Yesterday I spent the day with Mrs Spittal and the Wave team. Jane Sullivan from Community and Public Health came to talk to the team about the development of the School Transport plan. Just over thirty Gleniti students from the Wave Team were able to confidently share their thoughts with Jane about solutions for our traffic congestion around the school. It seemed to me an excellent example of our students having a very clear voice in a problem that involves them. I was impressed that the Wave Team were happy to give up their lunchtime to have their voices heard. However as Mrs Spittal will tell you, this wasn’t a one off, the Wave Team frequently meet to talk about all sorts of issues around the school. They are a very solution based group of students. What a team!

For me it reminded me of what Gleniti school is all about. At Gleniti we are a definite WE. There is much to gain academically and socially from being in an environment whereby everyone is an intrinsic part of being a collective. Together we are very much a bigger and better whole. I wrote a line on our website that goes “It is our belief that Gleniti School should be a veritable smorgasbord of positive experiences, opportunities and challenges.” The Wave team are a classic example of this. But they’re not alone. We also see this from our Kapa Haka group, our Jump Jam Teams, our Chess Team, our Netball/Basketball/Hockey/Touch/Tee Ball teams, our Rock bands (did you know we have three of them!), our authors who have had stories published in magazines, our teams who have competed in Aoraki Maths Competitions, Spelling Competitions and Current Event quizzes, our Peer Mediators … the list goes on! These are all examples of our children involving themselves in the “veritable smorgasbord of positive experiences“ of school life at Gleniti. And tomorrow our School Council does the same when they host the Gleniti 50c Gala. The School Council add greatly to the overall fabric of the school. Here they are providing an event organised by the students for the students. Wow! Awesome! And at the same time they all tick off each of the schools values of Achievement, Responsibility, Caring, Honesty, Effort and Respect. Great effort everyone!

Congratulations to Kea and Taj who competed in the MacKenzie District Primary School Ski Race at Mt Dobson earlier this week. Taj placed 8th in the year 1-2 boys and Kea podiumed with 2nd place in the year 3-4 girls. Great effort for their first ever ski race!

Just a reminder that we have changed our Phone App. The new App is called Skool Loop (a confusingly similar name to the old one!) and can be easily downloaded from Google Play and the App Store. We won’t be uploading any information to the SkoolBag app anymore. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Footpath Frenzy continues this Friday. This week I’ll be up on the corner of Pages Road and Hunter Hills Drive at 8:30am. See you all there J

Congratulations to our Principal Award recipients at Assembly last Friday.

Steve Zonnevylle

Principal

Gleniti School

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