Thursday 8th February 2024 | Term 1 Week 2

Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome back to the start of the new school year! We are thrilled to welcome our eleven new enrolments and six new staff members to our school community. We marked this celebration with a Mihi Whakatau on Wednesday. Seeing so many whānau members attending was great - your support is always appreciated. What a shame the gathering of our new students, families and staff in the Staff Room was disturbed by the ‘water off’ notice! Thank you to the parents for reacting so quickly and collecting your children following this unexpected event - as we had no toilet or drinking water access, we were required to close - our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

At the start of each year, we call for parents and caregivers to update their child's details via our school portal. The instructions can be found here. These details must be reviewed and edited - e.g., many addresses are outdated and require review. Additionally,  if your child has new medical permissions or conditions to be added, please email [email protected] with the required changes. Please remember, we cannot dispense paracetamol (please state the appropriate amount) or antihistamines to your child unless you have permitted us to do so. 

This week, our Student Executive have selected House Captains for  2024. Following a rigorous application process, the House Captains are announced as: Ōhau - Dave White, Sadie Mason and Junior Captain Lulu Dodds. Ruataniwha - Jackson Parata, Kiara Thyne (their Junior Captain is yet to be selected). Pūkaki - Corbin Lloyd, Soffe Shaw and Junior Captain Paige Firman. Congratulations to the new House Leaders and Junior Leaders!

Over the break, the new government changed legislation regarding cell phones at school. In the first newsletter of the year, I encouraged our community to give feedback on the current policy on digital devices. As a school, we have agreed on a procedure for cell phones at school. The students have been advised of this procedure. Student’s personal digital devices should (as always) be in bags and turned off. If a student is concerned about security, they can leave their phone at the main office for the day. In our new procedure, if a student is found to be using their personal digital device at school or not following other policy elements, they will hand the device to the main office. Parents will be contacted to collect the device. If you need to contact your child during the school day, please call the main office on (03)435 0650 and we will relay the message to your child.

We also need to let you know that access to the school via the pathway from the Twizel Kindergarten on Mackenzie Drive will be restricted by builders for the next few weeks. Please access the school across the field or along Mt Cook Street.

Our updated Strategic Plan for 2024 and Analysis of Variance from 2023 are now available on our school website, and our 2023 Wellbeing@School Report is available later in this newsletter.

We look forward to a positive and productive school year ahead! 

He waka eke noa,

Kate Staniford
Tumuaki | Principal

→ Friday, 9th February | TAS Swimming Sports
→ Wednesday, 15th - Friday, 16th February | M1 Camp
→ Thursday, 22nd February | Aoraki Tennis
→ Thursday, 22nd February | TAS Athletics
→ Monday, 26th February | M2 SPCA Visit
→ Friday, 1st March | Settling-in Reports Available in Portal

*All dates above are subject to change*

Swimming Sports 2024

Tomorrow, February 9th, is the Twizel Area School Swimming Sports. 🏊‍♂️🩳

Students in Year 4 and above, come to school in your uniform and bring your House Colours to change into! 💚 💛 💙 Parents, caregivers and whānau members are all welcome to cheer us on from 11 am at the Twizel Community Pool. See you there!

A programme of events is available here: https://bit.ly/3w3cBeq, but please be aware that times may change.

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