Kia Ora Whānau
We have had a great start to Term 4! Yesterday I travelled to Maungatautari Marae with George Kana, our Kaumatua, to be with Anna Beveridge, Danielle Farrell, the students of Rooms 23 and 24 and the team of keen parent helpers, as they were welcomed onto the Marae. I was so proud of the students - they were extremely well behaved and respectful and their singing was beautiful!  Today Amber Mattsson and Georgia Robb venture out to the Marae with the students of Rooms 17 and 18, along with their superstar parent helpers. Thank you to George Kana for speaking on behalf of our kura (school) and to all the parents who offered their help. Without your support, trips like these can't go ahead. The Year 4 team of teachers can be commended for their teamwork and outstanding organisation.  It is timely to remind our Year 5 and 6 whānau that if parent help numbers don't meet the EOTC requirements, our Year 5 and 6 Beach Education trip and our Year 6 Waimarino trip may not be able to go ahead. Please ensure that payment has been made for your child to attend these trips, and if you are able to be a parent helper, please let your child's teacher know!  

Some of you may have noticed that we have made a change to our First Aid system. Parents now get an immediate email notification of any sick bay entry made for their child. That way, you as parents can keep an eye on any injury logged that was deemed minor at the time of triage, so if the injury worsens over time, then you can seek further medical treatment.

We are looking forward to participating in the National ShakeOut Day tomorrow at 9.15am. I have included more information about this in the Important Dates section below. 

I hope you all enjoy the upcoming long weekend, with Monday being Labour Day - a public holiday. Enjoy your time with whānau,
Ngā mihi
Kylie 

We celebrated the following  manaaki super stars in Week 1 of this term. Congratulations to the following students who showed manaaki and kindness:
Chloe R17 , Dylan R13, Mehtaab R13, Nikau R34, Jordan R15, Akuhata R7, Stephen R11, Asher R1, Anumeet R14, Liam R22, Evita R2, Chloe R17, Nivarna R18, Hazel R6, Gurnoor R5, Joy R24, Mia R23, Asher R10, Ben R9, Shubh R12, Lincoln R16, Locky R16, William R8, Faytel R19, Janna R39, Rudra R30, Sebastian R31, Aryan S R32, Atmaj R21, Diza R38, Janae R40/41, Ben R40/41, William R36, and Sophie R35

Our sunhat policy comes into effect next Tuesday 24 October, for the rest of Term 4 and Term 1 of 2024. We require students to wear hats whenever they are outside and involved in school activities. Students without a hat must remain in an allocated shaded area at break times. 

Our sunhat policy is a little bit different this year.  Hats must be legionnaire/bucket hats or caps. Caps must be worn so that they provide protection to the eyes. Students who wear cultural head dress (eg hijab and patka) are exempt from wearing a sunhat.

We are having a whole school Celebration on Friday 3 November starting at 11,00am to showcase some of our students special talents. We will be celebrating the success of the following groups of students:

You are welcome to come along and share in the celebration! 

Class Placement organisation for 2024 has begun. We have a robust process which includes using a clustering model which supports the relationships that students have already formed with their peers. This means, that we cluster groups of students from each class together when organising the new class for the next year. 

Team Leaders and classroom teachers will be working in collaboration to organise placement of students for 2024. This process takes time and will be finalised at end of an 8 week process as they give careful consideration to many different dimensions of organising classrooms within a school. 

If your child is not going to be attending Rototuna Primary School in 2024 can you please let the office know by emailing Delwyn at reception@rototunaprimary.school.nz

Thank you! 

Barbara and Cameron from the Hamilton City Council have organised a fun-filled week Transport Safety Week for our kura (school) for Week 5 of this term (Tuesday 7 November - Friday 10 November). Our Transport Safety Week includes the following activities:

WOW Day - Walk or Wheels Wednesday:

WOW day promotes active travel to all students on Wednesday 8 November. Student leaders, alongside Barbara and Cameron from the Hamilton City Council, will be giving out prize entry slips to students who walk, scooter or skate to school. After school they will reward active travellers with popcorn and ice blocks!

Year 1-4: Ruben the Road Safety Bear:

Ruben the Road Safety Bear will deliver a 30 minutes road safety lesson for students in Year 1-4. 

Year 1 Wheels Day:
The Year 1 team are organising their very own wheels day on Tuesday 7 November.

Our Year 5 students are the first students to participate in the Hamilton City Council newly created Kids on Scooters programme. Year 5 students will be asked to bring their own scooters (if they have one), helmets, and covered footwear on Thursday 9 November and Friday 10 November. The Kids on Scooters programme gives students the skills to be confident scooters riders. Students will develop capability, skills and ability to feel safe when riding out in the community and to and from school.

Year 6 - Kids on Bikes (KOB): 

Our Year 6 students will participate in the Hamilton City Council Kids on Bikes Grade One programme. Year 6 students will be asked to bring their own bikes and helmets and covered footwear each day from Tuesday 7 November - Friday 10 November, where possible. An obstacle course will be organised on Friday 10 November. The Kids on Bikes Grade One programme gives students the skills to become confident riders. Students will develop skills (or brush up on important skills) that will grow confidence and give them the capability/skills/ability to become safe on road riders. 

Attached below is a link to a video that stars our very own Road Patrollers. They collaborated with the Hamilton City Council and other local schools to promote active travel to school! We are so proud of our super star Road Patrollers!

Policy review for this term include:

o read our school policies and procedures, click on the link below. The link below will take you to school docs.

To access our Policies and Procedures:

At the end of last term, the Senior Leadership team was busy interviewing teachers for 2024 positions. We are delighted to let you know that we have appointed some of our teachers who were on fixed term positions this year to continue being part of the Rototuna Primary Team next year: 

We have also appointed Michelle Fisher, who returns to Rototuna Primary School.  New to Rototuna Primary in 2024 will be Molly Porter and Emma Douglas. We look forward to welcoming them to our team!

Last term, Anna Beveridge (PE & Sports Leader) worked diligently on an application to the Sport New Zealand’s Tū Manawa fund, supported by Sport Waikato for funding so that we could provide our students some different play experiences in the playground. I am pleased to say that this week, Anna received a congratulatory email to say that she has been successful in obtaining a $8804 grant from Sport New Zealand’s Tū Manawa fund, supported by Sport Waikato for our school to purchase Magic Play boxes for our loose parts play in our playground. 

We are very excited as this will give our students the opportunity to engage in loose parts play. We now need to build boxes to store all the equipment. These boxes will go in the gardens between Tōtāra hub and Rāta hub and the loose parts play will be able to take place in the newly barked areas on the edge of the field. Well done Anna! We are so proud of your efforts and thank you hugely for the extra mahi you have put in to create this unique opportunity for our ākonga.

Below are the dates of the upcoming Board meetings this term:
6.00pm 30 October 2023 - Strategic Planning Meeting
1.30pm 27 November 2023
11 December 2023 - Data Meeting

The following are term dates for 2024:
Term 1: Wednesday 31 January - Friday 12 April

Term 3: Monday 22 July - Friday 27 September   

Term 4: Monday 14 October - Wednesday 18 December    

We are working closely with the Police as they investigate a growing number of reports of children who are being assaulted by other children and young persons on school grounds after hours or on the weekend.  

Our school grounds are used by many people after hours and this is a reminder to ensure your children are supervised if they come to play on school grounds after hours or on the weekends. 

Any incidents that happen on school grounds after hours or on the weekend need to be reported to the police. We, as a school, will support the police with their investigations where we can.