Checking out the view on our Mt Cass walk!

Kia ora koutou

Even though we are farewelling 2021, our Year 8 students and some staff, the teachers and I are already looking ahead to 2022. We had an exciting planning meeting last week and have started looking through our Annual Plan from the Strategic Goals we shared with you a couple of weeks ago. As you would have seen, one of our initiatives is around Structured Literacy. We have really good results from our testing and overall teacher judgements for reading and maths across the school, so one focus area for the next 3 years is writing. We have invested a lot of time, resources and money into reading, and are seeing the results, so we are now going to be sharing that professional learning across reading and writing.

One of the new resources we are using is The Writing Revolution. The teachers are doing more research around this over the holidays and are looking forward to implementing elements of it right across the school in 2022.

We are also excited to continue with our new PRIME maths resource that we were trialling this year. It has worked well across the school and the children love using it as one of their learning resources in maths.

Feel free to get in touch with us if you would like to find out more about any of these programmes.

Thank you to our dedicated staff - Sally, Georgie, Penny, Ruth, Sharryn, Tracy and Fi - we value you and thank you for your commitment throughout 2021. Thank you to Yo for running our school library, Rihari for our amazing kapahaka group. Thank you to Jan and Mark for delivering our newsletters. Thanks to the BOT for being so supportive - Leighton, Julie, Emma and Penny. A big thanks to our community. There are so many times where we ask people to help in different ways and we love how supportive you are. Whether you have helped on a school trip, cut down a tree, coached sports teams, helped with gardening, put some picture frames up, helped with the pool, organised fundraisers, bought raffle tickets…..whatever way you have contributed to our Omihi whānau, we appreciate you.

Have a lovely holiday everyone. Thanks for your support, your kindness and your dedication to your child’s learning throughout a really tough year. We love working with you and your children, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone back and refreshed ready for learning again in 2022.

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

School Notices

Principal Awards
The latest Principal awards went to Liza and Thomas! They will be heading to Fossil Point for a hot chocolate.

Character Strengths
Jeremy Pennell (Year 8) - My character strengths are honesty, zest and creativity. Honesty helps me to tell the truth. Zest helps me to love what I’m doing and be grateful for what I have, and creativity helps me to be creative with my learning, such as working out situations in maths - there can be more than one way to work it out. Plus it helps me to be creative in art and add ideas into brainstorms.

New Office Administrator
We are really excited to welcome Bryleigh Kingston-Rodgers to our new office administrator. Bryleigh will be starting in the new year and will be in the office Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Here is an introduction from Bryleigh:

I am so excited to be starting at Omihi School in the New Year! Born and raised in Rangiora, I now live in Woodend with my partner Ryan, our daughter Maia, and Jazz the cat. Having previously worked in administration, media and marketing roles in both Christchurch and London, I have been on maternity leave for much of 2021 since Maia joined us in April. There’s not a lot of spare time as a Mum to an almost eight month old, but when I can, I enjoy quiz nights, pilates and playing netball.

I love being part of a tight knit team, so can’t wait to meet you all and join Omihi’s one big whānau!

Prize giving
Both events will be recorded on Zoom, so they can be watched live or at a later date. If it is wet, we will be in the Omihi Community Hall.

* All guests must wear a mask and will be socially distanced.
* If you have a mask exemption please send this to me prior. If you haven't done this we will ask you to wear a mask when you arrive.
* During the senior prize giving the juniors will watch via zoom in the classroom

Thursday 16th December:
10.00am - Senior prize giving (Year 5-8) and their guests on the court.
10.30am - Seniors take their guests on a tour of outdoor learning spaces and Kahiwi.
10.45am - Seniors and their guests leave (If you have students in junior event, senior students can stay in the classrooms until after junior event).
11.00am - Junior (Year 0-4) Celebration of Learning.
11.30am - Juniors take their guests on a tour of outdoor learning spaces and Kahiwi.
12pm - Remainder of students picked up or on school bus (please let Tracy and Fi know if your child won’t be on the bus).

Student Teacher
We have a student teacher (Chantelle White) who is going to be with us for 2 days a week for the next 2 years. She is studying a Bachelor of Teaching, and part of their course is to be linked to a school for 2 days a week. An amazing opportunity for us! She will be in Tūpari next year and Sally will be her Associate Teacher. Chantelle is currently at Burnham School, but is moving back with her family to Waikari.

Introduction: Hi, I’m Chantelle White and I am a second-year student teacher, and I am very excited to be a part of the Omihi whānau next year. I grew up in Hurunui and know what a wonderful experience schooling was in this area, and I cannot wait to be giving back to the community that helped to grow me. In my spare time you can find me helping out on the farm, at a netball court or simply spending time with the family.

Stationery 2022
Here is the Office Max link for stationery for next year. Please click on the link and follow it to place your order for the stationery required in the classroom your child will be in next year. Please order in time for the start of the school year.

Report Comments
This week you will be receiving the following report comments on Hero -
* Technology
* General Comment
* Principal Comment

You will also see a mark on your child's graph for reading, writing and maths. Each curriculum level is across 2 school years. For example level 2 is year 3 and 4. There are 3 points within the curriculum level that we mark - Beginning level 2, mid level 2 and end of level 2.

We mark these 4 times across the 2 years, but there are only 3 points. So sometimes it may look like there is no progress on the graph, but we can assure you this is not the case. There is progress, but not enough to move to the next curriculum level. If we marked children up every 6 months, they would be well off the graph when they leave at Year 8, which isn't realistic.

Dates for term 1
Start date: Thursday 3rd February
Beach Ed - Wednesday 9th February at Waikuku Beach for whole school
Teacher only days: Monday 7th March, Monday 4th April (transferred from term 3 this year)

Swimming Pool
Please send along swimming togs each day, plus a rash vest if children have one. Check out the flyer below regarding the pool party at our school on Thursday 13th January, run by the Hurunui Council.

Swimming Pool Key
These are available to purchase from the office. Please contact Ruth on office@omihi.school.nz. They are $50, including a bond of $20 when the key is returned. Please remember you must comply with the Traffic Light rules when using the pool over the summer. Ensure you sign in each time, and only key holders are able to be in the pool.

Community Notices

HURUNUI COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS DINNER
!nspireChurchAmberley Church regrettably inform the community who would normally be attending the Hurunui Community Christmas Dinner on Sunday 19 December 2021 that due to covid and the restrictions, we have had to cancel our dinner.

We are very sad to have had to cancel such a necessary and connecting event but hoping for a different outlook in the new year. From all of us at !nspire, to you and your families, we wish you the very best of a very great time of celebrating with your families, the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and a better and refreshing New 2022. Much love, stay safe and God bless you, Pastors Garry & Lola Love and the Church Leaders

!NSPIRE PANTRY
!nspire Pantry will be closed from Saturday 25 December and reopening Monday 11 January 2022. For emergencies only, call: 0272102917 or 03 3148123

Garry & Lola Love, Senior Pastors
Inspire Church Amberley, M: 0272102917, E: inspirechurchamberley@gmail.com

Monday, 13th December 2021

School Notices

Community Notices