Term 3 has arrived and we welcome all families new to St Martins School. It is great to have you on board. We also welcome teachers, James Robinson (Room 15) and part time teachers Penny Ledgard, Deb Burn and Catherine Barrie to the team. We are also happy to welcome our new admin assistant, Kate Thomson who started in the school office this week.

Our children have returned ready and excited about our ‘Seussical Performance’ which will be a major school community focus. Seeing our children starting to develop the choreography already has been amazing. This will be a very busy and action packed term.

We finished off Term 2 with our first ‘in ground’ Hāngi event at St Martins. Thank you to all who supported the event and an extra special thanks to those who organised and assisted on the evening. To see our school hall filled with whānau enjoying the occasion and appreciating the talents of those children who performed was a huge reward.

Over the holiday break we also had built a new attraction in the form of a ‘Gaga Dodgeball pit’. This was very kindly constructed by Jeremy Neels ready for the start of the new term. Gaga Dodgeball is an addictive physical game and throughout the week it has not been uncommon to see 30 to 50 children in, around, cheering, playing and supporting the participants.

We have also installed two large Lego pits, one in the library and one in the Junior area for those who are keen to be creative and want to construct. They have been incredibly popular. A huge thank you to Jo Malcolm and family for the donation of a super large collection of Lego that now fills these Lego pits. The Lego and Gaga Dodgeball have been a very welcome addition to our break times activities and are providing a physical, creative and co-operative outlet for our children during play time.

Kind regards

Rob Callaghan

Principal