Monday 7th December, 2020
Kia ora whānau
As I sit here and write my last newsletter of the year, I am reflecting on a very crazy and unpredictable year we have had. A big thank you to our students, staff and community for their continued support to help us navigate our way through 2020.
We say thank you and farewell to Megan and wish her luck for her adventures back in the Wairarapa. Thank you to Tamar who has been a wonderful teaching assistant this year and we can’t wait to meet your new baby in the new year. Thank you to Ingrid, Wendy and Pete who helped us to look after our gardens throughout the year.
Thank you to our Board of Trustees for all of their support. Farewell to Ingrid, Jaz and Nicholas, and welcome to Emma who has been co-opted on from the start of 2021.
Farewell to our Year 8’s - Maggie, Tom, Violet, Xsara, Ace and Toby, we wish you all the best for your exciting year coming up. We also farewell Charlie and Arthur, and can’t wait to hear all about your new schools in Christchurch. We hope you come back and visit us.
Penny, Sally, Georgie and myself are on a planning day tomorrow. We have some exciting plans ahead for 2021, and look forward to sharing these with you in the new year.
Have a lovely holiday and a very Merry Christmas. We are looking forward to our first Christmas with our little girl.
Ngā mihi
Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal
principal@omihi.school.nz
School Notices
Structured Literacy at Omihi
This year we have started implementing a structured literacy approach to our literacy programme. Next year we will be moving forward with this throughout the school, as well as setting up an intervention programme that Penny will be leading in the afternoon. Below is some information around what structured literacy is, and in term one we will be running parent sessions around what it looks like for us at Omihi. We look forward to sharing more of this with you in 2021.
Information about Structured Literacy
Children in NZ schools are currently taught in a whole language programme. This is an implicit approach whereby children learn to read and write along the way through exposure to text. When reading children are encouraged to use strategies such as 'look at the pictures or the first sound' and take guesses at a word. Evidence based brain research has shown that this is not the way our brain learns to read. While some children are lucky to learn by osmosis through this whole language approach, many are not. It is currently common for 30 - 40% of NZ children to be below in reading and writing despite interventions such as reading recovery being put in place.
Structured literacy teaching means the knowledge and skills for reading and writing are explicitly taught in a sequence, from simple to more complex. Children learn to decode simple words such as tap, hit, red and fun before they read words with more complex spelling patterns such as down, found or walked. Decodable books with restricted spelling patterns are used in a structured approach that links with the knowledge and skills that children have been taught. Structured lessons also allow mastery of letter and sentence formation so progress is made in writing too. Structured literacy emphasizes oral language abilities essential to literacy development, including phonemic awareness, sensitivity to speech sounds in oral language, and the ability to manipulate those sounds. Structured literacy approaches will reach a much wider range of children and provide reading success for able and struggling readers.
Camp 2021
Year 5-8 students will be going to Wainui for our 2021 camp between 22-24 September. We will give you more details on cost in term 1 and will be asking for parent helpers closer to the time.
Kahui Ako - Community of Learners
Thank you to Sally who was our Within School Lead for our Kahui Ako this year. Sally did some great work around Enviroschools and Digital Technology. Penny will be our new Within School Lead in 2021 and will be focusing on Structured Literacy.
I am continuing as Support Principal for our Kahui Ako in 2021 and will be Acting Lead Principal for term 2, while our Lead Mike Hart is on sabbatical.
Prize giving
We welcome you to our prize giving on Wednesday 16th December at 11am. Our whānau picnic will follow from 12-1pm and the pool will be open during this time.
Kapahaka
Our students did us proud at Kapahaka last week! I have filmed each performance and will upload these onto Hero. Thank you to Matua Rihari, Sally and Megan for working with our students throughout the year.
Reports
The teacher and principal comment, along with Maths/Reading/Writing graphs will be published on Monday.
Stationery for 2021
You can order your school stationery here for 2021 - https://www.myschool.co.nz/omihi. It will be delivered straight to your home. The school books will be issued from school at the start of the year and we will invoice you directly for those.
Community Notices
Hello Summer Pool Parties
We are excited to be hosting a pool party at our school on Tuesday 19th January between 11-1pm. These are free, and all are welcome!
