HAWERA INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

Email: office@hi.school.nz
Website: hi.school.nz
Location: 245 South Road, Hawera, New Zealand
Phone: 06 278 5030
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HaweraIntermediate/

Another two weeks has flown by!

This week and last I have spent time talking with teachers and hearing how they work to ensure safe and caring classroom environments exist and where high expectations for students are voiced and demonstrated.

Our focus is now on the classroom and we have an external facilitator with expertise in building curriculum to ensure ours is localised and provides authentic learning experiences for students. As such we close the school next Thursday, 10th September at 1pm to undergo Professional Development in this area.

Today I have my Senior Adviser and School Functioning Achievement Practitioner on site further assisting in building upon assessment capability.

Staff and students have been invited by the Education Review Office to partake in the on-going survey around well-being, this will be further supplemented with a survey undertaken through the NZ Council for Educational Research.

Findings from all surveys assist the school moving forward and next step development.

Ngā mihi nui

Neryda Sullivan

Acting Principal

Last Tuesday 4 students from the Enviro Team organised a meeting with Raymond Buckland from Egmont Refuse and Recycling to discuss the impact recycling plastic bottle tops has on our local community.

Our team curiously asked questions and gathered important information so we could become more knowledgable on the topic. We not only learnt the process and facts, but also a rare visit to his station. We are very grateful to Mr Buckland for sharing his time with us and wish to thank him for coming to speak to us.

As part of last month's Conservation Week celebrations, Project Reef designed a fun poster and are now offering it as a colouring in competition. If you are interested in participating, copies can be obtained from Rooms 10 or 12.

Entries close September 7!

On Friday the 28th of August, our Student Councillors were privileged to meet the mayor of South Taranaki. He told us of his job, then answered our queries. The mayor was very nice, calm, and happy. Mayor Phil Nixon seemed delighted to meet us, he also appeared to be proud of his opportunity to speak with the Councillors. I thought he was really nice and kind.

He answered all of our questions in great detail and made sure we could understand. I wish we had more time to speak with him, but alas time ran out. Our talk was long, smart, and very productive. We learnt many things about the Mayor and his job. Did you know that when he was younger, someone said that he should be Mayor? His reply? Laughter! He laughed at the thought that he could be mayor. Proof that you never know what the future holds.

Mayor Phil seems very open-minded and ready for new opinions. He was very happy with our questions. I think it was a valuable experience, not just for us, but for Mayor Phil too. I think I am speaking for all the councillors when I say that it would be wonderful to speak with him again.

I will take his words and experiences to heart, and use this opportunity for bettering my actions and myself. I would like to say thank you to Mayor Phil for his inspirational talk.

For the first time this year we were offered the opportunity to nominate students for the "Bryce Jourdain Scholarship" to a leadership course at TOPEC.

This was established in memory of Bryce Jourdain who sadly lost his life at Paritutu Rock while doing what he truly loved - teaching a group of students.

Staff nominated students and then Senior Leaders selected five entrants - Taene Nelley, Zion Katene, Elliot Wills, Kobe Brogden and Shakaia Tantrum.

These five then went on to present their final application.

Mayor Phil Nixon, took their profiles back to the council and the lucky nominee for our school is Shakaia Tantrum!

We congratulate Shakaia and wish her all the best for selection at the next stage!

We also acknowledge the mana and integrity of the four other students, who showed their integrity, and why they were nominated when they instantaneously gave her a round of applause on the announcement being made. What excellent young leaders we have in our school!

In the interest of student well-being, whanau are reminded to be vigilant around students on social media. Many students do not have the ability to handle pressures that can be found within this forum and therefore strict monitoring of usage by parents is suggested.

Tips

1) Become your child’s “friend” in any social network environment your child creates.

2) Maintain easy access to your child's profile via their log in...…you will see everything.

3) Ensure that you can always have access to your child's phone to help them stay safe (i.e. it is not a no-go area) …check the quality of how they are communicating with others; talk about how they connect and communicate with friends. Is it consistent with the values of your family?

4) Educate your children about the importance of protecting family and friends images ….teach them to seek permission of another before they send or upload images to the internet.

5) Try to always maintain open lines of communication with children. Do not over-react if you see something that alarms you or makes you angry….. share your concerns, and always talk about the issues and how they relate to them and their friends safety.

6) Agree on a time in the evening to stop using the technology within the home…that’s everyone. “Remember, what we model today will either come back and embrace us or bite us tomorrow”

7) Talk/ask about their friends and social activity as a way to reduce the opportunity for cyber-separation to develop……encourage being open about new friends and what they are up to, and who their parents are. When in doubt, call the parents and introduce yourself.

8) Teach your children to protect their online identity, as a way to future proof themselves for employment…..we need to nurture and protect them online and teach them how to protect themselves as they engage information technology.

Pedophiles & online gaming platforms

Pedophiles gravitate to areas where children play, communicate and congregate. Pay attention to the online games your children play.

Questions to ask: Are the games age appropriate? Is the quality of the language used in the games suitable for a child? How does the game make money out of a child’s use? What processes are available to adults, should they need to make a complaint about a user? Parents/guardians need to familiarise themselves with the game the child wants to play before the child enters the game; alternatively sit alongside the child and experience the game with them. Online gaming platforms provide pedophiles with the ability to observe minors interacting with other minors, all the time learning about the child. This gives the pedophile the opportunity to target select and then build a relationship with a child once the grooming starts.

Last Friday's KAURI WAY reward (previously known as a PB4L or Positive Behaviour for Learning) was a school wide event known as the Goofy Games. It was great to see our students having a great time in several collaborative activities. This included 6 students running, all with a hand on a long stick, a group carrying a tyre around the course, chasing a tennis ball round with hockey sticks and much more.

Bonus points were given out to classes.

Thanks to Mr Heather and Mr Baylis who ran the event.

It is not about the winning or losing, it is about celebrating the great behaviour being seen at school.

We congratulate:

1st place -Room 12 with absolutely exceptional team work, behaviour and attitude.

2nd - Room 5

3rd = Rooms 9 and 10

School will close on the afternoon of Thursday 10th September at 1pm

This will enable teachers to undertake professional development from external facilitators who will visit our school.

We have worked incredibly hard on ensuring a well managed environment exists at Hawera Intermediate.

Our direction is now focussed on student learning and the assessment of the same. This opportunity will support teachers collectively moving forward.

Our appreciation is extended to you in advance in supporting this teacher development.

We are in the process of embedding our new KAURI Values and developing the KAURI WAY across our school. To help with this we have developed new values certificates, and our first recipients are Hokowhitu Ngaheu, Hamu Pullen-Akapita and Aaron Smith who were all nominated by their teachers for showing Kaitaikitanga in our school which is supporting and protecting growth and development within our environment. We are so proud of these boys!

Showquest is an exciting one-off challenge for 2020 that lets students nationwide create a 7-minute (or less) self-filmed screen video exploring a story/theme. It has been a long, perpetuous and of course fun journey. The film we are making is about one protagonist trying to find her true self through emotions portrayed by colour and dance. We have used a different mix of songs to show different emotions such as, anger, sadness, confidence, happiness and being chill. All of this has been directed by students at our school with lots of help from Mrs Treanor and Mr Baylis. This has been the first time Hawera Intermediate has performed in Showquest so we are giving it our all to set the bar high. Because of Covid 19 we are not performing on stage like you would normally for an activity like this. We are having to record and edit on ipads and computers. We have certain expectations that the completed video needs to have. There are around 30 students who have control and fill the roles of directors, editor, actors, dancers, musicians, tech crew, designesr and so much more! All of the dances in our performance have been choreographed by Julia Scott, she has dedicated most of her spare time to figure out what would go best with our music choice. Showquest is based on seeing what we can do with actions and music, you don't use your words for this. It is all about how you tell the story with dance.

Children are encouraged to take additional precautions when leaving home. Parents, caregivers and students will need to work with the school to develop a plan to manage a safe return to school. Distance learning will continue to be available to those who choose to remain at home.

Hand sanitiser is at the entry to all classrooms and in shared spaces. Soap, water and the ability to dry hands is provided in bathrooms. If hand sanitiser is in short supply, washing and drying hands with soap is still the most effective hygiene measure.

Children, young people and staff should be far enough away from each other so that they are not breathing on or touching each other, coupled with good hygiene practices and regular cleaning of commonly touched surfaces. There does not need to be a specific measurement but where practicable and reasonable 1 metre can be used as a guide, particularly between adults.
Physical distancing of 2 metres is recommended for parents and caregivers, from people they don’t know (to align with public health measures outside the school grounds).

School drinking fountains are currently unavailable. Students are asked to bring their own drink bottle, water being our preferred option.

Contact tracing remains a priority through our visitor register, timetable and attendance register. There is a QR code poster for the NZ COVID Tracer App displayed on the office door.

To support contact tracing, all visitors who are onsite for a period of time, including parents and caregivers need to register either through the Tracer App or manually via our visitor register.