Kia ora Papanui Primary School whānau

I hope you are all doing well.

Today our team was hard at work on our staff only day. We covered a lot of different areas, including the curriculum but we also focussed a lot on our successes this year, as well as our culture. The most important role of a leadership team is to lead the culture of a school. It’s more important than any aspect because when the culture is right, then everything and everyone thrives. We have a fantastic and highly skilled team and I feel privileged to work alongside and lead such wonderful, caring people.

Like most workplaces, this time of the year is extremely busy for schools as they look to finish the current year off strongly while starting to plan for the following. Our teachers are currently hard at work ensuring their teaching and learning programmes are finished up for the term and they are beginning to complete final assessments on our tamariki in order to share their progress in 2025 via the end of year reports. The leadership team have begun work on plans for 2026 and an important part of this jigsaw puzzle is teacher and class placements. We are please that our staffing allocation allows us to keep the status quo in terms of number of teachers.

Teachers will also be staying in their current classrooms and we are now beginning to finalise the makeup of classes as well as which class our tamariki will be in. We will be able to share this with you in the coming weeks.

Teachers are as follows

Mrs Jo Morris – Associate Principal and team leader of the Cranford team

Rm 10 – Mrs Sharon Alabaster and Miss Anna Linsday

Rm 1 – Mrs Kate Straker

Rm 2 – Mrs Miranda Sheppard

Rm 3 – Mrs Marian Rait

Rm 4 – Mrs Rachel Morrall

Mrs Debbie Robertson – Associate Principal and team leader of the Winters team

Rm 6 – Mrs Amanda Smith

Rm 7 – Mrs Hannah Driver

Rm 8 – Miss Sarah Dolan

Mr 9 – Mrs Maree Hewitt

This term our tamariki are working towards the goal of a fun day on Tuesday the 16th of December. Each day, classes have a chance to earn “Values tokens” by living our school values both in class and in the playground. Every afternoon, these tokens are placed in a jar in the office with the goal of reaching a line on the jar. If the jar is filled up before the 16th we will be having the awesome Pedalmania come along to our kura for our tamariki (and staff)to enjoy. They have made a strong start!

You may have seen in the media over the past week that the Government has removed the requirement for school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi from Section 127 of the Education and Training Act. This change was made without broad public consultation or targeted consultation with Māori. Over the past three years Papanui Primary School has made sure that giving effect to Te Tiriti has been a major part of our strategic plan and we have developed a Te Reo sustainability plan as a part of this. Despite this recent announcement, nothing changes for us; we remain committed to shining a light on and celebrating our unique identity and the importance of us all learning about Te reo, Tikanaga and Te Ao Māori. We know and value it’s importance. Janelle Riki-Waaka sums up this importance really well in this clip.

We had such a fun afternoon last Friday at the Colour run! Thanks for all of the support either by sponsoring your tamariki, coming down to cheer everyone on or helping on one of the stations. It was also really fun to see some of our past learners come and support from Casebrook Intermediate. Thanks to the team at Casebrook for supplying us with some awesome helpers. Again a huge thanks to Anita and Julia for spending hours setting up the course and sorting out all of the colours etc.

Next week our swimming programme for the whole school starts up at Aqua Gym. Aqua Gym offers a great programme for our kids and they get a lot out of their two weeks swimming. It is a big two weeks for our kids, with the bus ride included, so expect them to be pretty tired each day as they come home. They will probably need a bit of extra kai and downtime!

What’s coming up….

  • Friday 14th November – Canterbury Anniversary Day -(public holiday – school closed)

  • Monday 17th – Friday 28th November – Winter’s team swimming at Aqua Gym

  • Wednesday 19th November – Totaranui Kahui Ako Cultural festival 4pm – 6:30pm at Casebrook Intermediate

  • Monday 1st December – Friday 12th December – Cranford team swimming at Aqua Gym

  • Wednesday 3rd & 4th December – Hato Hone St John in schools programme

  • Tuesday 9th December- Year 6 helpers special lunch

  • Thursday 11th December – Year 6 leavers hui – 2pm

  • Friday 12th December – Year 6 leavers’ fun afternoon at Loop Youth Centre

  • Friday 12th December – End-of-year reports live on HERO

  • Monday 15th December – Christmas singing concert

  • Tuesday 16th December – Whānau helpers morning tea 10:30am

  • Wednesday 17th December – School finishes for the year at 12 pm

    2026 

  • Tuesday 3rd February – Drop in and meet your child’s teacher day

  • Wednesday 4th February – First day of school

  • Friday 6th February – Waitangi Day

Have a relaxing long weekend, spending time with your friends and whānau. Friday is looking like the best day weather wise to get to the show this year so if you are going have a fantastic day.

Noho ora mai (stay well, look after yourself)

Ben Galletly