Newsletters

Me Mahi Tahi Tatou Mo Te Oranga O Te Katoa

We work together for the well-being of everyone

Kia ora koutou.

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend.

I’m sure you are as disappointed as we are that school hasn’t been able to re-open yet. Things do seem to be moving in the right direction, this week we have been able to open for small groups of our Year 11+ students. It’s been great to see our young people back in school, however, at this point school needs to look a little different. Staff are following the guidance provided by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. Chris Hipkins announced today that Primary aged students might be able to return to school mid-November, we will communicate further details as we get them and when we have a plan. At this point we aren’t sure what we will be able to do regarding our end of year assemblies, we will need to continue to review the alert levels and guidance for schools.

Vaccination is heavily focused on within the media, and we’ve had lots of questions from parents regarding the vaccination status of our staff team. Although we are unable to disclose personal information about staff, we are obliged to follow the vaccination mandate for all education staff. This will mean that all staff must have received their first vaccination by 15^th November and second by 1^st January, at the latest. In addition, all staff returning to school physically during Alert Level 3 are required to provide a negative COVID-19 test. If a staff member isn’t yet fully vaccinated, they are required to be tested on a weekly basis. I would like to thank the team who are currently back in school. These members of staff responded very quickly at the end of last week and kept the testing stations busy over the weekend!

It appears that COVID-19 is going to be part of our lives for quite a while to come and we are going to need to become used to living with it. Thank you to all parents who have sent Lizz Sadler appointment dates and proof of vaccination. This is helping us to put together our vaccination register. If your young person is over the age of 12 and you haven’t contacted Lizz yet, please do so. The Ministry of Health would require this register from us, if we had a case linked to the school. If we do have a case in school, we will need to follow direction from the Ministry of Health, this would involve providing contact tracing information for students and staff, closing for a period of time and initiating deep cleaning. The period of time we would need to close for will be set depending on the number of cases and the vaccination levels of our students and staff.

As per our last newsletter, we welcomed Ben Crosby and Sudha Packirisamy at the start of this term, this week we also welcomed Helen Meyrick. I know these new faces have already been joining Zoom calls and are working towards getting to know everyone.

Sadly, we will be saying goodbye to Susie Mole (Speech Language Therapist) and Jenni Verity (Teacher) at the end of the year. Both have invested significant time into Wilson School, Susie 21 years and Jenni over 13 years. Their passion and dedication in supporting our students is exceptional and they will be greatly missed. Jenni has been instrumental in developing our Transition provision at Glenfield College, she has built up a wealth of connections between the school and the local community. These have supported our students with valuable opportunities for work and leisure experiences. As our Speech Language Therapist, Susie has worked across the school, both directly and indirectly with so many of our students. Her passion for communication and experience with a range of communication methods has benefitted so many. We wish them well with their move, the South Island is very lucky to have them. Susie will be working alongside Sudha this term for a substantial handover.

We will also be saying goodbye to Alicia Gilchrist, Emily Botes and Angela Robinson, Emily and Angela are moving onto new roles and Alicia is going to be re-locating to Palmerston North. We wish them well and look forward to working with them until the end of the year.

After 34 years of dedication to Wilson School, our Deputy Principal Rosemary Jenkins, has decided to step down from her position. Rosemary has been one of the rocks that has helped to build Wilson School into what is it today. She was also amazing and supported me into the Principal position last year. She worked for the school long before it moved into the Base School we have today and has navigated her way through numerous changes to the education system. We are hoping that Rosemary stays in touch and continues her relationship with Wilson and we will be working with her to see what this could look like. We are already well into the recruitment process to find our next Deputy Principal, whoever that person might be, they will have some big shoes to fill.

We were due to have an Accord Day / Staff Only Day Friday 26^th November. Due to the recent levels of disruption, we have now moved this to the end of the year. The last day for students will now be 13^th December 2021.

I’m hoping to be able to see everyone back in school soon!

Kia Kaha

New Staff Announcement

Welcoming Helen Meyrick 

Tēnā koutou katoa,

This year we enjoyed a wide range of activities to celebrate  Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.  Our tamarariki participated in waiata-a-ringa (action songs), kanikani (dance) and haka as  fun and engaging ways to learn Te Reo Māori.

 We  adapted a waiata to include local place names to help with pronunciation.  Māori kites were  made to demonstrate old traditions using Flax, Toi toi and Rāupō.

Despite lockdown, we were able to connect through Zoom, and shared resources and activities on our school Facebook page.  Here are some of the photos and resources we enjoyed through the week.  Kia kaha te Reo Maori!

Albany Junior Satellite Classes

Kipa singing waiata with manu tukutuku (kites) in the background: 

Fun with Flax and Maori drill technology we began this term:

Links to further Māori Home Learning resources

Student Absence

Please report all student absence to the main school offices for base and satellite students. Absence can be reported via phone, text or email:
09 489 5648 – phone
027 336 9467 – text
office@wilson.school.nz – email.

Me Mahi Tahi Tatou Mo Te Oranga O Te Katoa

We work together for the well-being of everyone

Kia ora koutou,

How has it got to Term 3 already! This year is flying by at a rate of knots. Leizl Mowbray, one of our teachers at Glenfield College, left us at the end of term. We wish Leizl well in her new job nearer to home. We are pleased that one of our relieving teachers has jumped in to lead the class. Brendan Crossan has been working for us on a casual basis across the school, he is pleased to now be working with the class at Glenfield 5 days a week. 

We had a very exciting Term 2 and would like to extend thanks to Lake House Arts and CircAbility for supporting our programme and for providing a range of exciting experiences. Lots of fun was had by all.

Our next accord day / staff only day is planned for Friday 13^th August. There is lots planned for the day. Our amazing team of Teacher Aides will be working around developing communication skills with TalkLink, while our Teachers and Therapists will be working alongside counterparts from all Auckland Specialist Schools. This will provide opportunity for all of the schools to share knowledge and experience. We are very proud of Angela Robinson, Ria Du Plessis and Marie-Therese Stevenson, who have all put themselves forward as presenters for the event.

Invitations will be coming out shortly for you to meet with teachers to discuss progress against IEP goals, we look forward to seeing you in school soon.

Have a great Term 3.

Neil Kefford

Principal

COVID-19 Vaccinations

The Northern Regional Health Coordination Centre has been in touch. They are starting to plan an outreach vaccination programme for young adults (16 and over) with disabilities. We will be working alongside NRHCC to support this programme and will be in touch once we have any further information

Junior Syndicate

Term 2 has been full of fun and learning for the Junior Syndicate with visits into the community and the community coming into school. This term our Unit study was on Belonging and we celebrated our cultures. Circability came into our classes and showed us circus skills which we loved practicing and Special Olympics taught soccer skills to some of the classes .

We were also out and about in the community at Lake House Art enjoying art workshops. Some classes joined other Special Schools at the Bruce Mason to see the NZSO perform while other classes visited the Museum. Weekly swimming and horse riding have been ongoing throughout the term with students making great progress. 

Rosemary Jenkins

Deputy Principal

Intermediate/ Junior High Syndicate

The intermediate syndicate are looking forward to an exciting (and hopefully not too wet!) term 3.  Our focus this term is ‘The Arts’ with lots of learning opportunities themed around The Olympics, as well as looking at different art forms around the world. We have a variety of opportunities for our students this term – culminating in ‘The Wilson School Olympics’ for our base classes and an exciting outdoor education event in the works for all our intermediate students! All this is building on the amazing learning from last term – the photos below show some of our highlights from term 2.

Kay Gunston

Assistant Principal

Senior/ Transition Syndicate

Our focus for Term 2 was the Living World which lead us to many activities including Clay work creating some very cute clay hedgehogs and a fantasy tale to go with them. In Term 3 our Topic is  “Celebrating Culture”. We will be looking at the diverse cultures across our school community and within our classroom. We will have a focus on Te Reo and Tikanga Maori with our Kaiwhakaako, Kipa Rangiheuea who will visit each week, to support this learning, bringing new interesting activities into our programme. We will also be joining in at the Basket Ball Special Olympics this term, and looking forward to some Outdoor Education at the MERC.

Linda Kneale

Assistant Principal

In addition to providing the music therapy services at Wilson School, Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre also provides individual and small group sessions at their Grafton centre and satellite locations – located around Auckland in Orewa, Titirangi, Otara and Pukekohe. The Registered Music Therapists at Raukatauri use the motivating power of music to work towards each child’s individual goals, which may focus on growth in areas such as expressive language, emotional regulation, attention, engagement and self-expression. Because Raukatauri is a charitable trust, they subsidise all of their sessions and never want payment to be a barrier to anyone receiving music therapy. While their suggested fee for individual sessions is $55, families who are on a low income can apply to pay as little as $6 per week. You can find more information about their services on their website: https://www.rmtc.org.nz/. Once their team receives the referral, they will invite you in for a free parent/carer consultation to answer any questions you might have.