Ki te kotahi te kākaho, ka whati - Alone we can be broken, Ki te kapuia, e kore e whati - Standing together we are invincible.

Turanganui Teachers and our own children at  Otuwhare Marae - Omaio Bay doing our pre camp visit in early January. Our whole team is heading to Omaio for camp from Monday the 29th February to Thursday 3rd March 2016. 

Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa mo te kura tau hou. Kia ora ki nga akonga kua hoki mai me nga akonga hou ki to tatou kura. He tino harikoa o matou ngakau ki te kite i a koutou. 

Greetings to you all for the new school year. Greetings to our returning students and new students to our school. We are very happy to see you all. 

Your child is now a member of Tūranganui Syndicate which will be their new home away from home. We are the ‘Blue’ team and are made up of three 

year 8 classes and two year 7 classes. This year we will be working collaboratively and all of our staff will be working hard to ensure that your child has a successful and enjoyable year at Gisint. 

Our Turanganui Whanau is made up of the following classes and teachers. You can find out a little more about each of us by clicking on each of our 'Class Page' tab at the top of this page. 

 Room 19 – Year 8 - Koka Jodie Leach 

 Room 20 – Year 8 - Matua Puri Hauiti

 Room 21 – Year 8 - Matua Bruce Hill

 Room 22 – Year 7 - Koka Ana Devery - Team Leader

 Room 24—Year 7 - Koka Tracey Maynard

We hope to meet you all at our syndicate Meet the Teacher evening on Wednesday 10th February anytime between 5:00pm until 7:00pm. Please feel free to bring along a picnic dinner with your family and enjoy a relaxed evening of games, slippery sliding and getting to know each other. We will start our evening on the back field behind room 25. Look forward to meeting you all and hearing about your aspirations for your child's year. 

We are extremely fortunate to have four talented teacher aides assigned to our syndicate. Matua Walter Shepherd, Koka Kataraina Swann, Koka Sam Reid and Koka Shane'h Williams are assigned to specific students but due to the collaborative working nature of our team all students will have access to these highly skilled support staff. For the first five weeks of term 1 we are also very fortunate to have Matua Quentin Mill based in room 20 with Matua Puri for his final practicum. Matua Quentin is studying through Te Wananga o Aotearoa and we warmly welcome him to our Turanganui whanau as well. 

Home-School Communication and Partnership

We look forward to building strong partnerships between home and school so we can support our tamariki in being the best that they can be. We would also love to have parent and whanau input into our  programme so if you have skills you would like to share please let us know.  

Communication is very important to us so we aim to keep our whanau regularly updated of celebrations and events via this Turanganui Syndicate blog, individual class blogs, email, notices and student blogs. Could you please let us know what your preferred method of contact is by completing this Google Form. 
If in the future you have any concerns or queries then please feel free to make contact with us and we will get back to you as soon as we can. 

   

Our school also has a Facebook page that is regularly updated so please like our page if you have not done so already. 

We have a number of exciting educational excursions planned for term 1 including The Mindlab, Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve, Tairawhiti Museum, The Olympic Pools, Historical Hikoi around town and our major excursion is our whole syndicate camp to Omaio Bay in week 5. This Google Form has a lot of camp information so please feel free to complete online or on the paper version and return to your child's teacher as soon as possible.

                     

Matua Walter, Matua Puri and Matua Bruce practising their fishing skills in preparation for camp at Omaio 

             Homework Expectations 

To add to once confirmed by Glen

Bring your own device (BYOD)

All classes at Gisint are equipped with Wireless internet and our school made a significant investment in Chromebooks in 2015. We have 9 Chromebooks and 6 desktop computers per class but we encourage students to bring in a personal device to use if they wish. These might include Chromebooks, I-Pads, tablets or Laptops. 

Prior to any devices coming into school the students would need to return a signed BYOD agreement and we have some clear school wide expectations and consequences should these be broken. 

We would recommend purchasing a Chromebook if you are looking at purchasing a device for your child as they are economical and can be transferred to high school when your child leaves Gisint. 

While there are many benefits to having your own device they are NOT compulsory.

Our Turanganui Expectations

Gisborne Intermediate is a wonderful place to learn and our school vision is to 'Grow great people'. 

Our school has three main values that we wish to foster through what we teach which are

Self Management
Integrity

Respect 

Our syndicate will also have a strong focus on Manaakitanga (Caring for others), Whakawhanaungatanga (Relationships) and Kotahitanga (Unity)

A school Code of Conduct has come home with your child to be read through and signed together. Please have this returned to school tomorrow with our ICT Agreement. Listed below are some of our basic Turanganui expectations. 

1: Our students must have the correct PE gear everyday. In the rare event that this is not possible, they must bring a signed note and a mufti set of gear for the day to avoid a trip to the reflection room.

2: Our students need to be prepared for school everyday – Have all of the necessary work and equipment (pens, pencils, books). 

3: Our students must be dressed in the correct uniform everyday. Our school code of conduct outlines what is expected. If foreign items come to school, they will be removed. If you need assistance with uniform please make contact with your child's teacher as we have funding available to help. Please ensure all of your child's clothing is named thoroughly. 

4: If your child has a special taonga or piece of jewellery that they wear all of the time then Mr Udall may grant an exception provided that a signed note comes to school outlining the items significance.