Term one has been a busy one for the school. We opened the year with 241 students on the roll, and have since welcomed over 70 more. Teachers have enjoyed getting to know your children and it is lovely to see students engaging with learning and each other as I move around the motu, visiting our various sites.
At the Board level there has been a lot of activity going on to develop our new Strategic and Annual Implementation Plans. These have now been finalised and will be published on the school website by the end of the Term. We have two strategic goals for the 2026 – 28 period. The first goal focuses on curriculum and pedagogy (what we teach and how we teach it at the Southern Health School), while the second looks at increasing community engagement. In each newsletter we will be reporting on our progress towards these goals.
Teachers began the year with three days of professional learning. As well as welcoming new staff to the school, a range of learning opportunities were provided, including looking at the new maths and English curricula, providing feedback into the Board’s Strategic and Annual plans, looking closely at the data we have available to us as a school and how this could be improved, and spending time growing our cultural competence particularly in the Pasifika space. A large number of our staff presented sessions during the three days, highlighting the level of knowledge and skill we have among our team.
This year also marks the start of our new brand with our first regional roll-out of the new brand taking place on 1 March at the Halswell site. This was an opportunity to bring many of our stakeholders together, to explain our new brand and logo, and to present information about who we are as a school and what we do. We were delighted at both the turnout and the feedback we received at the launch. Further launches will be happening throughout Te Waipounamu – The South Island over Terms 2 and 3.
A new requirement of the Ministry of Education this year has been that all schools develop and publish an Attendance Management Plan. This has been a taxing exercise for Te Kura Whaiora ki te Tonga – The Southern Health School, due to the fact that students come to us because they have been unable to attend school due to their illness, and that attendance is monitored closely on an individual basis already. Nevertheless we have completed the plan to reflect the processes we already follow and this will go up on the school website once it has been signed off by the Board. What we ask of you is that you support your child to attend scheduled sessions with their teacher whenever possible, and that you keep in close communication with their teacher about any matters, attendance or learning.
Throughout the term teachers have continued to participate in professional learning relating to the new Maths and English curricula. Delays in finalising these curricula and publishing resources have made this challenging, however the professionalism of our teachers and their willingness to collaborate with each other has meant that they are getting across the significant demands created by having multiple curricula being introduced over a very short space of time.
Work is continuing on the proposed co-location of our Halswell site with Ko Taku Reo (Deaf Education) and BLENNZ (Blind and Low Vision Education Network New Zealand). We have received feedback from a number of whānau of students from our Halswell classroom, for which we are grateful. This is being combined with input from students, teachers administration, and senior leaders to provide information that we will share with the architects for the project.
Another exciting project on the property front is the shift of our Rangiora community classroom from one classroom space at Rangiora Borough School to two classrooms in another area of the school. The refurbishment kicks off during the upcoming holidays and we hope to be in the space early in Term 2.
Over the past two terms, Allan Robertson, a retired principal, has been working with us to support our migration to SchoolDocs from our current policy framework. We will be going ‘live’ with SchoolDocs from the start of Term 2. Many of you will be familiar with this framework already, and we are looking forward to the support SchoolDocs provides us in terms of meeting our legislative requirements and ensuring we have the correct policies in place. I would like to sincerely thank Allan for all of his mahi in this space. He has been consultative and thorough, and I am very grateful.
Sadly, we will be saying farewell to three of our staff by the end of the term. One of these is Allan, mentioned above. Joining him is Maree Fraser, who has been Team Leader of the Piwakawaka team, and who is moving onto Christchurch North College to be a Learning Support Co-ordinator, and Charlie, who has been our teacher aide at the Halswell classroom and who is moving onto a role at the YMCA. We wish you all well.
Thank you for entrusting your child to our care and please get in touch if there is anything we can help with. Enjoy the holiday break and we look forward to welcoming you and your child back next term. To all of the students heading back to their school of enrolment or onto other pathways, we wish you well and hope that we have contributed positively to your journey.
Ngā mihi
Linda
