Kia ora koutou whanau
Parua Bay School is in the throes of preparing for major construction. Whilst the heavy work will not
begin until the next holidays, there will be fencing put up to create a work site, and this will give the
students, staff and community a “feel” for what is about to happen over the next 12-18 months. Prior
to this work site being created, there is a lot of shifting of resources, furniture and equipment that
needs to happen to ensure that the school can still function effectively from Term 3 onwards. The
staff will be relocated into the workroom and Room 17, which has meant that Marian Chubb has
relocated her accelerated programme and students down to the old dental clinic. The only impact for
learning on the students will be losing Room 13, our music room, meaning that George Karklins will
need to be a mobile music teacher for the remainder of the year. There will be obvious impacts in the
loss of playground space, and we will need to be innovative when considering solutions for this
problem.
An immediate solution to the playground space problem is the addition of two new playground areas
to the school. The senior playground, as voted by the students, is being constructed this week down
at the bottom field overlooking the bay, and should be completed by next week. The Junior Nature
playground is slowly, but surely, being developed underneath the canopy and on the banks sloping
towards the Playcentre and Kiteone Road. The playground equipment for this nature playground, a
four bay swing, monkey bars and a slide, has arrived and will be installed next week. This natural
environment will soon be ready to be explored and enjoyed by our junior students, and this too will
alleviate some of the problems caused by the construction project.
Whole school assemblies are every two weeks on even numbered weeks (so, this Wednesday 22
May) and I would love to see parents at this celebration assembly. New to this assembly will be the
recognition of students living our “Parua Bay Way” school rules. Each student nominated by their
teacher will receive a special Parua Bay Way certificate and they will then go into a live draw to win a
$20 voucher of their choice from the following outlets: Warehouse, K-Mart, Rebel Sports, Event
Cinema, Typo.
Finally, we look forward to some exciting events and activities this term in the form of Winter Sports
at Kensington for our Year 4-8 students, a Year 7/8 camp at Rotorua / White Island in week 5, Quick
Rip for our Year 7/8 students in week 7, the student led conferences in week 8, and the Matariki
celebrations and school hangi in week 9.
I look forward to seeing some of you at these event.
Nga mihi ra
Danny Jewell
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