Kia ora whānau

What a lovely start we have had this year, welcoming Miss Smith, Macy, Liza, Leo, Alex and Lavi to our Omihi whānau. We are excited to have our cleaner Sharryn joining us as a part time teaching assistant for term 1. It was also lovely to meet Tamar’s new baby boy Dovi, who was born on the last day of school in 2020.

It’s been so nice to hear all the stories about what everyone has been up to in the holidays. We had a lovely time in Akaroa and enjoyed taking Delilah out on the boat and on lots of hikes with her in the backpack. The teachers and I also had a fantastic two days in Akaroa planning for this year and spending time exploring the wonderful landscapes of Banks Peninsula.

There are lots of exciting things going on this term, so please keep an eye on our calendar to keep up to date. As always, the teachers and I are available if you need to chat or want to come and see us. This year Ruth is working Monday afternoons from 1pm and all day Wednesday. She will respond to emails on those days, so if it is urgent, please feel free to email me.

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

School Notices

Congratulations to our Prize giving recipients from 2020:
Omihi Values - junior - Isobel Harris
Omihi Values - senior - Violet Inkson
Speech cup - Jeremy Pennell
Sportsperson of the Year - Charlie Murphy
Excellence in Arts - Daisy Kay
Academic - Maggie Hamilton

Beach Ed
Here is all the info for Beach Ed at Waikuku Beach on Thursday 4th February.

Hats and togs
Please ensure children have hats and togs at school every day. We encourage children to wear rash vests in the pool if they have them.

Sushi and Subway
We have the opportunity to have Sushi and Subway again this year, but only if we have parents that are able to pick them up. Subway is from Rangiora and Sushi is from Amberley. Please let me know if you are able to help with this.

Whānau Picnic
We welcome all of our whānau on Tuesday 9th February from 5-7pm for a picnic. BYO picnic, the BBQ will be available for you to use and the pool will be open.

School Raffle
Sadly last year we didn’t end up having any fundraisers, as the Farm race was cancelled twice. We have all of the prizes from the race that we are putting together for a raffle. Each child usually sells 10 tickets at $10, but after feedback, we have changed the price to $5 and each child will have 20 to sell. These will be sent home in the next couple of weeks. There will be one other fundraiser this year, once the fundraising team have met we will be in touch with further details.

Waitangi Day observed
Waitangi Day is observed on Monday 8th February, so there will be no school on this day.

Pumpkins
The Glenmark Lions have kindly donated pumpkins to the school for us to use as a fundraiser. We need someone who is happy to take the pumpkins and organise payments and pick ups. Please let me know if you are able to do this. Last year Nick brought them down to school a couple of afternoons for people to pick them up.

Farm Walks
The whole school will be participating in farm walks this term. Paemoana and Awaawa will be walking around our farm and Tūpari are walking on the Pennell’s farm. Dates are in the calendar. We will take the children in the bus, so we don’t need help with transport, but parents are welcome to join us. Awaawa and Tūpari are walking in week 3, and Paemoana is later in the term.

School of Rock
Music Lessons Term 1 - How does it work? - One day a week there will be group, individual and/or band music lessons available at the school within school time. In the lessons the students will learn the fundamental techniques associated with their instrument and a "song". The "song" could be anything from new school to old school, classical to rock.  These are optional private lessons that parents pay for.

Music Google Enrolment Form: https://forms.gle/xqsPnahSiH4Mat8E6

Community Notices

Resilient Hurunui
Resilient Hurunui starts the year with a talk from Dr Nicholas Prince, Lecturer in Agricultural Systems Management at Lincoln University. He
will be speaking about how farmers can address social concerns for issues such as water quality and CHG emissions. Feb 18th at 7.30p.m, Amberley School hall, Douglas Road, Amberley. $5.00 donation

St Andrews College
The St Andrew’s College family wish to extend an invitation to you and your family, and prospective families from your community, to join us for refreshments and hors d’oeuvres for a St Andrew’s College promotional evening. We very much hope you will be able to join us.

Venue:  Waipara Hills, 780 Glasnevin Road, Waipara
Date:  Monday 1 March
Time:  5.00pm – 7.00pm
RSVP:  Please click here to register before Monday 22 February

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!

Kia ora whānau

Miss Smith has been relieving for us ahead of starting here in 2021.

Thank you to all the parents who have been helping with transport for our numerous events this term. Due to events being changed around throughout the year, we have ended up with a lot in term 4, so we appreciate your support. What lucky children to have so many wonderful opportunities!

On Friday I met with students regarding their feedback on what they love about our school and what we can do better. This is something I do each term and I truly love it. We call ourselves ‘one big whānau’ and we definitely are. I asked our students if we could share the feedback with parents this time as I was so humbled by the lovely things they had to say about their teachers, their school and their friends. You should have received this on Friday. Some of the trends that jumped out to me were that they love that we are a small school, that everyone plays together and the amount of opportunities they get from being in a small school. (Plus they love that we have a swimming pool, a basketball court and a school dog and ‘school baby’ ;) )

I feel lucky to be principal here.

Ngā mihi

Maree Lucas
Tumuaki/Principal

School Notices

Principal’s Award
Last week’s Principal award went to…..Charlie Murphy.

Welcome
Welcome to Liza Elphinstone who came to visit us on Friday. Liza will be starting in Year 5 in 2021. She has 4 year old twin sisters who will be turning 5 later in 2021.

Camp
Thank you to Penny who has organised our school camp. The children are very excited about going away on an adventure to Arthurs Pass.

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.

Library Books
Please can you ensure all library books are returned to school by Friday, 27 November. The Amberley library is going to be issuing every child with 10 books over the summer. Yo is picking them out to suit each child. Lucky children!

Kapahaka - Tuesday 1st December
Children need to be in their kapahaka uniform and meet at Ohoka Hall at 9.30am on Tuesday 1st December. The school bus will leave from school at 8.30am, so the normal Omihi bus run will not be running that morning. Here are the transport details.

Year 0-3 Sport Spectacular
The Sport Spectacular is on at Amberley Domain from 10-2pm on Wednesday 25th November. Mrs Lucas will drive all the children in the bus and Miss Mickleson and Tamar will stay with the children. We welcome parents to come along and watch. Please ensure children have their sunhats, lunch and a drink bottle.

No Lunches online this week
Due to Camp and Sports Spectacular there are no lunches online this week.

No school bus
The school bus is not running on the morning of Tuesday 1st December, due to kapahaka.

Mufti Day - Friday 4th December
Please can you send a can of food for the Foodbank on our mufti day.

Year 7/8 visit to ARA
As part of our Careers programme, the Year 7-8 students will be attending ARA with Waipara, Greta Valley and Broomfield School on Thursday 10th December. The students and Miss J will be travelling in the community bus that Waipara School are organising. We will let you know further details nearer the time.

Pool Key
The pool is now open and keys can be purchased from the school office. The cost for school families is $50 and you will be refunded $20 when you return the key at the end of the season.

Prize giving and whānau picnic
A reminder that our prize giving is on Wednesday 16th December at 11am, followed by a whānau picnic between 12-1pm at school.

Community Notices

Kia ora koutou Whānau,

Delilah and I at the top of Mt Grey.

It’s lovely to be back at school again. Delilah is nearly 6 months old and it’s been so nice having special family time with her at home. We had a month away in a campervan around the north island, which we all loved and have had lots of little adventures along the way! She will now be out on the farm with George, spending time with Grandparents or coming in to see her Mum and her Omihi whānau. She’s a lucky little girl.

Firstly I would like to say a big thank you to Penny for taking over while I was away. It was lovely to have complete trust in Penny and be able to just focus on our little girl. Penny did a fantastic job and I’m so grateful of the support she got from our board, staff and community. Thank you to Sally, Megan and Ruth for stepping up and taking on extra responsibilities while I was away.

I started back on Friday, all ready to help with the final stages of set up for our Omihi School Farm Race. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be and was out of our hands. Safety is our priority, so after seeing how wet and windy it got, I know we made the right decision. So much time and effort goes into an event that size, so it was a real shame to have to cancel again. We appreciate all of the time and effort that everyone put into it. A special thanks to Kate, Amy, Leighton, Nick, Sofia, Jane, George, Jeremy, Kurt, plus our whole community for donating your time and prizes. We are going to use the prizes for a raffle at the beginning of 2021.

Penny and I have been looking into our classes for next year. We are excited about our team and have had a small change around of year groups in each class. As we have more teachers for 2021 we aren’t going to be merging classes as often as this year. The classes for next year are:
Paemoana Year 0-3
Penny Vincent

Awaawa Year 4-5
Georgie Smith

Tūpari Year 6-8
Sally Mickleson

Awaawa will split on Monday afternoons and all day on Friday. Year 5 will go to Tūpari and year 4 will join Paemoana.

I will be covering release every Friday and across all three classes throughout the term. Sally and I will be working closely with the seniors and Penny and Georgie will work closely with their two classes.

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

School Notices

Principal’s Award
The latest Principal’s award went to…Christian Esler!

Teacher only day
A reminder that it is teacher only day this Thursday, 12th November and Show Day on Friday, so there will be no school on these two days.

Year 5-8 Assembly
We invite you to our final assembly of the year on Friday, 20th November at 2pm.

Reports
Your child’s maths comment will be published on Hero this Wednesday.

Grandparents Day
Grandparents Day is on Tuesday 17th November. We invite our grandparents in at 9am to have a tour of the school and join their grandchild’s class, then join us for a morning tea at 10am. If you are able to bring a plate for us to share, please let me know - principal@omihi.school.nz.

Athletics
Congratulations to everyone who participated in athletics last week. Good luck to Lily Banks, Rowan Inkson, Charlie Murphy, Leni Wilkie, Christian Esler, Billy Esler, Tom Hazeldine, Xsara Mann, Emma Waldron, Sione Lealiki Waldron, Jack Sloss, Georgie Macefield, Violet Inkson, Maggie Hamilton, Daisy Kay and Monty Croft who are competing at Kowai Athletics on Monday.

Kapahaka Performance - Year 4-8
On Tuesday, 1st December from 10am-12pm our Year 4-8 children will be attending and performing at the North Canterbury Kapahaka Festival at Ohoka School Hall.  Our school has 50 tickets only for this.  The cost per ticket is $5.  If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, please contact Ruth today. We will need transport to this event. Please let me know if you can help with transport or if you will be taking your child directly there - principal@omihi.school.nz. I will be taking the bus from Omihi as well.

Tough Kids Challenge
On Wednesday 18th November our Year 3-8 children will be competing in the Sport Canterbury Tough Kids challenge. This is being held at South Brighton and sells out every year.  This is a really fun event where children run/walk/crawl/jump/roll/climb/paddle their way through a range of obstacles and challenges.  We need parent transport for this, as we are not taking the bus. Please let me know if you can help with transport - principal@omihi.school.nz. Children need to be there by 12.15pm, ready for the 12.30pm briefing. It will be finished by 2.20pm. All information is on the Primary Sports Canterbury website.

Sports Spectacular
On Wednesday 25th November our Year 1-3 children will be heading to the Kowai Sports Spectacular event at Amberley Domain.  We invite parents to come and watch. I will be taking all children in the bus from Omihi. You are welcome to take your child straight home afterwards.

Camp - Year 5-8
A reminder to please send your camp forms back if you haven’t already.

Prize giving and whānau picnic
Our end of year prize giving is on Wednesday 16th December at 11.00am. We usually have a separate day where we have a whānau picnic, but we have noticed that parents are finding it harder to join us on this day due to it being such a busy time of year. So this year we will have our whānau picnic at school from 12.00-1.00pm after prize giving. A chance to catch up, eat some kai and celebrate our student’s successful year.

Community Notices

Tēnā koe,

Our Apps, Devices & Porn parenting evening is just over two weeks away (Thursday November 19th) and we would really appreciate your help in continuing to promote this within your networks. I know these conversations can be awkward, but the challenges are reality for our rangatahi and without courageous conversations change doesn’t happen.

This is an awesome chance for parents to not just gain knowledge, but more importantly the skills to have great conversations and support their young person to manage these often tricky subjects. 

This workshop will be really worthwhile for anyone with children of any age (it’s a conversation that’s best to start younger) and we’d appreciate your help in getting the word out!  Tickets are $5 but we don’t want anyone to miss out if this is a barrier so please get in touch if this is the case and we’ll get them sorted. 

For more information and registration you can check out Eventbrite or Facebook. Click HERE for downloadable posters and graphic for screens. Please let me know if you need any printed media delivered, and thank you for your support!

Ngā mihi,
Stephen McQuarrie, 0274659951, Rangiora Youth Community Trust, ryct.net.nz 

Biodiversity: Our Heritage & Our Legacy

The Hurunui Biodiversity Trust’s Invitation Address with Tā Tipene O'Regan has been rescheduled, for Monday 23 November. This will be an informative, entertaining and thought-provoking discussion with Tā Tipene, who is a distinguished Ngai Tahu kaumatua, scholar and advocate. He will explain ways Maori view the importance of our native biodiversity for its cultural and spiritual as well as ecological values, then discuss what sustainable custodianship of the land means from a Maori perspective and how to achieve this together so that our natural resources are in good shape to support generations to come.

 Time: 7 – 9pm, supper included. Venue: Omihi Hall, cnr SH1 and Reeces Road. $5 donation appreciated. RSVP by 19 Nov tohurunuibiodiversity@gmail.com, of via Facebook: Hurunui Biodiversity Trust