Thursday 26th March 2026

26/03/2026

From the Principal’s Desk

Kia ora koutou,

What a fantastic term it has been so far at Ngaere School. As we head into our final week before Easter, it’s a great time to pause and reflect on the many highlights across our kura.

We’ve loved welcoming Harold the Giraffe back as part of Life Education, and it’s been exciting to see our staff begin their journey with Six Bricks training. Our students have had a wide range of opportunities this term – from a successful Rural Cluster Swimming Sports and great results in Tuesday night Touch, to learning about cycle safety with Constable Pip and developing their hockey skills.

Our community events have been a real highlight. The Hu Road Family Trail Ride was incredibly well supported with over 150 entries, and the Maize Maze and Glow Night were a huge success, with nearly 500 people coming through the maze on Glow Night alone – an awesome reflection of our community spirit.  Thank you again to Kylie & Fabian Rupapera for organising and allowing this to take place on their farm and to the PTA for all of their hardwork.

We’ve also been blown away by the incredible support from our whānau, with 80% attendance at our Home-School Partnership hui – a powerful example of what partnership in learning looks like.

It’s been fantastic to see Kapa Haka up and running again, and to have our Literacy and Numeracy programmes well established across the school.

As always, please take a moment to read the information below, as it highlights some key updates and important information for parents and whānau.

We’re really proud of the momentum we’ve built this term and look forward to finishing strong as we head into the Easter break.

Ngā mihi nui,
Shane Burgess
Principal/Tumuaki

Term 1 2026

This term, the Board has been focused on establishing the way we work together, identifying some key boundaries that working in a governance role has, and assigning various roles to each Board member. Learning what it means to govern, while digging into the work involved as a school board, has been a positive learning curve for us all. Some key tasks for Term 1 have included looking at the school’s Annual Strategic Goals / Implementation Plan – this involved a lot of discussion, questions, and examining data and information about the school to feed into new goals and actions for the year. We believe the plan is very robust and attends to the necessary national priorities as well as those identified for Ngaere, and already we are seeing the commitment of Shane and the staff to put it into action. In addition, we have looked at what community engagement looks like, and have started to create a plan forward to seek more input from whānau and the wider Ngaere community to continuously inform our direction. Every term there is a requirement that the Board reviews policies, which has also been a large part of our meetings. These actions are all on top of the everyday processes such as finance and property management.

Our school board consists of parents and staff of the school, and they all bring a variety of strengths, experiences, considerations, and ideas, which is very important as representatives of the school community. However, training and upskilling as governors continues to be a focus to improve our skills and capacity. We have attended workshops, either online and in person, and have sourced new learning through online resources from the services available to boards. Our meetings are very productive and hold thoughtful and considerate discussions with the sole purpose of making key decisions in supporting Ngaere School to be the best it can be. We wish everyone a relaxing and enjoyable Easter holiday approaching. Thank you for your continued support.

Ngā mihi nui
Kim Manukonga – Presiding Member

Thank you to the Ngaere School PTA and ANZCO foods for their very generous donations that went towards the purchase of 50 new chairs for the hall!

A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS DONATED GAMES AND PUZZLES TO THE SCHOOL.

WE HAVE HAD SUCH A GREAT REPSONSE!

Key Dates – Term 1, 2026

March Events:

• Monday 30th March – PTA Meeting 7pm in school staffroom – all welcome
• Tuesday 31st March – Rural Cluster Athletics (Years 1–4)

April Events & Term End

• Thursday 2nd April – School Assembly  – Learner of the Term
• Thursday 02nd April – Last day of Term 1
• Friday 4th April – Good Friday (School Closed)

TERM 2

• Monday 20th April – Term 2 begins
• Monday 20th April – Year 7 & 8 Vaccinations
• Wednesday 29th April – Ngaere School PTA AGM 7pm in the school staffroom

COMMUNITY NOTICES……

Nominate your primary school for a chance to WIN a share of $100K in sports grants!

Hi Ngaere School Whanau

The Big Little Sponsorship is back, so spread the word and nominate your school for the chance to win one of ten $10,000 sports grants. You can spend it on whatever you need, like new equipment, sports uniforms or coaching sessions. Anything to help your little champions play a little freer.

Entering is easy! 

Winning takes teamwork, so get the whole community involved by nominating your school. Teachers, students, parents, friends and whānau can all share the love and show their support for your school by nominating via the link below:

https://www.aainsurance.co.nz/big-little?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Big+Little+Sponsorship+School+Email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.aainsurance.co.nz%2fbig-little&utm_id=214&sfmc_id=10142

Terms and Conditions apply. Entries close 11:59pm Sunday 19 April 2026

TARANAKI QUILT FESTIVAL 2026