Waitati School

By Antony Deaker

The Board of Trustees re-appointed Boris Baeumer as its chair at last
month's meeting and we welcomed Sarah Wilson as the staff
representative. We were pleased to note that the school roll has grown
and the operations budget achieved a small surplus for the third year
in a row. Our annual report is on the school website
www.waitati.school.nz.

At the same meeting we started the formal process of organising the
school's 150th Celebrations in 2014. We have been looking through the
school archive at images and memorabilia from the 125th and Centennial
Events and are excited about hosting a programme of events that draws
young and old together to celebrate the school. If you want to be
involved in organising the event or contributing to it in some way,
large or small, please contact our secretary Helen Shaw on 482 2888.

The senior class at school has continued its project, 'What Makes
Waitati Wicked' and is beginning to design and produce maps, artworks
and documentation of its research.

As part of its investigations these questions have arisen; Who was
Kenny Clarke and why did he donate a memorial shield to the school?
Why did games for the shield stop in the 1960's? Who played in those
tournaments? Should we start them up again? If you can help with any
information on this please contact the school.

Last month the whanau of our Maori students met at school for what
have now become quarterly hui. At the hui we shared some kai and
talked through the ways we can work together and with the school. The
hui have grown immeasurably in warmth and aroha and are a credit to
all involved. We are pleased with school's easy integration of tikanga
and can see a real growth in all of the pupils' confidence and sense
of place. The whanau group is composing a new waiata for the school.

The summer sports season is coming to an end and winter sports start
around now. A pleasing thing is the continued high participation in
team sports by our pupils. We regularly field teams of mixed height,
age and gender against teams from the schools in town which can be
less mixed and less diverse. Waitati kids are recognised for their
good spirit and high level of commitment to each other on the playing
field.

The school has taken the pro-active approach of having the senior
children at school initiate and include junior children in various
playground sports and games.

The Waitati Wanderers are finishing their second season of cricket and
have won around half their games this year, a major step forward from
last year. The whole team is batting and bowling like professionals
now with some promising talent coming through from the new players.