Principal's Comment
Mike Gillatt
Kia ora koutou
Well, winter has certainly hit us with a real vengeance. Despite the cold and wet weather we have had lots going on at school and students are well engaged in their Social Justice inquiries.
Yesterday we held our Hutt Intermediate Culture Day. This day was organised by Rylee-Keyz Sopoaga and other members of our Pasifika Leadership group, and coordinated by Alice Andrews. Students wore national costumes and brought food to share from their culture. We had some incredible performances in assembly and would like to thank all those who took part in making this such a successful and enjoyable day.
Another highlight this week has been the success of our chocolate fundraiser. Although it is early days and there are still many boxes out there waiting to be sold, we have already raised $17,000. This money will help pay for the chocolates we are selling, so even though we have not yet made a profit we are well underway. Thank you to all those parents and caregivers who have been taking boxes to their workplaces and helping their children sell the chocolates. If your child has not yet started selling their box please encourage them to get going. The fundraiser runs for another two and a half weeks. Congratulations to Lawrence in M5, Rebekah in M6 and Tristan from M2 who won prizes in the chocolate sellers’ draw in assembly on Wednesday.
You will be aware that all COVID 19 restrictions have been removed. We are beginning to experience a number of children and staff contracting Covid. Please can you ensure if your child tests positive for Covid that you keep them at home until they test negative or a suitable time has elapsed. We have asked staff, who test positive to stay home for 5 days and we believe this would be appropriate for our students as well.
The picking up and dropping off of children during wet days is problematic due to the narrowness of Kauri St, the lack of close parking and school buses. What makes wet days more problematic for us, and other road users, are some of our parents who park on yellow lines, and across and in some cases up our neighbours’ driveways. This, aside from being against the road rules, is both inconsiderate and creates even more congestion in an already congested area. Please if you are picking or dropping your child off do so in an appropriate manner. The police have been notified and will be conducting random checks and will ticket any offenders. Thank you to those of you who adhere to the road rules that we all are expected to follow.
On a similar theme we also ask that you don’t drive into the school to drop off children before or after school. Our driveways are narrow and often have students running up them. We would hate to see a child injured so please avoid using them between 8.30am and 9.00am and from 3.00pm to 3.15pm. We thank you for your help with this.
We hope you have a happy, relaxing weekend, and fingers crossed for some sunshine!
Nga mihi nui
Mike, Catriona and Tracey
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