Balmoral School Newsletter 28 April 2023
Principal's Welcome
Kia ora e te whānau
A very warm welcome back to Term 2. I hope that you all got some time to spend together as a whānau to enjoy each other's company. I managed to spend time with a number of members of my whānau.
As we head into the winter months school continues to be a busy place. We have camps coming up which require a huge amount of work from our staff to organise. I would like to acknowledge this commitment to our community as I am well aware the tamariki get so much out of it. The children are challenged daily and get to actively develop the key skills of managing self and working with others. Thanks also to the parents who have also volunteered to be part of the week, I am sure you will enjoy being a part of this exciting school programme.
The PTA also have a couple of events coming up. The first is the Duathlon on Sunday 14th May. This event also requires a number of parents to help marshal and the tamariki really appreciate the efforts everyone goes to.
The teachers have received another pay offer from the government. While it fails to address many issues, I an unsure whether it will be rejected. Teachers will vote on this offer by 12th May.
I look forward to seeing you over the coming Term and I would like to continue to encourage you to be involved in school events.
Nāku noa
Malcolm
School Closed Friday 5th May
The school will be closed on Friday, May 5. All the teaching staff will be involved in a day of learning about the NZ Curriculum Refresh.
School Opening Hours
Our school gates open at the following times for children
- 8:15 am Intermediate Tamariki
- 8:30 am Primary Tamariki
Please do not send children to school before these times, as staff are unavailable to supervise. Staff who are at school are involved in meetings or setting up the classroom for the day.
Please use our Before School Care if you wish to send your child to school at an earlier time.
Two Art Projects
Congratulations to Bella Dussan-Ardern
Congratulations to Bella Dussan-Ardern whose design was one of the ten winners in the Resene Wall Worthy Competition.
This artwork will be displayed on the block wall outside the old boiler room. This artwork will definitely beautify the walk down from the Dental Clinic Gate. Emily Pauling will be working with Bella and other students to complete this project.
Bella, the Eco-Warriors and our school appreciates the voting support we got from our community.
Creative NZ Art Project
Saffron Paddy, Sarah Yates and a group of tamariki continue to work on developing our Matariki Art installation outside Hub 14. This art piece will be situated in the garden between Hub 14 and the Primary Playground.
Property Development
Over the holidays a couple of building projects were continued. Ithe intermediate playground was demolished. The groundwork was done in both the primary and intermediate playgrounds for the new rubber matting. We hope for the new intermediate playground to be installed in late May.
Geoff Sturt, our landscaper, continued the planting of native plants around the primary school. Pacific Membranes were unable to complete the two outdoor canopies but they have said they will be in early next week.
A new gate has been partially installed at the Dental Clinic Gate. We hope to commission this as soon as possible.
Class Ratios for years 4 - 8
The government announced a change in the ratio for Years 4 -8 in April from 1:29 to 1 teacher and 28.5 children in 2024. The class ratio for years 4 – 8 is too high for a class teacher to provide effective feedback 'in the moment' to tamariki.
This reduction is a move in the right direction. I believe the ratio, needs to be dropped further to at least 1:24. Only then will we start to see consistent improvement in student achievement. There is a broad diversity of students in our schools and the learning support needs are significantly higher than when these ratios were set decades ago. It is time for some drastic cuts to the staff-student ratios, and we need to have a long-term strategic plan to drop it further.
Also in 2019, the government established 600 Learning Support Coordinators with a commitment to roll out more. Unfortunately, there has been no movement on this. Currently, we fund our own LSC (SENCO) out of our operations grant. I would have hoped for some movement on this based on the learning support needs in our school.
Safety at the School Gate
This item was initially published in Kawepūrongo (our student newspaper) written by Lio Browne
Observation of the cars outside school at 3 pm has been eye-opening, and to be honest sometimes it is wild up there, many adults not following the rules about where to park, how to turn and not being careful of the people around them!
Some adults have been telling their kids to come straight over the road instead of using the crossing.
A word of advice kids, although we all know the phrase “parents know best!” the thing is sometimes they actually don’t, and nobody is right all of the time. In this case, they are not! Even if they tell you off for not listening to them, you can say that the school or this article told you to NOT listen to them or else you could’ve been turned into a flat piece of cardboard (which isn’t fun). So please, adults please stop telling kids to do what they’re not supposed to.
We just want everyone to stay safe, please follow the road safety rules, even if it means you have to park a little further away.
Sport
We have begun the term with a number of sport activities. Our after school netballers begin next week. We look forward to hearing about their games.
On Tuesday and Thursday, our Intermediate Futsal teams compete. We hope they play competitively and have some fun.
We also have Stuart McEwen from SwitchOn Basketball providing tuition to Year 5-8 students in Basketball using our gym on a Thursday morning and afternoon. This can be booked online through our website sports page. Thanks also to Alex Brown (a parent), who has also offered to continue training our keen intermediate basketball players on a Friday afternoon in the gymnasium.
Today we had Callum Gilbert a New Zealand Olympic slalom canoeist who has competed at the international level since 2013 talk at the intermediate assembly. Callum spoke about the 3 Olympic Values.
- Striving for excellence and encouraging people to be the best they can be.
- Celebrating friendship, which is quite unique to the Olympic Games – an event that brings people together every few years.
- Demonstrating respect in many different manners: respect towards yourself, the rules, your opponents, the environment, the public, etc.
These values were a valuable reminder for our tamariki to hear before they embark on their winter sport activities. We look forward to following Callum in his progress over the next year.
The staff as Learners and Professionals
A major school goal is for our akonga to see themselves as lifelong learners. For this to happen our staff also believe in modelling this.
Congratulations to Sarah Dunn (Music), who spent six days in the holidays in an Orff Music Course. Thanks for this commitment Sarah.
Next Friday, our staff get to spend their morning listening to Professor Russell Bishop, in particular looking at culturally appropriate teaching and learning strategies.
On Friday afternoon Dr Sarah Jane Paine (Ngāi Tūhoe) the recently appointed research director of Growing Up in NZ (GUINZ), Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest contemporary longitudinal study of child development, tracking the lives of 6,000 children and their families over 21 years. Sarah is also a parent at our school, and we appreciate her giving up her valuable time to help us better understand the complexities of childhood in NZ. Learnings such as these help us better understand children and help to improve our teaching methods.
Next weekend sixteen staff begin a Te Reo Maori course.