Principal News

What a wonderful way to end a busy and successful term.

Our students have spent the bulk of the term looking at how we can minimise the amount of waste in our school.  They were tasked with designing systems, promotions and tools to reduce our school waste with the overall goal of reducing from 160kgs a day to 80kgs.  The 160kg amount came from our ignitor event when the day's waste was collected and measured by "Save Money Skips".  They noted the considerable amount of contamination of recyclable material with rubbish.

We are pleased to announce that the students exceeded the goal and reduced the waste down to a staggering 26Kgs on our last weigh day.  The many systems, promotions and inventions that the students designed have worked, and we will now be looking at how we can adopt them systematically into everyday life at Tahuna to sustain the amount of rubbish going to the landfill.  We will announce more details in the new term.

Thank you to Matua Manuel and his roopu for organising our Te Wiki O Maatauranga Maori, including our Matariki evening.  It was the first time the whole school had worked together on this, and the concept of tuakana teina was evident throughout the week.  Thank you to the parents who attended on Wednesday night who supported their child and contributed to our wishing wall.  We will collate and share your ideas at our next whanau hui in term 3.  

We have had some notable student success of late.  Well done to all of the students who represented the school at the Oamaru Interchange.  Your behaviour and attitude on the field were excellent, and you displayed our school values admirably.  Another group that should be commended is the Literacy Quiz team led by Sean Minhinnick.  They won the Dunedin qualifying tournament before going on to finish 4th at the New Zealand event held in Wellington recently.  A truly fantastic effort.

The Board of Trustees have been busy reviewing the school's policies over the last few weeks and updating them to be published on School Docs.  Many of you may be familiar with school docs from your child's contributing school.  We hope it will make policy consultation easier while ensuring we meet all legislative and best practice requirements.  Read the article in this newsletter for more information.

We wish all students a safe and relaxing holiday, and we hope you get to spend some time together as a family over the mid-year break.

Ka mihi nui

Simon Clarke

Principal