Balmoral School Newsletter - 18 July 2025
Te Tumuaki / Principal
Kia ora e te whānau
We are incredibly proud of our modern learning environments, a key feature of our rebuild over the past five years. These flexible spaces are designed to provide the very best educational experience for our students, and we often receive questions about how they work.
You may have recently heard discussions in the media about "Modern Learning Environments" (MLEs) or "open plan" classrooms.
It's important to share our perspective, which is grounded in the daily reality of learning and teaching within our own classroom spaces.
Our flexible learning environments have been designed to support diverse learning styles and activities. Each of these spaces typically incorporates three or four distinct teaching areas, allowing for focused instruction, small group work, collaborative projects and maker spaces. Complementing these are one or two dedicated breakout spaces, perfect for quiet individual study, one-on-one support, or targeted activities. This design allows for adaptability, enabling teachers to configure the environment to best suit the learning needs of the moment, whether it's a large group discussion, a series of smaller workshops, or independent inquiry.
The heart of exceptional education, however, lies not just in the buildings but in the quality of teaching and learning that takes place within them. Our dedicated teachers are skilled at utilising these flexible spaces to foster collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity, which aligns with our school's vision. We are committed to providing engaging and effective instruction, ensuring that every child thrives in an environment responsive to their individual needs.
Sometimes, approaches to education can be accompanied by misinformation or conflicting messages and influenced by people's anxieties around change or lack of knowledge. It's important to remember that such inaccuracies can be unhelpful and even harmful to understanding.
The Minister is not wrong to acknowledge that some schools have found open-plan settings challenging. However, to attribute learning difficulties solely to physical space alone misses the deeper, more complex truth: it’s not the classroom environment that fails students, but rather the quality of teaching, leadership, and support within it.
We continue to have visitors to our school, locally, nationally and internationally. These visitors have been impressed with our approach. They all commented on the positive impact our complete student environment has on our tamariki's learning.
Our school, through its thoughtful strategic and annual plan, fully supported by the Board, is committed to ensuring that our staff continue to be the best they can be with extensive, high-quality professional development.
We are excited about the future of learning at our school and look forward to continuing to share success with you.
Ngā mihi
Malcolm
School Board Elections
In September, we are holding our school board elections. Kyle MacDonald, our Presiding Member, and Sarah Jack (Deputy PM) are available to talk to anyone interested in standing. They are also available to discuss questions regarding the Board, such as time commitment, skills, and attitudes.
Sonya Singh, a previous Board member who served for ten years on our Board and nearly nine as our chair, is also available to talk to. She has extensive knowledge of school governance.
Contact details
Kyle MacDonald: kyle@psychotherapy.nz
Sarah Jack: sarah.c.jack@gmail.com
Sonya Singh: Sonyaboardelection@balmoral.school.nz
Board Elections: Parent & Staff Election Timetable
This year, our election will be held online. Please ensure your email addresses are up to date to enable you to participate.
Election Stage | Date |
Close Main Roll | By Wednesday 16th July |
Call for Nominations | Friday 18th July |
Close Supplementary Roll | Monday 4th August |
Nominations Close | 12 noon on Wednesday 6th August |
Voting Papers Issued | Wednesday 13th August |
Election Day | Wednesday 10th September |
Close Poll | 4pm on Wednesday 10th September |
Count Votes & Declare Results | Tuesday 16th September |
Board Takes Office | Wednesday 17th September |
Kōrari for Aspiring Board Members
Are you someone who is someone curious?
Do you have whānau who want to make a difference?
Get them to join as NZSTA explore what school boards do, how members are elected, what’s involved in the role, and where to find more info and support.
School Closes @ 12:30 pm on Thursday 31 July for conferences.
Tamariki / Whānau / Kaiako Conferences Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31 July
Please ensure you arrive on time for each 15 minute interview. If you are booking multiple interviews, we recommend leaving a space between them to ensure you arrive on time for your next interview.
Booking your interviews
Opens: Monday, 21 July 9:30 am
Closes : Tuesday 29 July 3:00 pm
CODE: GTX7KV3W
Go to parentinterviews.co.nz, enter the event code (being sent on Monday) and click Go.
Enter your name, email address and the names of the students you wish to make bookings for. Select the teachers you'd like to book by ticking the checkbox beside their name, and then click the Book Interviews button at the bottom of the page. Using the timetable, click the Book button beside the time slot you'd like to book for the teacher. You'll be asked to confirm your booking.
Continue until you've booked all teachers.
Once you're finished, you can view your timetable by clicking My Interviews at the top of the page. You can also print a PDF timetable to take to your interviews.
Before your interviews, you'll receive an email reminder containing your timetable. If you need to cancel any interviews, you can do so by following the link in the email you received when you first signed up.
Plastic Free July
Plastic Free July campaign focuses on small changes each of us can make to reduce plastic waste under the slogan “Small steps, big difference”. Each year millions of Plastic Free participants, from over 190 countries worldwide, are together making a big difference by choosing to refuse single-use plastic.
An astonishing 10 billion kgs of household waste has been avoided by participants over the last five years because millions of people choose to make a change for cleaner streets, healthy oceans, and beautiful communities or just to do the right thing.
Choose one single-use plastic to avoid or take the pledge to avoid single-use cups, plastic drink bottles, or plastic food wrap. These “Top 3” items are single-use plastic items we commonly use each day that most of us can be easily replaced by;
- Refilling reusable water bottles from the tap
- Bringing a reusable cup or sitting and enjoy a real cup
- Switching from plastic wrap to reusable containers or wax wraps.
Over the coming weeks, Balmoral School will be taking part in a range of activities to support keeping New Zealand beautiful.
Primary School News
News from Whānau Whetu
We've had an exciting start to Term 3 with great learning across the curriculum! In maths, we've begun our journey into fractions, learning all about what makes a whole and how to identify numbers that are equal to, less than, or more than a whole. It's been fascinating to see how parts make up the bigger picture!
Our imaginations have been running wild in writing, where we've started crafting hilarious narrative stories about mushrooms taking over the school! We're coming up with some truly funny characters and inventive solutions to this unusual predicament.
In inquiry, we've been hands-on explorers, investigating our local environment. We've been particularly curious about the effects of the fence around the field on rewilding and the growth of mushrooms – a perfect link to our creative writing!
We're incredibly excited for next week, when we'll be heading to the Botanical Gardens to continue our exploration of the natural world. Get ready for more amazing discoveries!
Here is what a few friends from Whetu have to say about their recent learning…
Hub 9
Anika and Tram - We have been looking at fractions in maths. We liked making our own fraction tiles, cutting them out and colouring them in. I think they will be helpful for us to use in maths.
Levi and Emmett - We have been writing about what is the same and what is different around the field and the bamboo because the fence has been taken down. We have learned about mushrooms and a suitable place they might live, we made them too. We used clay, lego, cube blocks and drawing. We liked that because it was fun!
Hub 12
Mariia - We have been discussing whether it is a good idea to rewild the school. I actually think it would be cool to rewild the school, it could attract native animals and make fresh air. Harakeke can attract pukekos.
Jackson - We have been thinking about also planting vegetables in the flower beds, so that we could have more space to play. We thought it would be better if we didn’t let the rewilding take over the whole school, but just rewilding one section. We are going to get some seeds, maybe from the orchard and replant them in the flower beds. I think it is better to rewild a small area, so we can share the school.
Rafael - For Matariki we made some vegetable soup, we needed to cut the vegetables and after we ate the soup together. We brought a spoon and a cup from home and enjoyed the soup together outside. We ate the soup with a scone, another group had made those. It was yummy, I liked it.
Intermediate School News
Welcome back to Term 3!
Part of our Health work this term will focus on Cyber Safety. Netsafe https://netsafe.org.nz/parents-and-caregivers has a great resource for whānau looking for ways to keep your tamariki as safe as possible while they are online. We strongly encourage you to be aware of what your children are doing online, and the apps they are interacting with.
It is great to see so many of our children taking part in everything that Intermediate has to offer. This term sees a number of exciting events, including Bandquest for our two bands, AIMS for some of our very keen sportspeople, and the Arts Festival where we spend three glorious days creating pieces of art, which then get exhibited at the end of the Term. We look forward to sharing our term with you as we go, and to seeing you all at the Conferences coming up on July 30th and 31st. The details for how to book these will be emailed to you early next week.
Sports Leagues
AIMS Fundraising
AIMS Fundraiser Gallery
Our teams are working hard to fund their trip to Tauranga for AIMS, Australasia’s largest junior sporting event. We are taking four teams: Netball, Boys Football, Basketball, and Girls Futsal. Alongside these teams, we have a number of individuals also competing in Badminton, Swimming, Sailing, and Gymnastics.
Every bit of support helps. If you would like to contribute, please click one of the links below to order and show your support! We are selling Pies, and a movie night.
Community News
