Developing Confident, Capable, Resilient Learners

Kia ora koutou katoa, Talofa Lava, Malo e lelei, Ni Hao, Anyoung haseyo, Konichi wa, Gruetzi, Guten tag, Bonjour, Ola, hello

With the arrival of our Year 3 and 4 students back from camp this week, all our students have enjoyed an age appropriate camp experience in the great outdoors this year to date. 

At Tauriko School learning in all areas is progressive in order that we can support students to develop skills, strategies and learning confidence over their eight years at Tauriko School that enable them to experience success.We appreciate the support of parents in attending these Education Outside The Classroom (EOTC) events to enable these to happen, and in the positive conversations they have with students prior to these  experiences that tell the students that they will have a great time, that you believe they can do the many and varied activities and experiences involved in an event like this. Your conversations build belief in your children that they are capable and will achieve success in any challenges they meet with the wonderful support on offer during these experiences. Together we are developing confident, capable, resilient learners and young people.

At Tauriko School the progression of learning around camps is carefully structured over the students' eight years at school:

Year Level	Even Year	Odd Year	Term
Year 1 & 2 – day trips	Outdoors in our Community	Bush – McLaren’s Falls, Te Puna	Term 1
Year 3 & 4 – one night	Beach	Bush - Aongatete	Term 1
Year 5 & 6 – two/three nights	Adventure Camp- Totara Springs	Bush – Okataina Lodge	Term 1
Year 7 & 8 – three/four nights	Leadership Camp  Term 1                Sports Camp  Term 3

We are so lucky in New Zealand that this tradition of "School Camp" is bravely held onto in an ever increasing strict Health and Safety Environment. In many countries these experiences no longer happen. The school has sound Risk and Assessment plans in place for all trips off the school site.  These proactively plan to manage any risks - both thinking of limiting these from happening and managing well any incidents that happen when even the best laid plans can go awry. With all our trips out of school carefully considered ratios of adults to students are part of this plan, and we thank you for your involvement which sees you supporting safety plans and enabling students to further develop great relationships with a wide variety of people. I know those parents that support school trips really enjoy their time with the students and develop a real appreciation for the wonderful work that teachers do.

Year 1 & 2 - Te Puna Quarry:

 

 

Year 3 & 4 - Aongatete:

Year 5 & 6 - Lake Okataina 

Year 7 & 8 - Art and Leadership Camp

A huge thank you to the staff for the many hours of work that go into preparing for these camps, planning for amazing learning experiences for students and for that commitment to and passion for learning that sees you spending time away from your families to enable this to happen. 

Traffic Issues:

Thank you to those many people who keep us informed as to safety risks on a daily basis. We do load these on to the police website. You can also do this directly on the NZ Police website. We are meeting next week with NZTA the TCC and MOE to look at the parking area design proposed and we hope to have timeframes for you from this meeting. Rest assured, this is an on-going piece of work that the Board and I will continue to work  rigorously on.

BOT Update:

Each Term our BOT Chairperson likes to update the community on the work of the Board of Trustees. The latest BOT Update can be found on our website. In this area of the website there are also minutes of past meetings (once these are approved by the Board), my reports to the Board and I will also now load agendas for upcoming meetings. The next BOT meeting is Wednesday 12 April at 6pm. All meetings are held in the school staffroom.

Visitors to School:

Tauriko enjoys hosting the many visitors to school that come for a variety of reasons. All visitors are required to sign in at the school office to ensure that we are aware of all visitors onsite, can inform them of any hazards they may need to be aware of and can look after them should an emergency occur. 

Parents who volunteer in classes each week also need to sign in to ensure we can look after you on site, should the need arise.

This week we have had two schools visit our new learning spaces to consider these as options for their own schools. A big thank you to the students, staff and parents in these rooms on those days for being so welcoming and answering any questions the visitors may have. I'm sure we will have many other visitors over time as these learning spaces are relatively new across the country and available here for local schools to look at should they be experiencing roll growth.