Weekly Wrap - 2 February 2024

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to our first school newsletter for 2024. We hope you like the new format! It links to our refreshed website which we hope you have had the chance to look in on - here’s the link https://www.paraparaumucollege.school.nz/. Newsletters get sent at the end of the week. We celebrate successes, communicate important messages and signal upcoming events.

I am of course heading into my last term as principal at this wonderful kura. For me this comes with a whole range of feelings as I love this place so much - we have a wonderful staff, great community and amazing students who I feel so connected to and am so proud of. However, I am also looking forward to taking some time out, doing a little bit of study, some travel and looking at what opportunities exist in our area in 2025. I am feeling a strong pull back to the classroom and to classroom teaching… so it’s a bit of a watch this space at the moment for me.

It is great for our school community that the Board has appointed Mark Robinson to take over as principal in Term 2. I have great respect for Mark, having worked with him over a number of years, and I know the school will continue to go from strength to strength under his leadership. There is an introduction from Mark on our website here if you haven’t seen it yet.

Our first week

It has been so good to welcome students back to the college. They are why we do what we do and I love the buzz and excitement of their arrival at the beginning of the year. At our pōwhiri on Tuesday we welcomed our 338 Year 9 students to the school. It is the school’s largest intake and we still had a large number of out of zone enrolments we could not accept. Welcome to our new school families, it is great to have you with us.

Cell phone policy

We are doing a staged transition to the cell phone ban being implemented. At the moment our focus is totally on no phones in the classroom. Phones are to be in students’ bags, on silent mode. If seen in class by the teacher the student will be asked to place it in their bag and the bag placed at the front of the room. I have been around classes over the last couple of days and have been impressed with student’s and how they have adapted to this. We will look to phase in the ‘no phones during the day’ policy later in the term.

Importance of attendance

Right at the beginning of the year I want to stress the importance of regular attendance to school. There is a strong correlation between attendance and achievement (education counts article), this is well documented. We want all of our students to have the best chances of succeeding at school and attendance is where this starts. We therefore ask for your commitment to ensure students attend school each day and on time, unless of course they are unwell. Please contact the office at the start of the day if a student is not able to attend.

Safety in carpark

We now have close to 1500 attending the college and all have to exit our gates onto Mazengarb Road at 3.15pm. We ask that you do not enter the college gates in vehicles between 3pm and 3.30pm and stay well away from the bus bays, our buses can arrive at any time during this slot and they need space to be able to manoeuvre safely to the bus bays. Also please do not park on the yellow lines outside the front of the school. This does mean students may need to walk to meet parked vehicles down the road but the congestion makes it very unsafe for students navigating around vehicles and hard for cars parked at the front to even exit their car parks. Also, please ensure students leave home with a bike helmet so they are safe on their bikes too.

School Policies

All Paraparaumu College policies are available to view on our website.

To view our policies, please log in here

Enter user name: paraparaumucollege

Password: mazengarb

Hall of Fame

We are seeking nominations for our Hall of Fame for 2023 and 2024. We now call on members of our wider school community to nominate potential recipients of this recognition.

All the information about the nomination process and former recipients can be found here.

Please submit nominations by 1 March 2024.

Technology Technician Vacancy

We have a fantastic opportunity available for someone to work in our Technology Department as our Technology Technician. We are looking for an enthusiastic and energetic person to maintain operational safety in our workshops and to assist our Technology teachers. This is a permanent part-time position, 10 hours per week, during school term time, and is available now.

For a job description and to apply for this position, please click here.

Applications close on Friday 9 February 2024.

Waitangi Day

We have Waitangi Day on Tuesday next week, it is a public holiday but we do have school Monday! So we look forward to seeing all the students at college. As a result of the college being closed for Waitangi Day, our Uniform Shop will be open on Monday 5 February from 3:30pm - 5:00pm for any uniform purchases.

We really enjoy celebrating the success of our students (and former students) and appreciate being advised of what they are doing particularly within the community. Please contact us with information and a photo where possible, so we can post these successes on our Facebook page.

Have a great weekend.

Kia pai tō rā

Craig Steed

Tumuaki / Principal