A special welcome to all our new students and whānau. We hope you enjoyed our powhiri on Monday to officially welcome and recognise you as part of the Tahatai Community. 

Term 4 sees the start of our latest new entrant class. This is located in Room 0 and sees the return of Mrs Gallichan. It is great to see Molly return after taking maternity leave, and I’d like to thank her for ensuring our youngest students have had such a positive start to their primary schooling. A special welcome to Hannah Mueller who joins our ‘A Team’ in the administration area. Hannah has been appointed as Office Manager and will be leading the hardworking team of Tracey, Carly, Greg and Debra. Hannah has recently relocated from Auckland with her husband, Steve, and their 4 children, two of which are now students at Tahatai. Hannah comes with Office Management work experience in a Charter School and is enjoying being part of both the admin and wider staffing team. I’d like to thank everyone for helping make Hannah feel so welcome.   

At the end of last term, we hosted a Cultural Explosion Evening. This was to celebrate the diversity that makes Tahatai School such an amazing place to be a part of. The celebration was so well supported by the community and this meant a lot to all those involved. I’d like to thank all the parents and staff involved in preparing the food and to those who helped the children prepare for each of the performances. A special thank you to Justine Taylor for leading the organisation for the performances and to Andre Jay and Eliot Hall for taking a lead to organise the food stalls.  Seeing the children so excited to share their own culture showed how proud of their identity they are, but what was just as exciting was how open they were to learn about each other's cultures. It was such a great way to finish yet another successful school term here at Tahatai.

Tahatai now has three pou that stand proudly at the main entrance of the school. The pou/pole represent the three whales from a local traditional story called Ngā Maunga Tohorā; Kopukairoa the father, Mangatawa the mother, and Hikurangi the baby. Our three pou face towards Mangatawa and are in the order that the whales sit in relation to Tahatai Coast School. To us, they symbolise the protection/care of our tamariki/children and community. They are also important to us because of the ties we have with our hapū, Nga Potiki, as mana whenua, or guardians of the land in this area, and in which the school sits on. I’d like to acknowledge the skills and time given by Sarhn Broederlow, a Tahatai parent who involved students in the design process and who carved the pou. Also thank you to Place Makers Mt Maunganui for donating the timber, Damian Gray for installing the lighting, and to the Rolleston whānau for arranging the delivery and install of the pou. Finally I want to thank Darren Scott for the superb leadership and organisation provided for this project.

I am excited to announce that the new mural is now complete. This is located on the end of the after school care building. The mural has been designed and painted by Alex from NZ Murals. This project was part of our cultural focus for term 3 and showcases our connections with Nga Potiki as manu whenua, our beautiful location and our environment. It also brightens up this area of the school grounds. The gardens in front of the mural connect with the illustration through the planting of flaxes, miniature rata and native grasses.

The bike track has been a major project for all involved and is now dependant on the weather. Laying the asphalt requires dry conditions, and this means we are in the unfortunate position of having to delay the opening of the track yet again. The rescheduled grand opening is now set for 9:30am Friday 25th October. We would love having parents and whānau attend, as this amazing resource has only been possible thanks to the generosity of Bike On Charitable Trust, NZTA and companies involved with the Tauranga City Councils ‘Project Tauranga’. Once the asphalt is successfully put down, we will have a crane position the new 40 foot container. This will then be ready to store the 50 bikes and helmets that arrived on Tuesday, so thank you for your patience with this project and any inconvenience it may have caused.

Finally, I want to do a huge a shout out to Ava, Riley, Triton, James, Izzy-Jane, Charli, Addy, Trent, Marcail and Jayda. These 10 students have recently returned from South Korea as part of our student and cultural exchange programme. This first involved the hosting of each of their student buddies from Supsok Elementary School, where they got to showcase New Zealand culture and education. It then involved spending 10 amazing days living with their buddy's family and experiencing Korean culture first hand. Mr Scott and parent, Deb Begbie, were the chaperones for this trip and were so proud of the children, especially commenting on how they displayed the Tahatai School values of respect, responsibility, integrity and resilience.

Changes to the Board
Our board chair Jude Barback has accepted a new job as Chief Editor for the Ministry of Education; unfortunately this new position has implications for Jude’s role on the board as the Ministry deems this to be a conflict of interest and therefore regretfully she must resign from the board.
The board has elected current trustee Tim Acker as the new chairperson. Tim is a valued board member and we welcome Tim to his new role.
Jude shared this: “It has been an absolute privilege to serve on Tahatai’s board of trustees for the past three and half years, and more recently in the chairperson role. I am pleased to leave this position in Tim’s safe hands. Thank you to the school community for the opportunity to be involved in the governance of our awesome school.”
Jude’s departure leaves a vacancy on the board. The board has voted to fill this vacancy by selection (as opposed to going out to election). The board agreed they wanted to restore some balance to the gender composition of the board by recruiting a female board member, ideally a parent with complementary skills and attributes for our existing board.

Changes to school donations
The Government recently announced changes to the way school donations are handled. Decile 1-7 schools now have the opportunity to opt in to the donations scheme. This means that for schools that opt in to the scheme, instead of accepting donations from families, schools will receive $150 per student from the Government. As Tahatai is a decile 7 school we are eligible for the scheme. Having carefully considered our options we have decided to opt in to the scheme, so as of next year we will not be accepting parental donations. There are some exceptions around accepting payment for school camps – please check out the details here.

Property update
We would like to thank the community’s patience as we have progressed the perimeter fence and bike track projects. The bike track is nearing completion and will be a tremendous asset for our school.

Matt’s Sabbatical
The board is pleased to support principal Matt Skilton’s sabbatical for Term 1 2020. Matt puts in an enormous amount of time and energy in driving the success of Tahatai, so we are pleased that he will have a chance to engage in some professional development as well as take a well-deserved break. We are also delighted that deputy principal Darren Scott will step into Matt’s role during this time. The board has every confidence in Darren’s leadership.

Board of Trustees: Tim Acker (chair), Tony Burnette, Dan Elliot, Eliot Hall (staff rep), Matt Skilton (principal), Donna Te Wheoro. For any queries please contact bot@tahatai.school.nz.

We are now beginning to send out classroom and school Whānau messages via School Stream.  So that you do not receive messages from all of the classes in the school, please turn off the notifications for the classes that are not relevant to you.  Please see how to do this below:

TAHATAI COAST SCHOOL HALLOWEEN PARTY

This is a fundraising event run by the PTA and all funds raised will be going towards school projects.

Sign up to help at the event and you will get one free ticket.  Email pta@tahatai.school.nz with name, phone number and time you can help. 

ICE BLOCKS FOR SALE - AFTER SCHOOL EACH FRIDAY (EXCEPT FOR WEEK 3)

 

Below are the lunchtime school electives for Term 4.  Many of the electives are on a casual show up basis, while some have limited numbers which the children sign up for in class.  There is no cost to attend these electives, but electives such as the surfing count on parent/caregiver support for supervision.  Our Tahatai electives programme provides the opportunity for children to try new learning experiences during school time and counts on the passions/interests of our wonderful staff.        

Tomorrow we will be holding a whole school fire drill at 9:30am.  As part of the nationwide 'ShakeOut!'  earthquake and tsunami evacuation, we will be holding our drill on Tuesday, 12th November at 10:45am.  More information regarding this evacuation will be sent out in the next school newsletter.

Starting this term, you able to order healthy and delicious Vietnamese inspired meals and rolls by clicking here!  Simple and easy!
Order (or cancel) any time before 8am on the day or schedule in advance. Lunch will be delivered to the school in time for lunch.

TCS Community Partners
We appreciate all our community partners who are involved in supporting our school:

15% Discount for Tahatai Parents/Caregivers

Link to First National Property Management Website - Pāpāmoa 

Upcoming Events and Dates to Remember
Visit our website to see all upcoming events and term dates.