Newsletter – 20th February 2023 – Pakuranga Heights School

It has been another interesting start to the year. We were fortunate at Pakuranga Heights not to sustain any structural damage or flooding during the last two cyclones.

This term we have Meet the Teacher (see below) and in Week 6, Thursday 16 March a school community picnic.

School Wide Contracts 2023

Each year we have several professional learning contracts below are a few of them:

Healthy Active Learning – 3 Year Contract

Healthy Active Learning is a joint government initiative between Sport NZ, Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand, and the Ministry of Education to improve the wellbeing of tamariki and rangatahi through healthy eating and drinking and quality physical activity.

The Learner First

We are joining with several local schools. We want to guide every student and educator to lifelong success and wellbeing through his or her discovery of how they contribute to the world.

“By reflecting students’ identities and aspirations in what, how, and where they learn, teachers and their students can create positive environments that are rooted in the process of Contributive Learning—in discovering who they are, connecting with others, developing knowledge and competency, and, as a result of their learning, adding meaning and joy to the world in their ways.”

Cultural Competencies

Building the teacheers cultural competence is about increasing awareness, building knowledge, acquiring the right skills, learning appropriate behaviours and developing the right attitudes to value diversity and include everyone. It is important that we all take on the responsibility to do the work.

Parking in the Visitor Carpark

We have noticed some parents are coming very early and parking before the traffic arm starts. This causes problems for parents and visitors who are just popping into the office or collecting children from Day Care as all parking spaces are full. If you want to come early please park behind the Church as there are plenty of parks. We do not want to and hope common sense prevails but may have to limit parking to a set period eg: 15 minutes.

Digital Safety

We would like to remind you that, as part of our digital safety contract, all students must hand any cellphones into the office for safe keeping during the day. Students are not permitted to keep phones in their bags or in their pockets. This policy has been extended to include watches that can connect to data or cellular services.

Over the next few weeks you will receive an email from your child’s teacher indicating their class is ready to begin their digital citizenship unit. This year we are using the Informed and Empowered programme from Our Kids Online. On Thursday 22nd June we will be hosting a parents evening with Rob Cope from Our Kids Online. We will send more information home closer to the time but we encourage you to save the date for this important event. You can find out more about Our Kids Online at https://www.ourkidsonline.info/.

Staff Profile Monique Browne – Deputy Principal

I have been Deputy Principal at Pakuranga Heights since the middle of 2021 after working at a number of schools across Auckland and London for the last 18 years. My time working at a private school in London gave me a great appreciation for the NZ Curriculum, especially the focus on children developing in their own time. I live with my husband, Nick, and our two children Harry (9) and Emma (7) who keep us very busy outside of work. As a family we love camping and exploring the outdoors in the weekends and holidays.

Healthy Active Learning Community Survey

The school is currently partnering with Healthy Active Learning to review our PE, sport and recreation activities both during and outside of class time.

One of our first activities in this process is to undertake a ‘scope of play’. This will look at student, teacher and community views of play opportunities at school outside of classroom time. If you have a few minutes to fill out the survey below to share your thoughts we would appreciate it.

Whānau Survey

The PTA would like to warmly welcome all new and existing families back to school for 2023. We hope you are settling in well despite the unusual weather disruption to the start of the term. We hope all kept safe dry and your wider whanau too.

We would love to invite you all to be a part of the PTA and for any information or questions or suggestions on how we can support you and your family at school – you can email us at pta@pakurangaheights.school.nz

Please see our mission statement below and if you are keen to be involved,

please email us and keep an eye out for our first meeting date for Term one. (TBC)

Vanessa Greig

PTA Chair

PHS PTA mission statement 2022.

Pakuranga Heights School PTA is established to be a charity whose purpose is to run a parent/teacher association at Pakuranga Heights School to:

Run fundraising events to raise money for the school to provide extra resources over and above public funding.

Provide a link between school, staff, parents and other members of the school community to enhance educational outcomes for our students.

Foster a feeling of community within the school.

For the House Captains:

Meet the Tui House Captains
Hi, my name is Cruze an I am one of the Tui House Captains for 2023, I am also the Head Boy this year. My favourite sports are rugby and basketball. I like playing sports and running around at morning tea and lunch. I love being outdoors.

Hello, I’m Ashaadiyah and I am a Tui House Captain for 2023. I am a determined writer and I tend to finish what I start, especially long stories. I collect lots of different things, including toys and I really like Genshin Impact.

Hi, my name is Augustina and I am one of your Tui House Captains. I love sushi and soccer. I am energetic and friendly. I can’t wait to be a House Captain for 2023.

This is what we have been doing in room 2.

We have been reading the story ‘Greedy Cat’. We made our own artwork using vivid, yellow crayon, and orange dye.

Room 1 has been learning about our school values. We shared different ways of being kind including sharing toys, helping when someone is hurt or sad, helping a friend with their drawing and playing with others.

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