Kia ora e te whanau. A very warm welcome back to those who are returning to RPS and those who have started with us. We hope you feel welcome and comfortable to come in and chat with us about your child. Our door is open. 

Last week, the Minister of Education, Hon Erica Stanford announced six education priorities, focused on lifting achievement. The Minister also made a pre-budget announcement of $67 million to support structured literacy to change the way children learn to read. These announcements echoed changes already underway such as teaching one hour a day of reading, writing and mathematics in primary and intermediate schools, and phones away for the day (in effect from the start of this term).

As part of the Government’s attendance action plan, yesterday Associate Minister of Education David Seymour announced the release of a new daily attendance dashboard that has been published on Education Counts. 

What does this mean for us at Reporoa Primary School?

We have been teaching through the structured literacy approach for the last 3 years and are seeing some very positive results in our junior school with students who would have ordinarily struggled in reading and writing, finding success. For our seniors things are a little more slow as they change the way they are learning to read and grasp new methods of learning. 

We have adjusted our timetable to meet the new requirements. Please know that we have always taught reading, writing and maths daily and often for an hour. Now that it is a requirement, we ensure that we spend 5 hours of reading, writing and mathematics in the week (averaging 1 hour per day). 

At Reporoa Primary School, cell phones have not been an issue. However, if one was to turn up at school we would keep it at the office for collection by the parent/caregiver.

We have an attendance committee made up of myself, Mrs J and Whaea Abbey. We meet monthly to discuss attendance concerns. Our attendance policy can be found on the school website at https://www.rep.school.nz/attendance/

Some points to note are:

• As required by the Education and Training Act 2020 (s 35), students between six and sixteen years old must be enrolled at school.
• We have annual targets for student attendance, and work with students, parents and caregivers, staff, and external agencies where necessary to improve our levels of student attendance. We share our attendance information with the Ministry of Education, which ensures we receive correct funding and staffing entitlements.
• Parents and guardians have legal obligations to ensure their children attend school (Education and Training Act, s 244). We expect parents/guardians to:

• notify the school as soon as possible if their child is going to be late or absent
• arrange appointments and trips outside school hours or during school holidays where possible
• work with the school to manage attendance concerns.

• require students to be present and attend classes on time.
• Students are not allowed to leave the school during school hours unless permission is requested by parents/caregivers and given by the school.
• We monitor absence patterns using our student management system, and parents/caregivers are notified of any concerns.
• An absence may be justified (e.g. for medical reasons) or unjustified (e.g. for an unapproved holiday or other unsatisfactory reason), and is marked as such in our attendance register.
• Students not meeting the threshold for regular attendance may be referred to Attendance Services. 

If there is a justified reason for absence (e.g. due to illness, a funeral or tangihanga, or other approved reason at the discretion of the school), the principal may allow a student to be absent from school for up to five days (Education and Training Act 2020, s 45). 

In the case of planned absences (including holidays in term time), requests must be made to the principal at least one week before the planned event. The principal has discretion to approve or deny requests, based on criteria including:

• the benefit to education for the student (including qualifications and experience of course providers as relevant)

• the length of time away from regular school programmes that the activity will require.

Attendance – What we do:

• Text in the morning if we have not heard from you and your child is absent
• Phone you if you do not text back
• Code the absence in HERO 
• Send a letter to request a meeting after 3 Truant absences 
• Have a meeting/hui about barriers to attendance OR have a home visit 
• Send a second letter and have a second hui if the absence repeats
• Make an attendance service referral to the truancy officer if the issue is not resolved.

Ka Pai Kai

Just a friendly reminder can you please let us know if your child has any dietary needs etc. Please get in touch with us or pop into the office to fill out a dietary form so we can let Ka Pai Kai know asap.

Pink Shirt Day