Kia ora TPS families,
Teacher Paid Union Meetings: tomorrow afternoon
This will be held on Friday 22 March 2024 at 1:00pm. We encourage any parents who can or are wanting to take children home at 12:50pm to do so. You’ll need to go straight into your child’s class and sign them out with their classroom teachers. For those that this is not possible, we will supervise the children with a few remaining staff. Please note the children will not be part of their normal learning programme from 1:50pm to 3:00pm and will likely be grouped across the school. For those that have after school care or activities, these will continue as normal.
3 way conferences
We have scheduled a 1:1 Parent/student meeting on Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th April. This will be an opportunity to book a time (15 mins) per student with their classroom teacher. Teachers will be able to share information of how your child has progressed over the term. This is a very important meeting, we expect that all families book in a time. Please note on Wednesday 10th April, school will finish early at 12:50pm with interviews beginning shortly after this. Thursday 11th April school will finish at the normal time of 3:00pm. You will find booking information below and will also be shared via Hero soon.
Our annual ‘Culture Week’ is coming up and we are celebrating the wonderful diversity of our school. We have over 50 different cultures represented at our school. During the week, your child’s class will be learning more about our school vision –
‘Proud to be Different’
Tuesday 26 March – Parade Day 9:10am outside our hall
Children, parents and teachers come to school in traditional dress or costumes, (if the clothes are delicate, children can get changed after the parade back into school uniform). If it is raining we will have the parade in the hall.
Wednesday 27 March – Shared Lunch of food from around the world
Children bring in a plate of traditional food to share for lunch. Lunch will be set up in each classroom and shared from approximately 12:30pm. You can bring a plate into the classroom at any time before 12:30pm. Please list the ingredients you have used and name the containers (if you want these back).
Thursday 28 March — Celebration Assembly 9:10am in the hall
We close our Culture Week with highlights of the week.
Lunchtime Activities – teachers have thought of some amazing activities to share with our learners during lunchtimes.
Family sharing: 
Are you available? If you would like to come in and share parts of your culture with our learners, we welcome families in. This could be reading a traditional story, showing a traditional skill (eg. origami, flax weaving), sharing photos, flags or anything associated with your cultural background. If you are available to help by sharing part of your culture, please email your child’s teacher as soon as possible to make a time. We suggest about 15-20 minutes.
PERFORMANCES: 
If you have any contact with any cultural performers who would like to share their talents with us next week, please let us know!
If you would be happy to perform at our assembly please contact your child’s teacher or natashag@tps.school.nz
Evaluation practice
Last week we carried out our termly emergency procedures. We practised our ‘Green’ response which indicates ‘go’. Children assembled outside the courts and everyone was accounted for in less than 5 minutes including the children from the swimming pool! Amazing work TPS.
Update on staffing
Music teacher – Sadly, we have yet to find a music teacher to take over from Vanessa. We knew finding a teacher would be hard at this time and even more so in a specialist role. We will continue to do our very best to advertise this position again during the year.
ESOL part-time teacher – We want to congratulate Emily Ko who has won a full-time position at a local Intermediate school. Emily has been looking for a full time position and her new school is very lucky. We are looking to find another part-time teacher to support Tash with our ESOL teaching and learning.
Public Holiday coming up
A reminder school is closed for the Easter break for 3 days – Friday 29 March, Monday 1 April and Tuesday 2 April.
Celebrations
This term teachers have been running organised activities at break times to give learners the opportunity to experience some different activities at school. Opportunities include frisbee, football, swimming and softball. We’ve all had a blast!
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Maori
Portuguese
Russian
Samoan
Spanish
