Term 3 Week 4 - 14 August 2024

Kia Ora Koutou

We have had a settled start to our term with the students enjoying learning about the Olympics and following the athletes on their quest for medals. We are super proud of our NZ Champs who competed and won medals! In the spirit of the Olympics we had a whole school dress up day on Friday last week. Students came dressed up in a sports uniform, the colour of their favourite country, their favourite athlete, and some wore medals that they have won, or flags they have! What a fun way to end our two week Olympics study.

Staff Appreciation Morning Tea
The Board of Trustees organised a staff morning tea last week to show their appreciation of the collective effort by us all to make our kura the best place to be. The cupcakes even had icing in our school colours thanks to our resident baker and Board of Trustee's secretary (Delwyn Smith).

Playground Behaviour
Last term we increased our duty teachers during morning and lunch time and can say the impact of this change resulted in a 25% drop in behaviour incidents.

This is a fantastic result and we are grateful to the Board of Trustees for prioritising and allocating funding to ensure we could continue the increased duty in Term 3. As part of our analysis, we looked at the behaviours that lead to issues in the playground. The most common behaviour is pushing or hitting to solve their problems, rather than walk away from trouble and get help. Last term 62 students chose to solve their problems by pushing or hitting. This behaviour is not OK and not what we stand for as a kura. I think we can all agree that pushing or hitting someone to solve our problems (even as adults) is not OK. We would really appreciate it if you could please take some time to reinforce with your child that pushing or hitting is not OK (even if someone has been unkind) and to reinforce that at school you need to 'walk away from trouble, not into it' and get help. At school we are actively teaching students this strategy alongside emotional regulation strategies too.

PTA Reading Challenge
We are all amongst the PTA Reading Challenge. I know the students are enjoying participating in this , and it will be a fantastic opportunity to foster a love of reading. On Friday we participated in the whole school DEAR challenge! The library is such a fun space for our students - did you know it is open at lunchtime for students to visit if they wish to have some quiet time and enjoy reading a book.

Mathematics Achievement
There has been a lot of media attention regarding the achievement of maths in our country and the proposed changes to the Mathematics Curriculum. . At Rototuna Primary School we follow a progression of learning in mathematics and are pleased to report that our mid-year mathematics data analysis shows that 82% of students at our kura are expected to meet the maths expectation for their year level at the end of the year.

We currently have no information from the Government or the MInistry of Education on what the new Mathematics or English Curriculum looks like and what this means for our teaching and our reporting. These changes are causing a lot of angst amongst schools, leaders and teachers as we navigate the changes with very little forewarning or information and then prioritise upskilling ourselves and revising our systems, structures and reporting so we can offer the best education for the students in our care. Until we know more and have a clear pathway forward we will stay the course and continue the quality teaching we currently do each and every day.

School Uniform
We met with Liz and Lisa from The Brand Makers last week and finalised the swatches and colours for the school uniform. We are looking forward to having the uniform on display early next term for you to view. We have had lots of excited students and parents asking when they can purchase the school uniform. You will be able to purchase online or visit The Brand Makers store in January 2025 to purchase. The Brand Makers are a local Hamilton store, locally owned and operated. It is great space with lots of helpful staff and changing rooms available too. The Brand Makers are located at:

6 Latham Court Frankton, Hamilton.
P: 07 847 6664
Freephone: 0800 863 737
Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm

The staff are enjoying their new school jackets and have lots of positive feedback on how smart it looks. We are proud of our kura and are proud to wear these!

Ngā mihi,
Kylie