Tawatawa News

13 June 2025

He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa
Bonjour à toutes nos familles

What’s growing and cooking in Kōtare?

Under the watchful eye of our resident green thumb guru Jonathan, the children in Kōtare have harvested broccoli and parsley today and are making broccoli pasta. Recently they have harvested pumpkin and zucchini and made pumpkin curry and zucchini fritters.

They’ve also built a ‘pea-waka’, which is a waka that has peas painted on it and planted in it! Cute!

Our holiday programme

Despite Enjoy Childcare not removing us from their website and still having our lovely school down as one of their locations, we are running Rascals in the holidays here at school and Enjoy aren’t here at all anymore. Just us and our children at this highly regarded holiday programme. Book them in here and enjoy some time to yourself (or just go to work, waaa).

Board elections coming up in September

Have you always wanted to be on the Board? We have a number of people stepping down this year so we have space to take on new Board members. We have two meetings a term (usually on the Thursday evening in Weeks 3 and 8) from 6.30 - 8pm at school (or on-line). If you’d like to be involved with the school at a Board level, keep a look out for a call for nominations (around mid-July, end of the first week of Term 3). Also, if you know someone who you would like to be on the Board, give them a nudge. Sometimes the best people need a bit of friendly encouragement!

Noho marae - any marae leads?

Our last few noho marae have been at the lovely Pipitea Marae on Thorndon Quay and we have been taking our Year 4 - 6s, about 100 children. However, the cost of this has skyrocketed from $3,000 to $12,000 which makes it no longer doable. We are trying to find another marae to hire so our children can have the experience of a noho marae. So far, we haven’t had any luck. If anyone has any tips for us, please let the office know.

Kai Cooker

If anyone in our Ridgway community is interested in borrowing our kai cooker for their Matariki celebrations or for any other events get in touch!

PB4L Reward - Penthouse Cinema Movie trip

On 24th June, the whole school will walk down to the movies, which is a reward voted for by earning R cards with good behaviour. There are two movies on offer and these are the latest family movie releases at the Penthouse.

They are Elio and How to Train Your Dragon.

If you don’t think either of these are appropriate for your child (they’re both PG), or you’re not sure they’re at the stage of coping with the movies without a parent, we will create a cosy environment for them at school to enjoy My Neighbor Totoro. Just let your child’s teacher know if they will be staying at school.

Upcoming Events

18 June - Matariki evening at school (Please fill out our form so we know you’re coming!)
20 June - Matariki public holiday - school closed
24 June - Whole school trip to the Penthouse (PB4L reward)
26 June - Saints basketball team with Year 3 - 5 basketball teams
27 June - End of term hui 9.15 and last day of term
Year 6 - 8 swimming - weekly on Friday
12 July - first day of Term 3