Kia ora Whānau – Greetings everyone.

As we return for Term 2, I would like to welcome you all back and extend a special welcome to those families returning to St Martins School and to those families who are new to our community.

We welcome back Hera Edwards – Room 12, Taiao Edwards – Room 11 and Adama Kupenga – Room 19 who have all returned from the North Island.

Our New Entrants that started this week are Zooni Ahuja and Mason Bates in Room 6 and Benni Lamborn in Room 7.

We also welcome Billy Knight – Room 19, Poppy Knight – Room 8 and Ted Knight – Room 14 who have all transferred from St Michaels School.

We are also pleased to welcome Ms Jordan Engen onto our staff. Ms Engen will be covering the Maternity Leave position for Mrs Nicky Pateman in the Year 7/8 Syndicate when Mrs Pateman leaves at the end of May. Ms Engen has started working with the Room 18 and 19 teams now to ensure a smooth transition when Mrs Pateman goes on leave.

We are expecting a ‘mild’ term weatherise, however, there is a great deal planned for this term with many exciting opportunities for learning. Science will be our Inquiry Learning focus, the Performance Arts Programme will focus on an energetic and exciting form of dance, (ask your children about this) and our teachers will begin some special Professional Development focussed on the teaching of Mathematics.

The Mathematics Professional Development is an extremely exciting opportunity for our teachers and children. The work will be led by Associate Professor Roberta (Bobbie) Hunter, Massey University. Bobbie’s work is internationally recognised and she is a prominent leader in the field of mathematics teaching and teacher PD. We are extremely fortunate to have Bobbie and her team work with us. The project begins next week and it will involve Bobbie and her team being ‘actively present’ in our classrooms. We will keep you informed as this project advances.

On Thursday 19th May from 9am, Rob Callaghan and Bernadette May will be available to take you on a Collaborative Teaching tour. This is your chance to see Collaborative Teaching in action.

Please meet in the school staffroom at 9am – we look forward to seeing you then and showing you how Collaborative teaching is working at St Martins.

Kind regards

Rob Callaghan