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With the new learning story format giving a space for whanau feedback, we thought we would share some examples of possible responses, in case you’re unsure of what to write. This is a space for you to respond to your child’s learning story with a positive affirmation, tell us where you might see them using this learning at home, encourage them, ask a question, make a suggestion or just say you enjoyed reading it. Teachers are really wanting to build home-school partnerships and we see this as one way to do that. We have noticed that when students bring them back with a comment, they are really thrilled. We are encouraging them to prompt you to write in the box. I’m sure you’ll be aware of the time and thinking that goes into writing the learning stories for you. It would really help us to know they have been read and are valued at home. They show you how your child is learning in the wider NZ Curriculum and how they are developing our Skills for Growing. Examples of what parents / caregivers might write are below:  Dear parents and caregivers,
We need your help. Recently Tik Tok and Snapchat groups have been created using our school logo and images, and some posts compromise student privacy and identity. This misuse brings our school into serious disrepute and poses a potential risk to our students’ privacy and wellbeing. We are taking this very seriously. The school has reported the matter to the local police and to Netsafe. We need this post taken down immediately to bring this situation under control. If the content is not removed promptly we will increase our efforts to identify those responsible and they will be held to account under school policy and the law. Thank you for your support in keeping our students safe online. Linda Fraser Principal  Weather Event It sounds like many of you have experienced some hardship as part of yesterday’s weather event. It is great to have most children at school as it gives them some normality and time for you to get on and sort things at home. We were greeted with lots of stories this morning and some children have gone on to do some expressive writing about their experiences and feelings. It is great for your children to talk about their feelings as it helps them process what has occurred. We have had two wonderful St Peters students come across the road to help load a trailer of branches etc. Thank you to Harrison & Josh. Thank you to our wonderful caretaker Brent, who was here early to clean up our grounds. He is just the best!  School Staff Strike Thank you to you all for your support for the school staff strike yesterday. We do appreciate the inconvenience of this. We are very determined that we want things to be better for your children in our New Zealand schools. The main areas requiring urgent support are: > Support for our children who require specialist help and extra support in their learning > Serious teacher shortage in all sectors. > A stop to major curriculum changes and expectations constantly changing for our learners Home & Garden Tour Planning is going well for our upcoming event on Sunday 2nd November. We are grateful to our school community for: > selling raffles cards (already $5K banked) If you still have a raffle card on the bench please return to school asap, sold or unsold. > Baking for next Friday or delivered on Saturday morning. You would have received a tray home on Wednesday so check school bags. If you could like another one please come to the office. > If you are able to help on Sunday morning please let Anneke know. This is a very special and successful event for us and we are always so grateful to our Home Owners who make this possible. Attendance Thank you to those of you that are making an effort to ensure your children are at school, unless they are sick. We are monitoring all absences and following up on unjustified absences so we have an understanding of your issues. Please contact Linda if you have a situation that requires your child to be off school.  Dolamore Park
Thank you to those of you that have supported our classes at Dolamore Park. The weather has not played the game fro all classes so we will let you know of when we can fit the cancelled visits in. Have a good long weekend and enjoy your day off on Monday (Labour Day). Ngā mihi nui, Linda Fraser Principal This term in Room One, our Learning Through Play focus has been on transformation, with a particular focus on working with fabric and materials. We are incredibly fortunate to have Holly Attfield join us a couple of times each week to teach the children the basics of sewing and how to use a sewing machine. Each child will have the opportunity to create their own pillow. The children have learned so much from Holly and have thoroughly enjoyed her visits. Here are some of the pillows we have made so far!         West Gore School will be closed for instruction on Thursday 23rd October 2025.
All education workers are uniting to give a clear message about the lack of resourcing in schools to meet the needs of your children and see them all succeed. We are aware this will cause disruption for many of you and we thank you for your support. You are welcome to come and support at the Trout at 12noon. Susan Hasselman Linda Fraser Presiding Member BOT Principal This years Quad Nations turned into a Tri Nations after Mataura sadly could not join us due to a clash with school camp. St Mary's, Gore Main and West Gore all turned up excited and ready to play on a sunny but windy day. Each team played 2 games with one bye. West Gore had a narrow loss to a strong St Mary's team in their first game and followed it up with a win against Gore Main. The overall winners of the shield this year were St Mary's who had a win and a draw! St Mary's earns hosting rights and we look forward to heading there next year to take part. Hopefully East Gore and Mataura can join us. Thanks to all the schools, players, coaches and supporters for another successful tournament. An extra big thanks to Mills and Mitch who came to support and pass the shield onto St Mary's.        Kia ora Parents, Whānau and Caregivers, Mihi Whakatau It was great to start our term, as we always do, with our Mihi Whakatau on Monday morning. This is our ceremony to welcome our new tamariki and whanau into our West Gore community. It is great to see so many eager five year old's joining our New Entrant rooms along with new families joining our kura.  We also farewelled Torrone Smith, our last presiding member as he handed over to our new presiding member Susan Hasselman. We thank Torrone for his final words to the school and his welcome to Susan as she steps into her new role. Please see Susan’s first newsletter to the community in this newsletter. We know Susan will lead our board with her knowledge and expertise. We are very lucky as a school community to have the experience and commitment of our whole board for the next three years. Attendance You will see Susan, our presiding member has reported about this issue after a discussion at our recent BOT meeting. The ministry has the following target: Government’s target of 80% of students present for 90% of the term by 2030 There are very clear steps for all schools to follow so that no student will be left to accumulate absences without an appropriate response to return them to regular attendance. West Gore school had only 53% of students meeting this target in term 3. You can see attendance is a real issue for us with many children having significant time away from school for unjustified reasons. (see Susan's report for how we mark the roll, either justified or unjustified) You can expect to hear from the school when these absences occur for further explanation and planning to ensure your child is present at school unless for a justified reason. Please speak to me if you intend to take your child out of school for an unjustified reason. We do want to work with you while ensuring your child is present at school and maintaining their learning. Sunhats With some warmer weather to come we require all children to have their West Gore red sunhat at school. We have a week of grace week, next week for children to get their hat and get it along to school. After that children not wearing their hat will be required to sit/play under the trees at the front of the school during play times. Thank you, in advance, for your support to keep our children sun safe. School App As part of our ongoing communication improvements the new App has gone live yesterday. We have sent home a flyer with information on how to download this new app with your child yesterday. If you have any questions or need help to download the new app, please see Anneke in the office. All important dates can be found under the "Calendar" Tab and you can subscribe to certain classes for more, class-related messages. Kindly note that from this coming Monday, 13 October this new app will be the only app you can use to send absentee notices and on which you will receive alerts or notifications.  Home and Garden Show - November 2nd
Our Home and School group are very busy organising this wonderful event that is our only fundraiser for the year. In past years we have raised approximately $18,000 which is a huge help to providing extra things for our children. In recent years the money has gone to the development of our outdoor learning / playground spaces. This will help support the senior playground area this year. We are in need of more help please. Please contact Anneke in the office if you are able to help over the next three weeks, at the working bee on Tuesday 21st October or the weekend of the event. Many of the jobs are small but many hands make light work. We need more help please! Home & School meeting - 3.15pm Monday 13th ,this coming Monday to continue our organisation. We would love to see you along at school in the staffroom. Your children are welcome to play in the playground or read in the library if wet. Raffles - thank you to those of you that have returned your card and money and to those that are continuing to sell more cards. This usually raises about 13 of the total from the Home and garden event. All raffle cards back by Wednesday 15th please. (Please return so we do not have to spend time following up with you.) Dolamore Park Visits We have four classes visiting Dolamore park next week. We are grateful for your support in accompanying your children's class as we can't go without your supervision. Our children are excited about getting back into nature. Fitness & Physical Activity Leaders (PALS) Richie Crean is our School Facilitator from Active Southland who has been working with us all year in support of our school fitness programme. This has been wonderful to ensure this exercise is fun, active and aligned with our skills for growing. Our tamariki have a repertoire of games and activities that they love. Richie has also supported our Physical Activity Leaders, (PALS) along with Sandi Pasco and Jasmine Collett. This is a great programme where our PALs run games and activities during lunchtime two times per week for other children. This is particularly useful for teaching children games so they then feel confident about the rules and can independently join their peers. Many just love to join in and play the games with slightly more structure. Enjoy your weekend. Ngā mihi Linda Fraser Principal  Tēnā Koutou and my greetings to everyone in our West Gore School Whanau and Community,
My name is Susan Hasselman and I currently hold the role of Presiding Member on your Board of Trustees here at West Gore school. I am one member of your School Board. Our total number is 7 members, two of which are our Principal Linda Fraser and Staff Representative Rebekah Prattley. Aside from myself the remainder of our Board comprises Parent Representatives Zac Andrews, Monika Du Plessis, Jacqui Ruddenklau, Sonya Stewart and Sowmya ( Sam) Srimanthula. My first visit to school as Presiding Member was on Monday 6th, first day of term, to be part of our Mihi Whakatau to welcome new students and whanau. The hall was full with our current students, our new students, staff and families and it was great. The sense of school pride was front and centre and the welcome to our new tamariki and their whanau was warm and heartfelt. I was very proud sitting there and it was only my first visit. Morning tea in the staff room afterwards with several of our new parents gave us all the opportunity to enjoy a more personal meeting. I chaired my first meeting on Tuesday night and I can tell you that your Board members are focused, enthusiastic, energised, unified and very committed to serving you. We recognise and value our greatest asset- our School Leadership and our staff. The time our tamariki spend with us at school is critical- such a huge part of not only their day to day lives but their development as individuals, thinkers and learners. That this time sets the foundation for growing, establishing relationships and maturing can not be overstated. Following our usual meeting duties we discussed School Attendance. This topic has been addressed both in Television and Media Print news only this week. It is a Legal Requirement that children attend school in New Zealand and it appears there may be some confusion about this within our parent community. The Ministry of Education has recently contacted all schools to outline the seriousness of this issue. Absence from school comes under two descriptions, Justified and Unjustified. The Ministry of Education requires schools to advise them of all Unjustified absences. Justified absence includes Medical reasons, a stand down or suspension period. Unjustified absence covers truancy, truancy explained but unjustified and Holidays, local or overseas within term time. To be advised that a historical or proposed absence is unjustified may be surprising or disappointing. However it is important to note that this is not due to a decision made by school leadership. It is, in fact, a government directive that decides this assessment. The Ministry Of Education is now focusing directly on this issue and has communicated it’s directives and expectations to all schools in New Zealand. A target has been put forward by the Ministry, that 80% of students attend 90% of the time by 2030. Already in place is a stepped protocol to address ongoing or concerning absence. This begins with contact from the school to the parent/s with further intervention and action if required. I urge everyone to consider this important and growing problem. Please reach out to the school if you have questions or need further clarity in this area. Ngā mihi Susan Hasselman Presiding Member Snip! Snip! Snip! My big, insanely huge mullet was drooping to the ground and looked like feathers. I looked down at the big pile of hair. Surprisingly this was turning out to be one of my best hair cuts ever. I walked in the door at home. Mum looked at my new hair cut. “Amazing” she said. Tegbir  I was chewing away on my sandwich when I felt one of my teeth wiggling around in my mouth. Then … Pop! My tooth came out! When I looked into the mirror I suddenly felt really weird. I saw the gap in my mouth and how it made me kind of look a bit goofy. That night I tucked my tooth under my pillow and slept. In the morning the tooth had been replaced with a gold, shiny coin under my pillow. Fereti  I sat down in my set and heard the plane roar like a lion. I snapped my seat belt in place as I felt the plane start to move. The plane lifted into the sky like an eagle. As I looked out of the window, I saw the world below me disappear. When we landed I didn’t want to get off, but I also wanted to explore a new country. Adam  It was a school holiday and me and Nan were at Grandads when all of a sudden… Pop! Spring! My tooth was hanging by a thread from my mouth (a root). A whole lot of blood started gushing from the area. I started crying. Then Nan told me how I would get money. This cheered me up. Lexi  I sat on a chair in the kitchen with a cape wrapped around me. Snip! Snip! Snip! My hair drifted down to the floor, including all of my baby hair. When I looked up at the mirror I did not recognise myself. All I could think was maybe change is a good thing. Morgan  I knew it was time for a hair cut because my fringe was coving my face. I wasn’t scared because I knew what I wanted. The worst part was knowing it would take an hour. My Mum was so excited because she thought my hair looked like a mop! When I looked up at the mirror I was shocked by how short it was but at least it looked good. Looking back this was probably my best hair cut I have ever got. I can’t wait to go back as I know I won’t be scared like I used to be. Neko  As part of our ongoing communication improvements, we’re excited to let you know that our new West Gore School app is now live.
What’s changing now We’ve replaced our old app with a new, user-friendly version designed to make it quicker and easier for you to receive time-sensitive updates from the school. Through the new app, you’ll be able to:
This change is in response to feedback from our school community that the previous app wasn’t as intuitive as it could be. The new app is part of our broader plan to make school communication clearer, faster, and more targeted. What you need to do
What’s coming next In Term 4, we’ll be launching our new Parent Dashboard on our website. This is the final phase of our communication improvements, providing a central directory for all school information, reducing the need for emails and hard-copy notices/booklets. Thank you for your continued support as we roll out these updates to better connect with our families. |
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