Here are a selection of photographs from our senior production. Well done and thank you once again to everyone who was involved. The children really raised their energy and did a great job on the night.
Rough Play
I used to love rough play as a child and with two sons I can certainly see the value and fun in it. We teach children to keep their hands and feet to themselves in our junior classes. But some children love to play a little more physically. There's no harm in it at all until someone gets hurt or upset. What can start off as fun tagging, or grabbing hold of (as in cops and robbers) can end up with tempers rising.... I dealt with two incidents last week one with big children and one with little children where innocent play went a bit too far and someone got upset and there were repercussions. So I have asked all children to keep their hands to themselves while they are playing. If you're hearing that at home and think it's a bit unfair, it's in the interests of keeping everyone safe and in a good emotional space. We talk to the children about good games to play and there's lots. We have sports equipment, adventure playgrounds, sandpits, courts and a playing field and we encourage the children to find positive games to play using our facilities and their imaginations.
We changed our lunch time from 40 minutes to 60 minutes at the start of 2017. The lunch time had been shortened because children didn't know how to play and were getting into mischief. I want to keep it at 60 minutes because it takes time to develop imagination and relationships on the playground and if we jump in and amuse and entertain children we reduce their self-directed creative time and they need this to grow their brains and their social skills. Even when sometimes there may be conflict they are learning valuable lessons for how to manage these things now and in the future.
Uniform
Very much better turnout in uniform this week. Thank you for your support. I will be checking weekly.
The next thing we need to look at is sports shoes with the full uniform. I will be looking at that next week. If anyone is having any trouble affording school shoes please let me know because there is help available if needed.
Regarding hair ties and jewellery, our board policy on uniform gives good guidelines on this:
GUIDELINES:
1.
Children wear the full uniform, without any visible exceptions.
2.
Jewellery is not permitted to be worn with uniform. Exceptions wrist watch, a maximum of 1 plain
ear stud in each earlobe.
3.
Hair ties should be plain and in keeping with school colours. Hair is to be tied or cut to ensure vision is
not able to be impeded.
4.
Hair colouring, pattern shaving or growth/shape trends are only accepted
if a very good reason exists and after Principal agreement is gained.
5.
Variation to any of the above will be considered after contact and
consultation with the Principal e.g. medic alert bracelets, items of cultural
significance etc.
Nail varnish is not acceptable at school and any child wearing nail varnish (or makeup) will be asked to remove it.
Please also remember that the time I have to put into policing these policies is time taken away from our core business of teaching and learning and from my main role as leader of teaching and learning.
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| Our children, nicely turned out, buddied up and ready for mass this morning |
God Bless and Aroha,
Lorraine Frances-Rees
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