Fergus and Arlo working collaboratively.

Kia ora koutou,

This is a term where we have a lot of events going on. We love having our whānau coming into school, and supporting us at these events. Thank you for being a part of these events, as we know how busy everyone is.

Our students have been working hard on their beautiful artwork throughout the year. You will be able to see some of these, and their poems/handwriting at the Amberley Show in the Tin shed this weekend. The teachers have helped them create some real master pieces!

We are excited for Pet Day tomorrow. It’s always a highlight! This year we have a range of animals, from dogs, horses, calves, to chickens, goats and a centipede! Pets arrive from 12pm, we welcome all of the community to come down and have a look.

Ngā mihi

Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Assembly
We welcome you to our assembly on Thursday 28th November at 2pm. Straight after the assembly at 2.30pm, we would like to introduce our BOT and have a quick chat with parents regarding our fundraisers. We would love you to stick around for 10min if possible.

Raffle
Each year we have two fundraisers - our trail ride and our raffle. We purposely don’t have lots of little fundraisers throughout the year, because we try and be time efficient. This year we have moved the raffle to term four, so we can try and sell some tickets at the trail ride, and at the Amberley A&P show. If you would like to sell tickets at the show, please let me know. This week, each child will be sent home a sheet of tickets to sell. We encourage you to get your children involved in selling these. The prizes will be listed on the back of the tickets, and tickets are $5 each. Please send back any unsold tickets. All money and unsold tickets to be back by Monday 25th November.

Volunteers
Thanks to everyone who has volunteered for the trail ride. I will email you in the week leading up to it with further details.

Year 4-8 Small Schools Athletics day
This will be held at Waipara School on Wednesday 6th November. It is an all day event, starting at 9.20am, so you can go straight there with your child. Please let Kelly know if your child is going straight there, or if they will be on the bus.

Omihi Library
A reminder that our library is open to the community. We have a great selection of adult books, as well as preschooler books. Plus, our wonderful librarian Yo, is always happy to bring requests from the Amberley Library. If the teachers or Yo aren’t in there, you can just write your name and book down and we will issue it for you.

Year 0-3 Sports Spectacular
All Year 0-3 children will be going to Amberley Domain for the Sports Spectacular on Wednesday 20th November. We will need 3-4 parents to be there with us, and one to be a volunteer. Plus we will need a couple of cars for transport, and we’ll be taking the bus. Please email Penny if you are able to help with this.

Tough Kids Challenge
On Wednesday 4th November, Tūpari will be participating in the Tough Kid Challenge in Christchurch. We will transport them there on the school bus.

Transition Days
In the last few weeks of term we will be having one transition day a week, where our Year 2 students spend the day in Awaawa, and our Year 5 students spend the day in Tūpari. This will give them the opportunity to start getting ready for 2025. These days are noted on the school calendar.

Year 5-8 Camp
Our camp for 2025 is at Living Springs from Monday 31st March - Wednesday 2nd April. If you would like to be a parent helper, please fill out this form by Monday 4th November. We will confirm parent helpers by the end of this term.

Teacher Only Day
Please note we have a teacher only day on Thursday 14th November.

Gumboot Friday
On Friday 1st November it is Gumboot Friday. Children can wear their own clothes and their gumboots. Please send along a gold coin donation to help fund free counselling for kids.

Non-Uniform Day
We have a non-uniform day on Friday 22nd November. Please send a gold coin donation, which will go to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, North Canterbury. This is a charity that the student leaders have chosen.

School Docs policies to review
We work on a 3 year cycle, and each term we review a number of our policies. These are open for review from our community as well. Please review the following by clicking on this link: http://omihi.schooldocs.co.nz. Username: omihi Password: glenmark

• School Donations and Student Activity Payments /
  Attendance Dues and Other Income

• Expenditure

• Property Planning and Maintenance

• Prevention of Bribery,  Corruption, Fraud, and Theft

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou

Amelia and Heidi are excited to be back at school for Term 4.

This term we welcome back Bryleigh from her maternity leave. It’s lovely to have her back, and baby George visiting us as well. She will be in the office Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. I would like to thank Trudy for being such a wonderful part of our team for the last 2 terms. She will be missed in the office, but we are lucky to have her carrying on as a teacher aide with individual students for the remainder of this term.

We are really excited to share with you our latest ERO report as of September 2024.  We have been working with ERO over the past 2 and a half years. Their model has changed, where they now work alongside the school (BOT and staff) over 3 years and are continuously reviewing with us. It is a really positive experience and we are excited to share with you our current reports that they have produced. Through looking at our data and strategic plan, our focus is on writing, and they were impressed with what is happening in the school already, and our strategic goals around this area moving forward. They spent time with myself, in the classrooms observing lessons, talking to our students, some parents, and also gathering info from the board.

Here is the latest report. Please feel free to get in touch if you would like to discuss this further.

You are also welcome to view our Board Assurance with Regulatory and Legislative Requirements Report.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Year 4-8 Small Schools Athletics day
This will be held at Waipara School on Wednesday 6th November. It is an all day event, starting at 9.20am, so you can go straight there with your child. Please let Kelly know if your child is going straight there, or if they will be on the bus.

Trailride
Thanks so much to everyone that is helping on the day. We just need one more parent to pick up the portaloos and drop them back. Please let me know if you are available.

Pet day/Agri sports - Wednesday 30th October
We run Agri Sports in the morning. Thanks to Kurt Sloss for organising the Agri sports for us.

Children can bring one pet each, and these are to be brought to school at 12pm. Please fill out this google form to enter your child’s pet. There is also the lamb drinking competition, and dress up competition for children to enter. Often children and pets dress up to match each other. We welcome preschoolers to bring their pet as well. The timetable of the day is:

9.30am - Agri sports (morning tea during this)
11.30am - Early lunch
12.00pm - Pets arrive
12.30pm - Judging begins
1.30pm - Lamb drinking competition
1.45pm - Fancy dress competition
2.15pm - Prize giving

Year 0-3 Sports Spectacular
All Year 0-3 children will be going to Amberley Domain for the Sports Spectacular on Wednesday 20th November. We will need 3-4 parents to be there with us, and one to be a volunteer. Plus we will need a couple of cars for transport, and we will be taking the bus. Please email Penny if you are able to help with this.

Teacher Only Day
Please note we have a teacher only day on Thursday 14th November.

Gumboot Friday
On Friday 1st November it is Gumboot Friday. Children can wear their own clothes and their gumboots. Please send along a gold coin donation to help fund free counselling for kids.

Non-Uniform Day
We have a non-uniform day on Friday 22nd November. Please send a gold coin donation, which will go to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, North Canterbury.

Head lice
Please note there have been cases of head lice during the holidays. If you find head lice in your child’s hair, please check the Ministry website for information. Please also keep your child’s hair tied up at school.

Tipu Māia Kāhui Ako (Community of Learning)
Please find our Tipu Māia term 3 newsletter.

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou

Omihi School Trailride - 9th November 2024

Julie Wells has been on our Omihi School Board of Trustees for the past 6 years. Firstly as treasurer, and then for the past 3 years - as Treasurer and Chairperson, which are two very big roles. Julie is stepping down at the end of this term, and we would like to thank her for her huge contribution to our school. She has added value in so many ways, and we are grateful for her time.

We have co-opted Pip O’Keefe onto the board, who is going to be taking on the treasurer role. Craig Tomlinson will step into Chairperson from next term, and Emma Hughes-Games will continue with her health and safety role. Kelly is also our teacher trustee on the board. We are so grateful to these people for giving up their time for our kura.

Last week I listened to a group of student’s adventure stories from Awaawa. It was wonderful to see the excitement the children had about writing, and the language they were using! Check out some of the paragraphs below.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Principal Award Winners
Congratulations to our Principal Award winners - Arlo, Michael and Delia.

Omihi School 125th Jubilee
Next year it is our 125th Jubilee. We would love to get a committee together to help organise an event to celebrate. Please contact Maree if you would like to be a part of this - principal@omihi.school.nz. Past pupils, staff and community welcome!

Enrolments for 2025
If you have a preschooler who is turning 5 in 2025, we would love to hear from you. It makes our planning a lot easier if we know what students will be enrolling throughout the year. You can email Maree or fill out this online enrolment form from our website.

Out of Zone Enrolments - 2025
The deadline for receipt of applications for out of zone places for 2025 is 3pm Wednesday 25th September 2024. If a ballot for out of zone places is required, it will be held on Friday 27th September 2024. Parents will be informed of the outcome within three school days. Please email Maree on principal@omihi.school.nz if you would like to enquire.

Prize Giving Cups
Can students please return all cups that were received at prize giving and pet day last year.

School photos
These will be taken on Wednesday 25th September from 9am. Your child would have brought home a sibling photo request form. Please return this form by Monday 23rd September if you would like sibling photos.

Agri Sports/Pet Day
This will be on Wednesday 30th October. We will send home a Google form next term for you to enter your pet. Preschoolers are welcome to join us.

Literacy Update
Miss Fletcher and Mrs Vincent are working together for writing. They are focusing on handwriting, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. They are guiding the children to understand a SPAR (setting, problem, action, resolution) outline for their writing. The aim is to write three good sentences every day. So far they have been focusing on survival story writing as the theme, and the children have written some amazing pieces so far.

Precision Yamaha Omihi School Trailride
Online entries have now opened for our trailride on Saturday 9th November. These are at www.iticket.co.nz. This is our major fundraiser of the year, and makes it possible for us to continue with our three classrooms, so we would love all of the parent support we can get. Here is our volunteer list, please add your name in if you are able to help on the day.

Lost Property
There are a few items of lost property. If your child is missing an item, please check the classrooms.

Student Writing Samples
Busted and terrified, Stanley finally saw the angel. Desolate, abandoned buildings surrounds him like a jail. The angel jumped at him, it was a reasonable height to punch. “You’re going down buddy!, he yelled. The angel stared at him and then merged into a building……
By Stanley

Petrified and confused, Jeff found himself in a beautiful land that he had never seen before. ‘Wow’, said Jeff. Jeff was feeling brave. He started to salvage for supplies but then he tripped and fell into quicksand. Like mud, it was putrid and grimey. ‘Ahhhh,’ screamed Jeff. Jeff was trying as hard as he could, but every time he got free it just grabbed him in more…..
By Fergus

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou

Congratulations to all of our students who presented their speeches and poems. Well done to the following who won our Tūpari competition:

1st - Delia
2nd - Lily
3rd = Zac and Thomas

Delia then went on to the Hawarden/Waikari Lions Speech competition and was up against other Year 7/8 students in our area, and she came 2nd! We are so proud!

We have some pretty amazing teachers at our school, and it’s always lovely to see their different talents shine. If any of you went to see the Full Monty in Waipara, you would have seen Kelly playing ‘Jeanette’. Kelly is such a talented singer, musician and actress. How lucky are our students to have her as a teacher!

Our entries have now opened at www.iticket.co.nz for our annual Precision Yamaha trail ride for the 9th November. A big thank you to the Tomlinsons and Evan’s families for allowing us to use their farms, and to Todd McBreen and James from Precision Yamaha for helping us to organise it. We would love to have as many families as possible to help us on the day, as this is our major fundraiser of the year to help us continue to have 3 classrooms. Please add your name to the list here.

Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz

School Notices

Mufti Day
Each of our mufti days are organised by our Year 8 leaders, and they choose the charity. This Friday 6th September is a mufti day, raising money for SPCA. Please send along a gold coin donation, and dress as your favourite animal!

School photos
On Wednesday 25th September we will have school photos. There will be an opportunity for sibling photos as well.

Top Team Challenge
Our Year 5-8 students will be competing in the annual Top Team Challenge at Amberley Domain on Wednesday 4th September. We will leave school at 11.45am. Please let Kelly know if your child needs a ride on the bus or if you are able to provide transport.

Precision Yamaha Omihi School Trailride
Online entries have now opened for our trailride on Saturday 9th November. These are at www.iticket.co.nz. This is our major fundraiser of the year, and makes it possible for us to continue with our three classrooms, so we would love all of the parent support we can get. Here is our volunteer list, please add your name in if you are able to help on the day.

Egg Cartons
We are looking for egg cartons please. We need one egg carton per child for an art activity we are doing. If you have some at home we would really appreciate it if you could send it in with them.

Year 4-8 North Canterbury Kapahaka Celebration
This year’s kapahaka performance is on Thursday 19th September at the Rangiora Baptist Church, 111 East Belt, Rangiora. Tickets are on sale at www.iticket.co.nz, they are $12 each. We will have our school bus taking students, but will need some cars as well, please let Kelly know if you will be transporting your own child and if you can take others.

Whole School Assembly
We welcome you to our whole school assembly. Please note the date change, it is now on Thursday 5th September at 2pm.

Omihi Bus
There will be no Omihi bus on the afternoon of the 4th and 19th September, due to the students going to the Top Team challenge and kapahaka performance.

Summer Hockey
Registrations are now open for summer hockey. You can sign up as a team or as individual players. If your child is interested please contact Trudy by sending her an email at the office. Registrations close 14th October.

Community Notices