Kia ora e te whānau

It’s so lovely to be back at school and to see all of our tamariki’s faces. The teacher’s and I loved hearing about their holiday stories. It was also exciting to welcome new students and staff to our Omihi whānau.

Welcome Miss W to Tūpari, Bryleigh as our Office Manager and Ava, Theo, Logan, Cadence, Hamish, Jack, Lennox and Kaisa to our classes.

As we move into this term there is a lot of uncertainty, so we are trying our best to make school as normal as possible. Our daily programme will stay the same and we have some fun events coming up. We know from last year that there is a disconnect with parents and the school without all the events we usually have, so we will try our best to connect as much as possible. Please keep in touch with us too. The teachers and I will often be out at the gate at drop off and pick up, plus we will offer zoom 3 Way Learning Conferences, and will send photos home through Hero and social media. We would also like to offer a zoom catch up with the community tomorrow night if the need is there. Just a chance to ask questions and have a chat. Please fill out this form by Wednesday morning if you would like to be a part of it. Or if you would like to speak to me privately, feel free to give me a call or arrange a meeting.

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

School Notices

Character Strengths
Isobel, Year 6 - My character strengths are bravery, prudence and love. Bravery helps me to get rid of fear and build up confidence, like standing up in front of loads of people and trying new things, and different ways to learn. Prudence helps me to think before I act, and love helps me to make friends.

School Calendar
Keep an eye on the school calendar on our website to see events coming up. This week Paemoana are going for a walk on the Lucas farm and we welcome bikes to school to practise for our triathlon. Next week Awaawa are going to the Lucas farm and we have our Omihi triathlon. Please ensure children have sensible shoes for the walks and triathlon practise.

When we go on school trips we use the school bus where possible, and ask for parent transport if needed, if we are not in red. We are going to our farm this term so we are not out in public and can limit who the children are in contact with. We have the blanket consent form that covers these trips that you signed on enrolment. The only trips we gain further consent for are ski trips and camps.

Uniform
A reminder that we ask children to wear navy shorts/skirts or trousers with their Omihi uniform. Also navy or white socks. We are in the middle of changing our uniform provider, due to changes in stock and order amounts, so we will let you know when that arrives. There will be a few new items that will be on offer.

Board of Trustees
We welcome Craig Tomlinson onto our BOT. Craig has been co-opted to help with our succession planning, as Leighton will be stepping down at the end of this term. We are so grateful for all the time and effort Leighton has put into the school and BOT over the past years while his children were at our school. There will be BOT elections later in the year. If you are interested in putting your name down, please feel free to have a chat with me or any of the BOT members if you want to find out what is involved. We meet at 5pm on a Monday twice a term, plus extra meetings when needed.

Contacting Omihi Staff
The best way to contact teachers and myself is through email. We can’t always reply straight away, but will get back to you as soon as possible. If you have a message regarding the bus, please text me. We try our best to not email parents after school hours of 8am - 5pm and I encourage our staff to have a work/life balance, so we ask that you try and keep communications during that time as well please.

If you need to get in touch with me regarding self isolation or someone having Covid, please contact me asap. If it is after hours, please call me on my mobile. Contact me if you need my mobile number.

Home learning packs
Home learning packs were sent home on Friday. These are to put away in case you need it in the future if your child has to self isolate, or if teachers need to self isolate.

Basketball and Mini ball
If your child would like to play basketball or mini ball, please make sure they have put their name down with me so I can organise teams. Julie (Lily and Thomas’ Mum) is organising Mini ball for the Year 3/4 team, which is on a Monday night. I will put together the Year 5/6 and Year 7/8 teams for Friday night. We are looking for a coach for these teams, please let me know if you are available.

Omihi Library
Each class goes to the library every Monday. Please remind your children to bring their holiday books back this week if possible. The library is also available to the community. While we are in the red traffic light, please let me know if you would like to get some books out and I can arrange a time outside of school hours for you.

Community Notices

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.

Bryleigh Kingston-Rodgers

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).

Chantelle White

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

Kia ora e te whānau

We are coming to that time of year when we have to say goodbye to our Year 8 students. It is always a time to reflect on their achievements, goals and life as part of our Omihi whānau. They are writing their Year 8 speeches at the moment and it is lovely to hear about their journeys at our school. We wish Monty, Jeremy, Daisy, Leni and Billy all the best for their next adventure.

We also say farewell to Sharryn as a teacher aide next year, but luckily for us, she will still be our cleaner. If we end up getting any extra funding for a teacher aide throughout the year, Sharryn will be the first person we ask! Thank you to Sharryn for being that person that the children can ask for help, have a chat with and share some glitter with, they just adore you. We also want to thank Ruth for all of her dedication, hard work and loyalty throughout her years at Omihi. We will miss your efficiency, your commitment and kindness.

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

School Notices

Principal Awards
Congratulations to the latest Principal Award winners….Jonty and Jeremy! They will be heading to Fossil Point later this term for a hot chocolate.

Character Strengths
Daisy (Year 8) - My top character strengths are humour, love of learning and curiosity. They help me to take on new opportunities and make new friends. They also help me to strive to do my best, especially in my learning. I take an interest in new things and can make a negative situation into a positive one.

Student Voice
One of our favourite things is to collect student voice about what is going well at Omihi, and find out anything we can improve on. Please take 5 mins to have a read through this, it is so lovely to see the common themes across the year groups and see things from our student’s perspective. Research shows that children learn when they feel happy in their learning environment and have strong relationships with their teachers. This feedback confirms that for us.

William Pike Challenge
As part of our strategic initiative on Positive Education, we have signed up for the William Pike Challenge in 2022, which we are really excited about! It is for Year 6-9 students, so Tūpari will be a part of this. Here is a presentation to talk through what this involves. The school will pay for the annual fee and we will ask parents for a contribution towards the student fee. Please contact Maree if you would like further info about this.

Swimming Pool
Thanks to the community for helping us to get the swimming pool filled, we ended up with 4 offers! A big thanks to Jeremy who organised Crystal Clear Water Deliveries to come out and fill it for us on Friday. We can’t wait for the children to start swimming!

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.

Summer Gardening
With all of the new gardens set up now, we need some help keeping these watered over the summer. After this summer they should be fine on their own, but we just want to give them a good start. We have a few timers that come on, but some are manual. Our students have done such a great job so far with watering them! We have set up a gardening roster for a week at a time in the holidays. Ideally they need to be watered each day, so if you can help out for a week, or maybe share with another family for a week, please add your name in.

School Photos 
Thank you to Claire for taking our gorgeous school photos. Here is a link to have a look at them and put your order in. Check your previous school photos email for the password. You can order directly from the site and the photos will be sent to you. Orders need to be in by Monday 6th December.

Dead Tree
We have a dead tree just as your walk in the school gate on the left hand side. We are looking for someone to cut it down and take it away. Please let Maree know if you are able to do this.

Stationery 2022
Teachers will send out the link to stationery lists next week so you can order ready for 2022. We will give children the exercise books they need at the start of the year.

Walks
We are looking forward to taking the Year 1-4 children to the Scargill Domain on Monday 6th December and the Year 5-8 children up Mt Cass on Monday 13th December. Please ensure children have their hats, a drink bottle, good walking shoes and car seats if needed. We will be taking the school bus and an extra car.

Prize Giving
We welcome you to our Prize giving on Thursday 16th December at 11am on the courts. The Ministry of Education have encouraged schools to continue with our level 2 plans until the end of the year, then at school we will change to the traffic light system in 2022, although there shouldn’t be too many changes for us. Please scan in, wear a mask and we will be socially distanced. There won’t be a whānau picnic afterwards, but as we haven’t been able to have an official opening of our new building, the children would like to give you a tour of Kahiwi and our new outdoor learning spaces.

Community Notices

Scargill/Motunau Playgroup
The Scargill/Motunau Playgroup runs during the school term for children under 6 and their caregivers. We meet at Scargill every Wednesday morning to learn through play. New families welcome anytime, please contact Lisa for more information on 021 223 8029.

NEXT CHAPTER PARENTING offering Individual, or group, PARENTING SESSIONS via Zoom. Eight one hourly sessions, weekly at a time convenient to you, available evenings. Topics covered include Communication, Empathy, Setting Limits, Quality Time, Consequences, Choices, Redirection, Pick your battles with your child, Problem Behaviour, Praise vs Acknowledgement, Time In vs Time Out, The Pause, Erickson’s Stages of Growth, Personality Types and how it affects your children. WINZ funding assistance where eligible. Website: www.nextchapterparenting.co.nz Contact: brigid@nextchapterparenting.co.nz

Structured Literacy lesson in progress in Paemoana with Miss Mickleson.

Kia ora e te whānau

When I turned five and started school, on my first day I was given a book to take home. Could I read? No. Did I know any letters or sounds? Probably a few, but not necessarily words. So why was I given a book and how was I expected to read it? Some strategies that were possibly given to me - look at the pictures, remember what that word was, have a guess. This is something that has been happening in New Zealand schools for years. I can say that I have also used these strategies in my teaching over the years. It’s not to say that these strategies didn’t work for some, and there are some children who find reading easy and become bookworms. But what about those children who find it hard? Do they know what sound each letter makes? Are they able to decode words?

Over the last 2 years, all of our teachers and myself have been on the Structured Literacy journey. We have been looking into how the brain actually works and how you learn to read. Through evolution, humans naturally learn to walk and talk, but reading needs to be taught. Have a read of the Science of Reading if you’re interested in learning more.

Explicit teaching of reading is happening throughout Omihi, from Year 1-8. Structured Literacy is about learning the sounds of the letters and being able to decode words. We have interventions in place for those children further up the school where we need to help with some gaps and each teacher is including structured literacy in their daily programme. There are so many rules and explicit teaching for spelling and reading that we are teaching. You may know how to spell a word, but do you know why it’s spelt that way? For example the c/k sound. Do you know when you should use a c or a k….I did, but didn’t know why. The rule is ‘c is for a, o, u - k is for the other two’.

We are not throwing the baby out with the bath water. We have some great strategies and learning experiences for reading and writing already in place, but we are reflecting, challenging our own practice, learning, and looking at what changes we can make to improve our student’s achievement, confidence and attitude in literacy.

We are so lucky to have Penny, who has been on this journey for 3 years, plus she is trained in MSL (Multi-sensory Structured Language), as well as Sally and Georgie who have been lucky enough to have Structured Literacy training so early in their career. We have a staff with a growth mindset who are always looking for new ways and research into how we can help our tamariki, and a BOT who are supportive in helping us purchase the resources and professional learning we need. This is one of our initiatives in our Strategic plan for the next three years.

If you would like to find out more, or come in and see a lesson in action, please let me know. We would love to show you.

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

School Notices

Omihi school strategic plan
After consultation and a lot of hard work throughout this year, we are so excited to share with you our Strategic Plan for the next 3 years. It is attached to the bottom of this newsletter. If you are interested in seeing the road map and annual plan that come out of this, please email me and I will share with you. These will also all be up on our school website next year.

Character strengths
Stan, Year 4 - Three of my character strengths are love, zest and humour. Love helps me to be kind to others, zest helps me to try new things and give everything a go, and humour helps me to make my friends laugh.

School photos
Thanks to Claire for taking these gorgeous photos for us. I will send you a link by the end of the week where you can purchase these online and they will be sent directly to you.

Prize giving cups: 
Please have a look for any cups at home from prize giving last year and ensure these are returned to school.

Lunches online
This week it is Sushi. Please use this link to place an order.

Working bee
A big thank you to the parents who came in to help with the planting in our new outdoor learning spaces. We appreciate your help and support.

Report comments 
You can expect to see report comments for writing, reading and PE at the end of this week on Hero. 

Transition programme
As part of our transition programme, over the next few weeks the children that are moving from Paemoana to Awaawa next year will have some time in Awaawa and will join in with lessons with Miss Smith. If you would like to talk to Georgie or Penny about this, please get in touch with them. The Year 5’s will also have some time in Tūpari in the morning sessions in the last couple of weeks of term. Please get in touch with the teachers if you would like to find out more.

Prize giving update
We will keep in touch with you regarding prize giving. We don’t want to make the decision too early, but we are hoping we are able to hold it outside, have parents socially distanced and in masks, and restrict families to two family members each so we can keep it under 100 people. There will be no whānau picnic afterwards. Please bear with us and know that we are doing everything we can to follow guidelines from the Ministry, as well as try and include parents in these special events.

Community Notices

Scargill-Motunau Playgroup AGM 10am Thursday 25th November at Playgroup. Apologies & enquiries to Lisa Chapman 021 223 8029.