Kia ora koutou
I hope you are all well. It is great to finally get some good weather and the children are enjoying being able to get out onto the grass and have a good run around. There is quite a bit of good news to report:
Salvation Army Support
Tania Anderson has been employed by the Salvation Army to be a Community Support Worker for our school. She is based here four hours each day and is supporting children and staff. She has helped us to access resources and funding for various events. More about that later. Please make contact with Tania if she can help you in any way.
Funding
Year 3 & 4 Swimming Lessons: We have been able to access funding through the Salvation Army to pay for the buses and swimming lessons for our Year 3 & 4 students. This equates to about $65 per child so is a significant support for parents. Our thanks to Tania for arranging this funding for us.
Year 5 & 6 Camp: We have accessed funding through a variety of sources to be able to fund this camp so that there is no cost to parents. Primarily this has been funded by monies dispersed by the Ministry of Education and the School Trustees Association from their Earthquake Appeals.
Year 7 & 8 Wellington Camp: Once again funding from a variety of Earthquake Appeals means that we are able to fully fund this year's Wellington Camp for all our Year 8 students.
Zumba: Next term Zumba instructor Linda Thomas will be offering Zumba lessons in the school hall on a Wednesday and a Thursday. There will be two sessions each day. From 1pm to 1.45pm there will be a session for Year 5 -8 students. From 2-3pm there will be a session for parents. It's a good chance to get those endorphins going, have a workout and then take the kids home from school. The sessions are FREE (thanks to a great rate from Linda and funding from the Salvation Army). That's every Wednesday and Thursday next term.
Property
Our builders expect that they will be finished in the new relocatable classrooms at the end of this week. The painters will then do their bit and then, once the Completion Certificate is issued by the council, we will be able to occupy.
All other Ministry of Education spending on property in Christchurch has come to a halt. This is a decision from Wellington, not our local Ministry office. We continue to battle away trying to get paving, courts etc finished.
Vans
We have put a deposit down on a brand new Ford Transit 12 seater van. We have been pledged sufficient funds to pay for the van, we are just waiting on funds that were donated by the American New Zealand Association to be released to us by the appropriate government agencies that are managing the monies coming in from the USA.
In the meantime Matt and Carmel O'Regan have generously donated their own family van to our school. Matt is a dairy farmer from outside Reefton, the current Chairperson of Westland Dairy, and was the Board of Trustees Chairperson at Sacred Heart School in Reefton when I was principal there. He's also a great guy. I approached Matt to see if Westland Dairy could help with our fundraising but they had already made a significant contribution to Christchurch. Matt and his wife Carmel decided that they would donate their own vehicle to us. We are very grateful for their generosity. I am sure that their van will give us added flexibility when we are looking to transport our students.
Naumai, Haere mai.
A warm welcome to Kerrie-Anna Anderson who has been employed as a Kaiarahi i te Reo to support the development of te reo Māori in our bi-lingual class. It has taken a long time to find and employ a suitable person for this position so we are delighted to have Kerrie-Anna and her baby son Pumau at Freeville School.
Please remember that there are free Te Reo Māori lessons for parents at 6pm every Wednesday night in Room 14. These lessons are available for anyone who is interested.
Ngā mihi
John
