Newsletter Term 1 Week 6

Kia ora koutou katoa, 

Union Strike Action

As you may have heard in the media, New Zealand teachers and principals have attempted to negotiate their collective work agreements with the government since the middle of last year. Unfortunately, despite discussions with the primary and intermediate school’s union, the NZEI have not been able to secure the minimum terms that they consider the education sector deserves. As a result, union teachers and principals from across Aotearoa, New Zealand have opted to take strike action.

Windy Ridge School will be closed for instruction on Thursday 16 March along with other schools and Kura across the motu during the strike. 

Official School Board Notification: WRS Board Notification of Strike Action 16 March 2023 

Members of the union acknowledge that this action will affect parents and whānau but hope that the Windy Ridge community will feel able to support them. The general feeling of the NZEI is that unless a stand is taken Aotearoa will ultimately continue to fall behind as a nation in the education that it is able to offer. 

What Teachers Are Asking For:

• Greater support to manage an ever-increasing workload
• Consideration of how middle management is rewarded both in terms of time and remuneration.
• More release time to alleviate teacher burnout – the average teacher works 10-20 hours over and above the standard 40-hour working week
• A fair and reasonable salary which takes into account the cost of living and is able to alleviate the chronic shortage of qualified teachers available in the workforce (applications for positions and retention are at an all-time low)
• Pay parity to ensure primary and intermediate kaiako aren’t made to feel inferior to secondary school teachers

What Principals Are Asking For:

Principals are asking for similar conditions as our teachers.

• Increased school funding to support all learners
• Better resourcing around essential services to support some of our most vulnerable and neurodiverse students (educational psychologists, occupational therapists, school counselling etc)
• A salary scale that recognises workload, especially in smaller rural schools
• With Principals now considered as ‘educational CEOs’, they are looking for more support to alleviate their regular 60-80+ hours workloads
• Greater consideration around well-being with record levels of burnout with the ever-changing workload and increasingly complex roles that they are expected to fulfil 

As a result of the strike action, we will have to reschedule our Māori Whānau Hui which was set for 16 March.  We have held off sending out invitations until we knew exactly about the possibility of strike action but now have set a new date, which will be Wednesday 22 March at 6:30 pm.

Our New Sports and Play Equipment Container

We now have our new purpose-built sports and play equipment container sited at the end of what will over the next few weeks be our basketball court.  The container will give us great storage and allow for our tamariki to make full use of the sports equipment as well as the loose parts and play items.

As for the basketball courts, the adjustable hoops and stands will be moved over the next couple of weeks and the finished court surfacing will be completed over the Easter holidays. This will really maximise the space for our children to enjoy their outside play.

We have also reopened the playground adjacent to the new building and the children are loving climbing and having fun on the apparatus.

Final Landscaping of the Front Courtyard

We are finalising the plans for how we are going to landscape and equip the 2 triangles in front of the new building. We are planning seating and stepping logs, rocks to clamber over and even a small whare for the children to play in.  We will also be looking to erect 2 large shade structures to finish off the area.  Please take a look at the concept plans to see how we are envisaging the project will look. Landscaping Design

A big thank you to Mrs Brown for her work with the Environment group this week. Please see below for her articles celebrating the work that they have achieved so far. And, please don’t forget the working bee on Saturday to get the garden boxes set up and ready for planting.

I apologise for perhaps an overly political newsletter but feel that the staff and I need to advocate for the profession that we are passionate about protecting.

I hope that everyone has a great Friday and an enjoyable weekend,

Ka kite anō au i a koutou.

Jonathan Lambert

Principal | Tumuaki

WRS Gardens – Thank You Bunnings

We will be holding termly Māori Whānau Hui during 2023.  We will reach out personally to our Māori whānau to invite them to attend.  

Dates:  T1: Thurs 16 March (W7)   Wed 22 March (W8) | T2: Wed 14 June (W8) | T3: Thurs 7 Sept (W8) | Thurs 30 Nov (W8)

At our first hui we are hoping to engage in kōrero around our Kawa and Tikanga relating to pōwhiri to review our current process. 

Road Patrols – Can You Help?

Our road patrol monitors and wardens do an outstanding job each morning and afternoon ensuring that our students and families cross safely at the zebra crossing, and the back gate. We are desperately seeking our community support to assist with adult supervision for both mornings and afternoons. We welcome parents/families from Piwakawaka, Kotare and Tui team to support us. Just one morning or afternoon will hugely help us to safely monitor our crossings. Mornings require approximately 30 minutes of your time from 8.30 am – 8.55 am and afternoons are 2.50 pm – 3.10 pm. Please see Jane Brown or contact the office if you can help.

Thank you for your support
Jane Brown – Travelwise Leader 

Sport

Kia ora koutou.  We have lots of Sports news to share, and some tight time frames to meet so please follow along carefully.

Basketball

We are taking registrations for basketball teams for semester one for 2023. Semester One Entries close Friday 3rd March 2023 and the competition will begin on Tuesday 14th March 2023.  The venue is at the Eventfinder Stadium for Yr 3-4 and AUT or North Shore Event Centre for Yr 5-6 on Tuesdays. The teams are for students in Year 2 (beginners),  Y 3/4 (mixed) and Year 5/6 (mixed). 

The cost will be $100 per semester. There will be 12 games per semester.  Please head to Kindo immediately to enrol.

Basketball Semester 1 2023

Cluster Sports

This year we are once again holding a Kaipatiki Kahui Ako Cluster Sports Day. There will be a netball team, a soccer team, and a touch rugby team representing each of our Kaipatiki schools. The day will be held at Glenfield College on Friday 31st March, with the students from the college coaching and refereeing the games. There will be several short games held throughout the day with a prize-giving at the end of the day. We will leave at 9.00 and return at 2.30 pm.

We would like to take a number of girls and boys from Years 5/6 to participate in this event. We can only take about 25 children altogether. If your child would like to participate in the day, can you please go to Kindo www.mykindo.co.nz and indicate which sport they would like to take part in or complete and return the form below. Anyone is welcome, although preference will go to those children who have either represented the school in the sport for Netball and Touch or a club for Soccer. I will do my best to select appropriately.  There is no cost to this event.

Kaipatiki Kahui Ako Year 5_6 Cluster Sports Day 2023

Touch Rugby

Currently, Touch North Harbour is not hosting a junior module this term due to the council closing the fields due to the floods and weather.  They are hoping the council might be able to extend our season for field booking but will wait to get a reply.  I will let you know should I further hear from them.

Netball

Netball enrolments are now due for the Winter Semester, and close on Friday 31st March 2023.  Please hop onto Kindo to fill these out.  The cost will be either $80 or $90 depending on your child’s year level.  Check out details on the letter attached below

Netball – Winter 2023