Panui 26 July 2019

Welcome to the start of Term 3. 

We hope everyone made the most of the holiday break despite what was, at times, very gloomy weather.

We have already got underway with our school cross country and there are many more events happening throughout the term. Please keep an eye out on the school's calendar available via the link to the left, on our school app (see below on how to install this on your phone), and on the school website.

This term we have three International Students completing short-term study tours with the school. Michelle (Te Kanawa) is from Taiwan and with us until Friday 2 August, Ji Yoon (Taylor) is with us from South Korea until the end of August and in week 3 we will be welcoming Andrea from Taiwan into Hillary. With Michelle is her mother Susie who is a Teacher Aide back in Taiwan and has kindly offered to work in Blake while she is here.

With the chickens being given out today, many students will be underway with animals for Ag Day. There is a note below about ensuring you have your entry form in by next Friday. As Ag Day is a traditional part of our school curriculum, students not entering an animal are required to do an Ag Day related inquiry. The inquiry will go home on Monday 5 August to those students.

A day like Ag Day needs a large number of volunteers to support FOTHS. A request will go out in the next couple of weeks. Please do your bit to support the wonderful ladies coordinating this year's Ag Day.

Starting in a week or two and throughout this term we will be calling for items to go into our Ag Day Raffle. Keep an eye out for those notifications.

In the last half of this term we have Footsteps back in our school. Footsteps teaches students a range of dances through breaking them down into manageable steps. The students love Footsteps and we will be holding a parent viewing on the last day of Footsteps.

As you can see, we've got a big term in front of us, one we are all excited and energised about.

Kevin Bush, Principal.

It is with sadness that the school learnt of Richard Carpenter's death during the holidays. Richard had a long association with the school having attended Te Hihi as a child and then served on the PTA and BOT, being the school's longest serving board member serving for 12 years.

Richard was also instrumental in renovating the Original School Room in time for the centennial, for which he was also a committee member.

Richard is survived by his wife Wendy who worked in the office at Te Hihi for many years and was PA, his sons Fraser, Ben, Evan and their families.

Our heartfelt condolences go to Wendy and family.

Moe moe ra Carpy.

Welcome to our new look newsletter produced with Schoolzine. The move to this new format will enable us to communicate with the school community across multiple channels. It will promote and enhance our engagement with parents, students and the wider community.

The newsletter will be emailed, published on our school website and available through our school app.

The school is still working with Schoolzine to develop our header banner to better reflect the school and school staff are still learning how to make best use of the platform's functionality; please bear with us as we master everything.

To ensure no school family missed out on receiving the newsletter, we imported your contact details from our school's Student Management System. If the newsletter has been emailed to you twice this will be because we have imported your contact details and you have registered with the app. Simply hit the unsubscribe button at the bottom of one of the emails or contact the school office and we will remove the imported email address.

We believe you’ll find the eNewsletter highly engaging, as it will provide us with a more efficient and effective means of connecting with you. The new format will allow the inclusion of video, photo galleries, online bookings, mobile app, feedback forms, calendars and so much more.

The newsletter also has a sponsorship section which provides a great opportunity for local businesses to engage with our parent community. If you would like to be a part of this, please contact Schoolzine.

Contact Jude at jude.dawson@schoolzine.com.au

Along with our new newsletter format, we now have a school app.

The app has links to the school's website, calendar and newsletters. It will also enable us to send notifications to you and allow you to notify us from within the app when your child is absent. Going forward, we will not be sending any paper forms home as these will now be able to be completed via the app or school website.

In order to get as many parents using the app, we are having a competition over the next week to get as many parents registered with the app.

Go to either Google Play Store or Apple App Store an download the SchoolZine app. Once installed in your phone, search for Te Hihi and register as a user. The school will automatically get notified that you've registered. The class with the highest percentage of students with parents who have registered by Thursday night will get a lunchtime treat next Friday.

What a great day we had on Wednesday! The sun shone all day and for the first time in many years we were able to have all the children stay and watch for the whole day. Another first was how early in the term we had to hold the event. This was due to the dates of the district and regional events being earlier.

Congratulations to all students for completing the course and especially all of the following students who placed. Certificates will be awarded at this Friday's SHINE Assembly.

Congratulations to the following Year 7&8 students who will go onto the Year 7&8 North Counties Cross Country event at Strathallan next Thursday, 1 August, and the Year 5&6 students who will go onto the Year 5&6 North Counties event held at our school on Wednesday 7 August. We wish them all the best!

Year 7&8

Caydence Patel, Rory Wells, Maddy Kendall, Dylan McConnell, Hamish Austin, Robbie Noble, Lockie Douglas, Bentley Hardwick.

Year 5&6

Capri Cutfield, Abby Jellie, Te Rina Ngataki, Chloe Stevens, Ayla Turvey, Ruby Wiggins, Hannah Noakes, Nathan Child, Ashton Balu, Hayden Draper, Dallas Irwin, Mason Samuel, Max Taylor, Ben Tyson, Oliver Wilton, Kaitlin Aro, Olivia Austin, Ariana Bristowe, Keziah Ford-Ropata, Madison Holland, Andi Muirhead, Ocean Vazey, Matthew Cheeseman, Brody Burnside, Henry Mayall, Hamish Douglas, Coen Goodwin, Rexton Hardwick, Jahvarn Lagatule, Riley Wilson.

A reminder that these are due in next Friday. Many of you have already sent in the paper entry. However, if this has been mislaid or lost, follow this link to complete one online.

Oral language covers many facets of our student’s lives and the Rehu Tai festival is a way to embrace and celebrate the diversity of oral language within our community; both culturally and generationally. 

The Rehu Tai Festival of Oral Language began in 2015 in Papakura as a way to celebrate the diversity of oral language within their community. The name Rehu Tai, meaning sea spray, was gifted by local businessman and educator Dean Grace. This year, Rehu Tai has spread to all of Auckland.

Rehu Tai, in relation to speech, means if you are talking with passion the spittle from your mouth flies like sea spray!  This is indeed something witnessed on marae where kaumatua speak with this kind of passion while in full delivery of their korero!

The Rehu Tai Oral Language Festival encourages Year 5/6 and Year 7/8 students to explore the oral language streams of Rap, Spoken Word Poetry, and 102 Flash Talk as well as traditional Speeches.

The school will be holding our final on 8 August from 11:10 - 12:40 p.m.

Please note we have had to change the time from that which was advertised in last week's newsletter.

2019 Theme: “Connections”

The theme is strategically broad to allow for interpretation and creativity - this allows for artistic interpretation and lends itself to either direct or inferred meanings - as deep and philosophical or as literal as students want to go. The aim is to be inclusive of all learners regardless of their ability and accessible by all cultures.

FOTHS presents a Family Movie Night
Featuring Zootopia on August 23

Save the date!

More details to come soon.