Kia ora Dalefield Whānau,

It has been great to meet so many of you over the last few days. There is a great term planned and staff are looking forward to working with you all.

Building Work

Next Monday our building work is finally getting underway. The toilet block at the rear of the Mangatarere hub is being rotated 90º and moved further out from the main building, with a new accessible bathroom attached. The corridor will be substantially wider and brighter with a new glass-screened area created. We have also secured funding to put in a turf area adjacent to the flagpole and Matarawa hub. This will double as a practice space for hockey and netball/basketball which is very exciting for us.

Once the bathroom remodelling and improvements are completed, the turf can be placed. Stage two of the building work will then commence. This involves replacing the windows on the North side of Mangatarere hub, removing the two sliding doors and replacing them with two sets of French doors. These doors will open out onto a new decked area which will extend the usable classroom space. The completed work will transform our school and we are thrilled at the possibilities it will allow us.

Community Design Input

The Dalefield Road entrance to Dalefield School has long been a bit of an ugly duckling and the combination of the remodelling and the new turf has given us a great opportunity. Our students will get to have input into how the whole area can look and we would love any ideas from our school community also. Here is a link to a Google form where your input would be most welcome.

Bathroom Provisions

Whilst the building work is being undertaken, the staff toilet block will be available for students and the sick bay bathroom will be for staff use. Part of the back court area beyond the Matarawa deck will be fenced off during the works and is out of bounds.

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Newsletter 02 May 2019

Google form

Other Items to support our learning

12 new Chrome books, 9 iPads with pencils along with robotics equipment have also been secured through a substantial grant to the school.

As a school we are doing extensive work (both staff and students) around developing the practices to support all of the above, to ultimately become creators. We are well-placed and the new tools will support that creativity and learning.

I wish to acknowledge the professionalism of staff and their commitment to upskilling in the practices that support learning in the 21st century; but themselves still being able to celebrate the wonder and excitement that learning brings - a huge thank you.

I also wish to make special mention of our office manager, Lisa who managed to pull all the documentation together so we were successful in our grant application - thank you from us all.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge Tracy Hewlett’s input. Dalefield School has reaped the benefit of Tracy’s post grad work she’s been undertaking over the last year. She has now completed a postgraduate certificate in digital and collaborative learning and the content has had a deep and profound influence on the staff and students. These photos show the students setting up a stop-motion activity. I think what says it all is that the work is happening

in the thinking and set up, and the tool of choice in the end to make it happen, is the iPad. Well done girls.

Tracy, thank you from the whole school for your passion and enthusiasm for learning.

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Boards of Trustees Elections

Boards of Trustees Elections are coming up very shortly. Lisa Fitness is our school’s returning officer and she is posting out nomination forms this week. All the details specific to our school will be included. Note: Lisa has a list of names available in her office.

https://www.trustee-election.co.nz/becoming-a-trustee/ has all the information you need around the election process and importantly, becoming a trustee. Please give careful consideration to this as school trusteeship is very rewarding. There will be a joint South Wairarapa schools advertisement appearing in the Times Age next week also

Ngā mihi

Eric Daubé

Principal

Other Notices

Kuranui College Open Evening Wednesday 12 June

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BOT elections close 07 June 12 noon

BOT nominations close

24 May 12 noon

Cross Country 22 May

NYLD Year 7/8 20 May

BOT Meeting

7 May