
 
There is one further recommended step that the Board of Trustees would like to seek your feedback on.  

The Maihiihi School Board of Trustees is responsible for taking all reasonable and practical steps to ensure safety of all pool users.  This includes students during school hours, and key holders who may use the pool outside school hours.  It also includes those who may gain unauthorised access to the pool.  While we are not aware of any unauthorised access, ignorance is not a defence.  In order to monitor this and deter it, we propose installing a camera near the new flood light.  The camera would face the pool gate, and only capture footage of the outdoor space.  No cameras will ever be installed in or able to access footage of the change sheds.

Footage would only be viewed if the Board considered there was a reason - such as a complaint or a dispute.  Occasional sampling of footage from outside school hours may also happen at random intervals to assure the Board that only those who had been inducted/had signed our agreements were using the pool.  Footage would only be able to be viewed by the Principal and/or Presiding Member of the Board, with the specific purpose of identifying unauthorised access and/or unsafe pool use.  The camera would support us in ensuring the safety of all, and enable us to continue to offer the pool for community use outside school hours.

Your feedback on this is essential to our decision-making.  Please do consider and get in touch with me (Lisa) or our Board Presiding Member (Luke Edwards) with any feedback.  We will discuss again at our next Board meeting in week 8.  

The beginning of a new school year offered us an opportunity to reset our expectations for safe and happy play around our play spaces.  This is a key strategic focus for the school, and the Board is reviewing data we collect throughout the year.  You may have heard about this from your child/ren, and I'm keen to keep you updated.

In term 2, 2024 - shortly before I began my time at the school - students completed a survey to enable us to hear their views about different aspects of the school.  The survey is called 'Wellbeing @ School', and it is a paid tool developed by the NZ Council for Educational Research (NZCER).  Many schools use this to check in on the experiences of students.  

Our survey sample at that time showed our students were not feeling safe and happy in the playground.  More than half told us that there was an aggressive student culture.  This became a priority for both our school team and Board.  In terms 3 and 4 last year we trialled a number of approaches, including increasing supervision in different areas of the grounds, and offering an increased range of activities at lunchtime.  These trials had some success, and we have continued with the aspects that have worked.  

At the start of the term, I had a daily check in with our students to make very clear our expectations of them while playing around our grounds.  We keep it simple, expecting that students:

To support all students to be successful, we spent week 1 in a smaller play area.  This allowed staff to be near by and able to show students how to work through disputes.   As we saw more and more positive resolution of challenges, we opened up more spaces.  This week, we have most play spaces open for most children.  Where individual children do not meet the expectations above, we are asking them to return to the smaller play area for a time.  This ensures all students have access to a safe and fun time in play areas.

Our most recent student survey of all students (end of week 1), we checked in on how they feel about play spaces.  This is what our students are telling us, and this is what helps us decide what support is needed in the playground.  
 

As you can see, we still have work to do.  I very much welcome your thoughts on how best to support your children.  We will continue to make this a top priority, and I will continue to check in with students and let you know of our progress.

Important reminders to all parents:
SCHOOL HOURS - 9am - 3pm Mon - Friday
Please have your child/ren at school no later than 8.50am daily so that all bags, bookbags etc. are sorted before the first bell at 9am. 

LATE STUDENTS - If you child is arriving at school after the first bell at 9am, please go straight to the school office with your child to sign them in on the electronic device located at the school office. Your child will then be given a late pass.

ABSENT STUDENTS - If your child is not going to be at school due to illness, appointments, etc., please notify the school office before 9am via School Loop App, or phone: 07 873 2887 - follow the voice prompts.

BUS - If your child is a regular bus pupil but will not be on the bus due to a parent picking them up, etc., please ring the school on 07 873 2887, and follow the voice prompts to leave a bus message.  If your child has a regular swimming, dance, or sport lesson, please let the office know so that it can be recorded for the term. 

MONEY - Our school is now running a cashless system, so please make ALL payments via Direct Credit.
Ref - Student Name    Particulars - What it is for, i.e. Lunch, Uniform, Sport, RDA, etc.
BANK ACCOUNT DETAILS
ASB - Te Awamutu
Maihiihi School
12-3134-0049006-00

With the hot days upon us, Room 1 has been enjoying swimming sessions every afternoon. Our focus has been on water safety, including how to enter and exit the pool safely.

Students have been building their confidence in the water by practicing submerging, blowing bubbles, and retrieving objects underwater with their eyes open—an activity they particularly enjoy! We have also been working on front floating and learning how to regain our footing. Next, we will focus on building confidence in back floating and safely returning to a standing position.

Students have been discussing what summer looks like with their learning buddies, sparking great ideas for their writing and drawing.

We have also been busy creating artwork, using cutting and pasting to develop fine motor skills. As the term progresses, we will continue to explore the seasons by engaging all the senses, deepening our conversations and learning experiences. It has been fantastic to see their creativity shine as they bring their ideas to life!

Welcome to our first newsletter of 2025!!
We have had a great start to term 1. We have been busy setting up our routines and expectations. One thing we have been busy doing is looking at our school values and what this looks like and sounds like in our classroom. We "high fived" our classroom expectations with our hand signatures. 

In Reading, we have been looking at summarising the key ideas in a text. One of the texts we explored was the Tree Hut Treaty. We had to name the 4 key parts of the text, and tried to use key words, phrases and/ or sentences to sum it up.
In Math, one of our independent tasks we have been working on is open-ended RICH math problems. This is where there is many different ways to approach the problem. We can draw pictures, write sentences, do number sentences and/ or equations. We use a range of different materials to help us.

Our explicit focus for learning in Writing time has been to develop as WRITERs.  We know that knowing a whole lot about writing doesn't mean we are good at it.  Writing is something we do, a skill, and it has to be practiced regularly.  With this in mind, we have started the year as we mean to go on.  We write and complete a text every day.  And, every day we are learning a new 'move' or technique that we can practice.  In week 1 and 2, we learned to always write with structure (clear parts).  Keira's example below shows 5 clear parts.

Room 3 has been diving into the bold and meaningful artwork of Michel Tuffery! His work is the complete opposite to our writing-inspired artist, who mostly uses black. Inspired by Michel's use of nature, symbols and cultural storytelling, our Room 3 artists (in groups) have sketched their own unique designs. The students practiced sketching, transferring their work, and adding bold vibrant colours. Room 3 can be really proud of this stunning and developing art.

To view the Maihiihi School Policies please click on the link below, this will take you to Schooldocs where you can find all our school policies. The 3 below are policies that are currently up for review. We would appreciate your thoughts on these.

Policies here:  https://maihiihi.schooldocs.co.nz/

Username: maihiihi Password: maihiihi

 Ministry of Education require all students to have at least 94% attendance 

 Please download the Skool Loop App to your phone.  From this app you can see all notices, newsletters and important information as they are downloaded. Plus you can leave absentee messages at any time of the day.