Kia ora e te Whānau,

Wow! What a fantastic Cultural Day celebration it was on Tuesday. Congratulations to all our children and staff who got into the spirit of the day. For me, this day is a wonderful celebration of the spirit of Ilam School. We had 60 different countries represented in the parade around our school. Congratulations to everyone who took part in their class concert, it is a wonderful opportunity for our tamariki to share.

A huge thank you to Kirsten Aaron for leading the week, and the great group around her: Mick Withers, Leone Brunnell, Rosemary Hong, Rebecca Playle, Holly Sutton, Julia Hinman and Sarah Roberts who designed learning tasks and helped with organisation.

We also would like to acknowledge that our Cultural Day coincided with the third anniversary of the senseless attack on the Linwood and Al Noor Mosques. These attacks shattered all of us and broke our hearts. Over the past three years, our Muslim community has shown us love and forgiveness. I hope what we have shown them is a more inclusive country that will continue to stand in unity against discrimination.

I believe that Ilam School is a place that champions unity, tolerance and acceptance. Thank you to our Muslim whānau for encouraging us to celebrate Cultural Day on Tuesday to unite all the cultures within our school.

Last week we celebrated Walk and Wheel Week. It was a great opportunity for the children to get active on their way to and from school. Check out the great photos below.

Over the last week, we have experienced a few more positive Covid cases, our current total being 19. Our staff continue to work hard to keep the school programme happening as normally as possible, whilst we make adjustments for the fact that a large number of children are absent.

If your family needs to isolate, please contact your child’s class teacher who will organise a Hard Copy Learning Pack for your child. These can be delivered. . There are also a large number of learning opportunities on our website under both COVID-19 and Learning.

From today I will send Ilam Updates every fortnight, with the next Update on 31st March.

Thank you for your continued support.

Noho ora mai/Stay safe

Belinda Kennedy and the Ilam School Team

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In this Update, you will find information on the following

• Support for Ukraine

• Cultural Week celebrated

• Walk wheel images

• Teachers Only Day

• PTA information

• School Photos - Postponed

• Ilam Oscar - Teachers Only Day Holiday programme

• Term Dates

Thank you for your generous donations in support of Ukraine. As a school, we raised a total of $511.40. Our donations will be passed on to the Ukrainian Association of NZ Southern Regions through a verified GiveALittle donation page. All donations are going towards the purchase of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and ambulance vehicles. For example, this post shows the most recent shipment from Poland.

We had a lovely day celebrating all the cultures in our school. It is truly wonderful for our tamariki to represent and celebrate their culture. I have included some photos here but we are working on creating a photo album to showcase and share with you more of what happened over the week.

Thank you all for getting into the spirit of FUNKY FEET FRIDAY. There were some amazing creations. We had slippers, flippers, boxes and balloons, cats chasing mice and racing cars. We also had nursery rhymes and bows! SO much fun with feet.

On Monday 4th April school will be CLOSED for instruction. As a staff, we will be engaging with Maths Professional Learning with Carol Butel from Learning Solutions. Carol is an experienced Maths facilitator who has worked with a number of schools across the Canterbury Region. We are excited to be on a year-long journey with Carol exploring our beliefs and programmes in regards to Mathematics. Ilam Oscar will be open on this day, please see further information below.

The Ilam School PTA are a very small group that makes a large contribution to the school. It was remiss of me not to promote the PTA AMG and meetings.

While some roles have been delegated already you are more than welcome to attend meetings or join the group should you wish to contribute. As the saying goes – ‘many hands make light work!’

Thank you Tenika Wikatene for your words and work and all PTA members for your efforts. I have included the PTA Chair letter to our community summarising 2021.

The date of the next PTA meeting for Term 1 is Tuesday 12th April at 7.30 pm in the Staffroom. All welcome.

School photos have been postponed as a number of students are away due to illness and isolation requirements. . We will inform you of the new dates in the coming weeks.