Principal's Notes

Face Coverings: Thank you to all visitors to school for wearing face coverings. Please remember to wear these whenever visiting the school, to sign in and scan in using the Covid tracer app. This is especially important with more and more cases now being identified in Northland. 

Staff Only Day: Our final staff only day for the year is coming up on Tuesday 30th November. This means there will be no school for students on this day other than for senior students sitting their NCEA examinations. This is a Ministry of Education designated staff only day and we will be spending the day developing our curriculum, and understanding the considerable NCEA changes that are being rolled out over the next few years.

NCEA Examinations: End of year NCEA examinations continue next week. Students need to be at school, outside the side of the hall, at 9.10am for morning exams, and at 1.40pm for afternoon exams. A reminder that students need to bring their examination admission slips to each exam session. If they have forgotten, they can go to the school office to have another one printed out for them. All students except year 13s must be in full school uniform.

Kiwi Tag:  The Kiwi Tag in school tournament, run by Northland Rugby League, was held on Friday during period 3 and 4. A huge thankyou to Cori Paul and Henry Wiki for refereeing and Teri Tito from rugby Northland for timing/scoring the round robin games. Player of the day from each team went to Allistair Martin, Zuri Kimani, Kelly Kemara and Aya Hassan. This was a chance for year 7 and 8 students to play and learn more skills in Kiwi Tag as all Northland tournaments for them were cancelled due to the level 3 Northland lock down.

Volleyball Nets: Thanks to Sport Northland and Tu Manawa Active Aotearoa for funding our new volleyball nets. These will be well used by our students, providing more self-driven recreational opportunities at our school.



OTA Fun Day: OTA Fun Day is being spread over two days this year, due to COVID restrictions, and will be held at school next week Thursday and Friday. This is a wonderful opportunity for our newly enrolled students who will be joining us next year to get to know each other, and to enjoy a day full of activities at school. We have already had over 150 enrolments for 2022, and are looking at a record school roll of about 550 students come the start of next year.

Vaccine Pass for Fitness Centre: On Friday 3rd December New Zealand will move to the new COVID-19 Protection Framework (Traffic Light System). The settings for Northland (red, orange or green) will be based on factors such as our vaccination levels, number of cases etc, but it has already been confirmed that no region will start at 'green' while we are transitioning and managing the current outbreak. Gyms cannot open under the ‘red’ or ‘orange’ setting unless we open to fully vaccinated members only. As a result, only members that have provided the school with a copy of their vaccine pass will be able to use the fitness centre from Friday the 3rd December. To obtain a vaccine pass you will need to be fully vaccinated - i.e. have received both doses of the vaccine. See here for details on how to obtain your vaccine pass. Please email a copy of your vaccine pass to Kay as soon as possible, at kay.robinson@otamatea.school.nz

Ngā mihi
Dirk Smyth