Waiwhare Wire 1989

June 1989

Waiwhare Wire

June 1989.

Well here it is finally – the latest issue of our community mag. This one will need a little effort to wade through because there are not many pictures to study, if you get past page three without having to put it down to come back later, I think you will have done pretty well. If you don’t get back to it at all – well – I promise more illustrations next issue, maybe. Sorry Keith, I can’t fine any  suitable pinups to adorn Pg2, so you’ll have to do a bit of reading instead I’m afraid.
So then study, absorb and fall asleep quietly…

Welcome:
We have had a real influx of people into the district of late. On behalf of all of us I would like to welcome you all into our community and we hope your time with us will be a successful and enjoyable one.
Welcome to
Craig and Cathy Hargreaves, and their daughters Kylie and Natalie.
Bill and Laurel McLean, Jason, Philip and Eric.
Dean and Jenny Stairmand and Nina.
Clyde and Gwen Nichols [Nicholls], Glen, Jock and Ben.

Congratulations:
Margaret, you clever little person. Congratulations to you and Mike on the birth of your son. We trust you are all well and looking forward to all those sleepless nights and dirty nappies…..Gawd !

Waiwhare C.W.I.:
A morning tea will be held at Liz Kays on Wed June 14th at 10 a.m. to welcome new people to the district. Everyone a plate please, all welcome.
We are holding a luncheon on July 10th to celebrate the 40th year of Waiwhare C.W.I. It is to be held at Pat Tolley’s home commencing at 11 a.m.- theme – hats. So wear your wackiest hat. All members past and present are invited and current members will be asked to provide two plates for lunch and a donation for raffles. We hope this will be an enjoyable day. Any enquiries to Leonie Smith (471) or Liz Kay (490).

Wanted:
A childs riding helmet. Phone Linda Ward 419.

Cricket:
The summer cricket season was a full and enjoyable one despite a late start and cricket pitch woes. Several games were played including annual games against Okawa and Sherenden. Te Awanga (2 games) and Raukawa as new opponents with the Onga Onga game falling through.
These teams are very keen to play us again this coming season and especially keen for some early season games. This could work out well for us too with the chance of a few games before the Xmas rush, holidays and the inevitable fly-strike.
The cricket pitch appears to have succumbed to the pressure of constant gardening and prayer from Tony, pitch custodian, and appears to be growing grass, so baring [barring] earth-quakes or a stampede of cows we should have a pitch to mow early season. All those wanting to play a game or a number of games will be most welcome.
Simon.

Waiwhare School Committee:

Because of the Tomorrows School “thing” we had no A.G.M. of the School Committee this year. So I submit for your perusal the final report of the Waiwhare School Committee. I would also like to publically [publicly] thank on behalf of the teachers, the parents and the children Graeme, Toughie, John, Ping and Dianne [Diane] for all the work guidance and support over the years. They have had a particularly busy time especially over the last couple of years with the school expanding and they’ve done a really good job coping with the demands put on them by the old grump at the school.

REPORT OF THE WAIWHARE SCHOOL COMMITTEE 18 MAY 1989.
This is the final report of the Waiwhare School Committee before the Board of Trustees, as implemented under the Picot Report, takes office.
The present committee, with active support of the community, organised the establishing of a third classroom and continued with the upgrading of the school grounds.
With the increased roll the school was entitled to a third teacher and therefore a new classroom. The school fort was moved and a site prepared for the classroom which came from Otamauri at the beginning of 1988.
The Acacia Melanoxylon and smaller trees were removed from the front of the school and their stumps ground down prior to re-laying concrete paths, putting in new flower beds by the Junior Room, resowing the lawn and replanting the gardens.
The surface of the school baths was smoothed off and the school water tank connected to the new water system as the culmination of many years of overhauling the water supply.
In 1988 fund-raising went towards replacing the old Xerox photocopier with a new Toshiba machine costing $4,400.
The ideas of the Picot Report were revealed in 1988 and the committee attended meetings and grappled with new ideas for the running of schools.
Another adaptation to changing methods was the setting up of the Waiwhare Bus Co. Inc. which successfully tendered for the two school bus routes in May 1988.
The Waiwhare school funds are at present in a very healthy condition.
When the present committee took over in 1987 the General Account had a debit of $81.00. In the Herald-Tribune of Saturday May 13 1989 it was stated that nearly three-quarters of Hawkes Bay schools had over-spent their budgets, due in part to falling rolls and therefore grants.
Waiwhare has avoided this and the following is the financial balance:

BNZ General Account   $2608.51 (April 30)
Waiwhare School Baths Account   fixed deposit   $2300.00
Waiwhare School Baths Account   $3,624.05
The committee would like to see two projects completed in the future: the purchase of a computer for the school and the removal of the car shed at Otamauri School to Waiwhare.
The community has contributed willingly to fund-raising as the following shows:
April 1987 Crutching   $777.76
March 1988 Wool Seminar
p.m. tea    $165.00
April/May Crutching   $3037.75
Farmer of the Year pm tea   $304.00
Dec 1987 – April 1989 Sale of Cook Book   $1480.00
Donations   $280.00
$6044.51
Other funds raised at Sports Days etc have gone directly to the Principal’s Account.
The committee wish to thank all who helped with the maintaining of the smooth running of the school and hand over to the Board of Trustees with the hope that the new system achieves every success.

Playcentre News:
Bush telegraph has probably spread the word that the Otamauri Playcentre is fair humming with activities. This flurry of happening has been brought on by the impending change in administration with the implementation of tomorrows schools, or in our case “Before Five”. Under the old administration there are minimum standards that assistance is available to attain. We decided to attain the standards before the unknown was forced on us.
We have had to develop on two fronts – indoor and outdoor. Indoors we have purchased all the basic equipment that has an 80% subsidy on it, we have equipped our Family Corner with all mod cons and the children are getting a lot of pleasure from dressing up and playing house with their new stove, dresser, wardrobe and bed. Still to come are a new teaset and other odds and ends.
We’ve got a whole lot of kid sized shelving now the puzzles and blocks are being used a lot more because they are more accessible.
A new water trough has arrived, we can’t wait for the weather to allow its use. We also have a lot of new books and for our little ones we have some easy puzzles. Our sessions at times fairly rock along with out ghetto blaster playing everything from nursery rhymes to Roy Orbison. Having outlayed all this money it is reassuring to have our subsidies coming in already.
Outdoors, we were inspected by the Board and found ourselves again substandard a lot of the inadequacies will be remedied under maintenance from the Board, other developmental things are again going to cost us 20% of there value, this 20% may come as our labour content and the Board providing the materials.
The Board provided us with the services of an architect, Gary Pidd, who has been a real help. Gary has streamlined a lot of the tedious red tape procedures and provided us with a lovely plan to work our development from.

Right now we are rearranging the area that we play in so that it is easier to supervise, and putting in an off road carpark so we can get the children in and out of cars safely and building a sandpit that all the children can play in.
We have been kindly given the materials from the adventure playground by the Otamauri School Committee, the County is providing the metal for the carpark and Donahues have given us the material to line the bottom of the sandpit.
To aid further fund raising we are going to plant a coppice on the corner of Otamauri Road, this will provide some shelter and be a renewable firewood resource, we will also plant lots of ornamental and shelter trees to beautify our centre.
On the horizon we are planning on building a climbing structure and a slide, details on which are still under discussion.
Chris Dunn

SCHOOL NEWS
The Board of Trustees (poor devils) and the teachers are presently wading through the mountains of paper work, and trying to fully understand the concepts involved in preparing the schools charter, ready for presenting to the Minister in October.
We will be asking you from time to time for your thoughts, aspirations and feelings about our school, because we will need to incorporate these in our document. Later in the year (about August) – and I can assure you it will take this long to get the thing completed – we will present our document to the community. This will be your opportunity to modify, [thrash?] out, add to etc so by the end of the exercise we’ll have a charter (barring mental break-downs) that all of us have contributed to in some way or another.
We would like to know your ideas on the section of the charter headed “the community expectation of the school”. I would like to stress that this heading relates in general terms to what you would like to see our school become. Specific teaching subjects, or, what you would like to see covered in our teaching are not to be included here, that will be covered in depth later on in the charter.
Below are some points that the Board of Trustees feel are important. If you are happy with these could you please tick or mark accordingly. Please add any points, comments statements that you think are pertinent. Could you return all slips to school whether you mark your paper or not.
The Community Expectations of the School are:
1.   That the school provides information on community activities – via district newsletters
2.   That the school is available as a meeting place for community issues to be discussed.
3.   That the school is a welcoming meeting place for informal discussion.
4.   That all members of the community are invited and encouraged to attend all school functions.
5.   That the swimming pool facilities and school grounds are available to the community after school hours.
Any comments you wish to make   Please return the slip to school, thanks Tony.

School Reports:
After much deliberation, discussion and head scratching, we would like to modify our reporting to parents procedure. Firstly the mid-year interviews will be replaced by a written report with the included option of an interview. Therefore the interviews will be available if you would like one. If you feel the interview will be of little benefit you may choose not to bother.

The written report:
The written report has been modified and redesigned by expert designers, namely Gunson, Croad and Simons and Partners, and will include a grade for effort in each subject as well as a short succinct comment. No grade will be given for ability in each subject and I will explain why shortly.
The report will then be attached to a personal report booklet which will be taken home for stewing over. When you have studied the report in depth the booklet is to be returned to school and stored here (a photocopy of the report will be available on request) Then at the end of the year the next report will be written and included in the booklet and sent home. The idea is that at the end of each childs schooling they will be able to take with them their report booklet which will include all the reports written about that child.
Of course you are welcome to discuss your childs progress, problems at any time during the year. You can even pop in if you like and see how they are getting on and then join us for a cuppa if you want to.

Why no grade for attainment:
When we modified our reports we actually included a column for an attainment grade in each subject. No sooner had we completed this, when we received from the Education Department a comprehensive booklet entitled ‘Keeping School records”. This booklet explained why grades in attainment should be discontinued. They are –
1.   Faulty assumptions underlying the use of 1-5 rating scales.
2.   Concern that the present ranking system did not lend itself to easy and helpful identification of pupils with learning difficulties.
3.   Research which indicated that labelling students on a ranked scale could be counter productive.
4.   A strong recommendation of the Committee to review the Curriculum in Schools that there should be a move away from measuring one students achievements against that of another.

Teachers Aide/School Secretary:
A position has become available at the school for the position of Teachers Aide/School Secretary. This position is for 8 hours a week, to be worked over three days, but hours worked per day are open to negotiation. Duties include –
Typing, and other general clerical assistant duties.
School banking and childrens book orders.
Working with small groups of children in listening to reading, language related exercises and mathematical activities.
Preparing and writing out charts etc.
The helping of general teacher preparation work.
Neat handwriting and overall neatness of work is essential. All written applications stating previous experience etc. will be received at the school up until Friday 16th June.
Duties begin on July 1st.
Discussion of appointment will be made by the Board of Trustees on advice of the Principal.

Cardboard: Many thanks to Kirsty Hill for the donation of a large amount of cardboard to the school. Thanks Kirsty, this stuff is like gold sometimes, we’ll find it very handy.

Board of Trustees Handbook: I have at school a number of B/T’s handbooks entitled “Governing Schools, a practical handbook for Board of Trustees”. If you would like to borrow a copy for perusal please call in at the school.

School Address: Please note that the school is changing its address to rural delivery. From July 1st the school’s address will be
Waiwhare School
R.D.9
Hastings.
Not Box 886, Hastings. We are doing this to save a substantial amount on P.O Box hireage.

Hepatitis B: This has been much in the press of late about Hep B and the immunisation programme run by the Health Dept. If you recall that at this stage the immunisation is given to new born babies. At this stage all children up to six years of age should have been immunised.
This has been of some interest by a few people in the community about being immunised themselves or having older children ‘zapped’ and after inquiries were made we found that the cost of the shots were extremely expensive. But now an Auckland company, Smith, Kline and French Ltd.  are offering the wholesale immunisation programme (3 shots) for $45 for those children under 11 years, $30.00
The shots are administered by special professional staff who will bring with them the exact amount of serum. Shots are given – 1st dose at an elected date, 2nd dose 1 month later 3rd dose 6mths after date at 1st dose.
If any of you would like to know more about this, I have a booklet available at school.
Any people interested in forming a group to go and get immunised could you please let me know.

NOTICE OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
BY ELECTION
With the resignation of Roger Tough from the Board of Trustees – we are to hold a Bi-election to elect a candidate to the Board. The Bi-election will be run along the same lines as the general election held in April/May BUT because we are not being funded for this election there will be no advertisements in the newspaper and not return addressed envelopes.
Stuart Weir has agreed to be returning officer again but as he will be unable to begin duties until the beginning of next week I will be getting the ball rolling till Stuart takes over.
I hereby call for nominations for the Board of Trustees. Could you please fill out the accompanying sheet and return to school by Friday 16th June.
If more than one nominations are received an election will be held up until July 1st.
Only those people registered on the School Voting Roll are eligible to nominate or be nominated to the Board of Trustees.

WOOLSHED SALE
at Toughs Friday 16th June 3:00 onwards
Items include:
20 litres Formalin
8 Litres Combat
4 only 16” x 4ft culverts
1 only Docking ring Dispenser
1 only Good order Docking Scrim
280 Litres (approx) Diesel (Bring a drum)
20 Litres Farm Vinegar
20 Kg Denkavit Calf Milk
18  Calf teats and lines (new)
25 metres x 3/4” Wire Rope
40 metres 2” alkathene
3 Drench Guns
Assorted Posts, hinges, gudgeons etc etc
Dining Table and 4 chairs, (dark stain and brown check woollen fabric
2 Blond Oak single beds (new mattresses), matching dresser with mirror
Chest of drawers. Single mattress. 3/4 wirewove bed (no mattress)

[Original story]

COMMUNITY COMMENT.

As I prepare to leave the Waiwhare district for the second, and surely final time, I have cause to reflect on the passing years and the changes we and our parents have seen.

When I started school thirty years ago at Waiwhare (check your own hairline before you call me a wrinkly) things were somewhat different. There were two classrooms, the present library and a smaller prefabricated building, where the senior room is now. The only other buildings at the school were the woodshed-sportshed and some old long drop toilets. I have a vague memory of the senior boys chopping up big rats, caught in these old toilets, with the school axe.

Swimming lessons, what there were of them, were held in the Willowford stream and, I think the stream at Pukehamoamoa, and the dreaded once yearly trip to the swimming sports at Twyford School.

Every week, for an afternoon the girls did sewing while the boys collected pinecones, with the inevitable pinecone fights, for the classroom fires. These old cast iron stoves were hard to get burning and I remember one Headmaster loosing [losing] his luxurious eyebrows and a lot of composure when he poured a large quantity of Gestetner printing fluid into one, in an attempt to get some heat. He got considerably more than he had reckoned on.

In these early times wool was so valuable (a pound per pound at one stage) that we kids were sent

out after school to pluck any strands of it off fences or trees and of course off dead sheep. A few years later it was worth so little that we were sent out to pick mushrooms for sale instead. The mind boggles at the thought of receiving that much money, inflation adjusted, for wool today.

The school buses were not overly endowed with glamour or power in those days, and our driver Mrs Barnett (30 years on the buses eh Gill) was not very impressed when we would all rush to the back of the bus as she was grinding up Fountaines hill in low gear, only to have it stall and have an awkward restart on her hands. I don’t know how she put up with us.

The parents did a tremendous amount of work, as they still do today, building the swimming pool, the volley board and concrete playing area etc. It is this tremendous community support that, over the years has resulted in the school we see today, a modern well equipped unit wanting for very little to keep it at the top in the education business.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish the school and the Board of Trustees all the best in the future and I am sure that, with continued district support, the school will continue its enviable record in education.

To the people of Waiwhare I would like to say thank-you for making my family welcome in the district and our all too brief stay (some would beg to differ) an enjoyable one. We are sorry to leave but who knows what the future holds for us all.

Roger Tough