Tawatawa News

7 February 2025

He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa
Bonjour à toutes nos familles

Rascals: Ridgway After School Care programme

We are now running the after school programme ourselves and are so pleased with how it’s going. The children are very settled, following our school rules and routines. We now have Enrolmy up and running so you can book in here.  

Even if you already filled in the Google form for the first two weeks, it'd be great if you could go ahead and re-sign up via Enrolmy. 

We’ve got Nathan on Mondays and Estelle on Fridays and other teachers rotating across the other days. Lucan is our main man who is there every day. He’s been a teacher aide in the past and is an amazing creative guy who trained as a knife maker. Rest assured he doesn’t do this with the kids! 

In this picture you can see the children calmly making themselves afternoon tea and sitting down to eat their kai.

Road Patrol

When using the crossing, please wait for the command ‘Cross Now!’ from the road patrollers. We’ve been noticing people who are new to the school just walk out as soon as the signs go out. Please do wait for the instructions, the children have been trained how to operate the crossing safely and they look really confused and don’t know what to do when people just walk across! 

All our new people

It’s lovely to have so many new people at the school this year. Welcome to you all! If you have any questions about school, Nicole is our fabulous office manager. You can pop in, phone or email.  If you want to talk to Sarah or either of the Deputy Principals, Julie and Nathan, it’s best to make a time to see them. You can do this by emailing them directly or going through Nicole. 

Chess Club

Chess club is on Thursday mornings with Mark van der Hoorn. He runs a beginners class at 9:15 and an advanced class at 10. It is $30 per term, payable to the school. If you would like to enrol your child for chess, please email the office. Registration will be complete once the money has been received. 

German Lessons

We offer German lessons to both native speakers and beginners. These lessons are run by a teacher from the Goethe Institut who comes into school on a Friday morning.  The lessons are half an hour in a small group and cost $50 per term.  Let the office know if your child would like to sign up. 

Athletics Day - 18 March

We run our whole school Athletics Day at Newtown Park, next to the zoo.  Children get the bus from school and back. We need a lot of parent volunteers on the day to assist the teachers in running the events. It’s a great way to meet other parents and help out our school community. Duties range from timing the sprints, measuring discus throws and raking the sand in the long jump pit, amongst many other things. Please fill out this form if you are able to help out. We’d love to have you! 

Weetbix Tryathlon

If your child wants to compete in this, we have a school signup.  You can read more about the Weetbix Tryathlon here! 

Recycling Bags

We love recycling so much that we’ve run out of bags! If anyone has any going spare, please send them to school with your child.  Thanks. 

Upcoming Events

• 11 and 12 February - Goal Setting Conferences

• 17 February - Mihi Whakatau (welcome to all our new children, staff and whānau)

• 7 March - mid term hui 2.15

• 16 March - Weetbix Tryathlon

• 18 March - Athletics Day at Newtown Park

• 11 April - last day of Term 1