Welcome to the start of Term Two.
You will know about a wide range of positive activities and achievements that occurred in Term One from our Facebook page. These included:
- Full School Athletics sports
- Swimming sports
- Outstanding success at the Tauranga Jazz Festival, including Best Big Band
- Four groups at PolyFest, including our Kaha Haka being second in their division and the Kiribati group winning the Judges Choice Award
- Sports exchange with Mt Roskill Grammar (won by PHS) involving six sports
These are all part of the broad general education that we provide so that your daughters and sons have positive experiences and outcomes from their time at Pukekohe High School.
2024 Focus Areas
- Attendance and Engagement: Our requirement that late students sign in at the front of school is showing appropriate change and will continue. Lateness interrupts learning and distracts the teacher from teaching those who are on time. We take this seriously and will be ‘upping to anti’ for those whose habits are not changing quickly enough. As with the Government’s attendance targets, we are encouraging all students to aim for at least a 90% attendance rate. Please continue to phone or email for any absence.
- Staff Professional Learning: To further improve our everyday practice, we have engaged Evaluation Associates to deliver a Professional Learning programme this year, called Niho Taniwha. The aim is that we better cater for ALL our students, especially those who struggle and need a little something different.
- School Pride/Culture: There has been a flurry of house activities so far this year with positive involvement from many students. It’s been great to see so many staff and students having fun! A very important way to show pride in our school is to wear our uniform correctly. To this end, we will be having a uniform blitz early in the term. Please ensure your sons and daughters leave home in the morning wearing the correct uniform. Note: our footwear regulations require black shoes with black socks or black sandals with a back-strap.
Paid Union Meeting
As part of the Teachers’ Collective Employment Agreement there will be a Paid Union Meeting on Friday 24 May, i.e., Friday of Week Four. School will finish at 11.30 on that day.
‘Phones away for the day’ regulation
In keeping with the new regulation, we will expect student’s phones to be away for the day, meaning phones either do not come to school (recommended), or are switched off and in their bags during the full school. As I say to students in classes I teach, “Make sure you keep your phone away. I will only need to confiscate it if I see it or hear it. Thank you.”
Microsoft Teams
If you are keen to keep up-to-date with the teaching and learning that is going on for your child, ask them to show you their Microsoft Teams folders. Every student has an individual login.
Principal Recruitment
The permanent Principal position is currently being advertised in the Education Gazette, and applications close this Friday 3 May. We are pleased with the interest shown and confident that the process will result in the appointment of an excellent leader for our school. The input received from students, staff and parents about the qualities they want in the new principal, has be very important.
MIT opportunities
We are keen to ensure our students have positive pathways that suit their interests and abilities. Each week about 100 PHS students attend courses at MIT in Otara. Each of these students has two days at MIT, leaving PHS at 7am. I appreciate the hard work of the staff who make this possible, and the commitment of the students.
ANZAC
Last Thursday about fifteen members of our Amokura and Student Council represented us at the local ANZAC ceremony. I was fortunate to be able to join them and was very proud of both how they presented and conducted themselves.
This week we will be having ANZAC assemblies for each year level.
Winter Sports
Over the next few weeks, the winter sports season will be starting. I look forward to cheering on our Pukekohe teams, but regret that I can’t be at two or more places at once. It’s just that we have 36+ teams across 8 sports codes. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff, students and members of our community who have volunteered to coach, manage, transport and in other ways support our students in their winter sports endeavours. Go Pukekohe!
