Monday 6th August, 2018

Kia ora Koutou

It's been a great week for me as I've been teaching in the senior classroom all of last week and this week I am teaching in the juniors with Miss Dickson.  Kat and Jennie have had amazing opportunities to do some travelling, which has worked out really well for me.  Even though I teach in the classroom a lot, it's normally no more than 2 days in a row, so it has been a real treat and makes me miss teaching!  Plus it reminds me what outstanding students we have.  They really are such a delight to teach and I know all of us feel very lucky to have such wonderful, small classes to teach so we can really focus on the individual students.

Nga mihi
Maree Lucas
Principal

School Notices

Speeches
Congratulations to all of the children that performed their speech on Friday.  They should all be very proud of themselves.  The results were as follows:
1st - Alice Pennell
2nd - Alice Barnes and Maggie Hamilton
3rd - Max Croft
Alice.P and Max will now be competing in the Year 7/8 Lions Speech Competition on Tuesday in the Hawarden Hall.

Mainpower $20,000
As you may have seen in our Facebook posts, Mainpower are giving away $20,000 to local schools and organisations.  The more votes we have, the more potential we have of winning some of this.  If you have 30 seconds spare could you please go onto their website and vote for Omihi School - http://www.mainpower.co.nz/community-support/help-us-spend-20000/voting-form

New Staff
I would like to welcome Paula Hawkins, our new Teaching Assistant.  Paula is supporting children for a couple of hours a day from Monday to Thursday each week.

Teacher's Strike
The teachers are going on strike on Wednesday 15th August for the whole day.  The BOT have decided to close the school, so there will be no school on that day.  Thank you very much for your support, as it wasn't an easy decision for teachers to make.

Strum, Strike and Blow Festival - Wednesday 29th August
We still need some help with transport on this day.  If you are available to take a car in, please let me know.

School of Rock
If your child would like music lessons at school, please contact nolanhnz@gmail.com from School of Rock.  Matt is currently teaching students at school, but he does need a couple more to make it worthwhile driving out from Christchurch.

Relationship with China
The Hurunui Council have developed a sister relationship with the Changping District, Beijing  and Honghu City, Hubei.  I have been working with the Council and their liaison to build that relationship with Omihi School as well.  Through this we have managed to organise free Mandarin lessons next year.  We have also opened up our school for Chinese students to visit.  My goal is for us to have students come and be a part of our school, learn about our NZ culture and then at some stage for some of our students to go over to China to learn about their culture. 

There is an opportunity for some students to come to our school early next year for a short trip.  We are looking at taking 5 students, so would need home stays for these children and possibly their parents for one week.  They are fee paying students, so if you had a child stay or a child and parent stay, you would be paid for this.  The parents would be doing activities with the other Chinese parents during the day and the children would attend school.  If you are interested in finding out more about this, please email me - principal@omihi.school.nz.

School Doc Policies
Each term we review our policies and ask for parent input.  This term we are reviewing the following:
* Behaviour management
* Complaints
Please go to http://omihi.schooldocs.co.nz/ and use the username 'omihi' and password 'glenmark'.

Mufti Day - Friday 10th August
This Friday is our Kidscan Mufti Day.  The theme is 'crazy kids'.  Children need to bring along a gold coin donation.

Naked Baker Pies
These will be delivered to school on Friday.  If there aren't too many, we will send them home with the children.  If you know you have ordered a lot, please can you pick them up on Friday.  Ingrid would also like 2 helpers to sort them all out at 1.15pm.  If you can help, please email Ingrid on ingriddavid@xtra.co.nz.

Community Notices

GLENMARK RURAL WOMEN
16th August 2018, 7.30PM
GLENMARK DOMAIN
AGM
Topic
Sister District Relationships
Changping China and Hurunui District
Enquiries     Jennie Wells 0276890688 or 314955
Bev Forrester 314-4195
ALL WELCOME   Gold Coin to cover costs