Greetings and welcome to the 2007 school year at Toko School. Check out some of our history through the links above.

Here is link to the term 4 2006 Courier. Lots of news here about the beginning of the 2007 school year. Welcome to Scott and Teresa. Hope you love Toko School!

We had a startling good concert at the end of 2006. Pix

Well our term has started well. Visit the year calendar. Children are swimming daily and enjoying the fine weather. An art unit is underway to develop the school environment and its a great way for new teachers to get to know their new children too! We have enrolled 8 new children since the beginning of the year which bodes well for the maintenance of the 5 teachers at Toko School.

A working bee went very well late in the holidays to put in new seating around room 1 and 2. It will look great and now further sun shade is something to develop.

Tuesday the 14th Feb
A second working bee completed the installation of the new aluminum seats. The area looks great.
Mary thanks to Gavin and the team.
I attended the local schools sports meeting today along with Kelly and Charlaine. The only real change for the sports this year is the athletics sport is in term 1! So better get on to this.. marking fields, practices and skills.

Friday the 16th
Mr Kevin Archer from the Taranaki Regional Council was a Toko School today talking to the teachers and children about our upcoming trip to the Kawaroa Rock Pools. It was very valuable, with a strong conservation theme. The children asked and answered questions and now basically we are ready for the event on Friday March the 2nd. It will be a neat day. Many thanks to Mr archer for his time and and interest.

Later in the day we had the opening of our new cricket wicket. We had a big turn out with at least 60 kids and lots of parents playing "tipiny" cricket and then later on other ball games as well. Some even braved the pool. BBQ's were steaming!
The wicket was opened by Mark Menzies from the Stratford Cricket Club. Stratford Cricket had kindly donated $1000 toward the installation costs! Board members, Polly and Gavin have worked hard to bring the wicket to reality, gathering the grants from Pub Charities and the Community Trust organisation and overseeing the actual installation of the wicket and subsequent completion of the surrounding field. It was a successful evening finishing just on dark!

Thursday the 22nd
Megan Charlaine and Richard (for 1/2 a day only) attended a literacy planning day in Stratford with teachers from other cluster schools and planned the Literacy contract for 2007. with the resignation of the 2006 facilitator changes were inevitable but it looks like we have a good plan forward for all our school. Teachers from Toko will have up to 24 days PD based around our teaching of reading contract! Completely necessary in an educational environment based on continual improvement!
Friday the 23rd found Richard in Wellington at the annual NZPF Principals Moot.
A room with Principal who are leaders of their local NZPF association nation wide. Speakers on the day included The Minister of Education the Honorable Steve Mahary. His presentation lasted an hour and a half and was about personalised learning. Personally I found it very interesting and he explained his ideas well, taking a few tales from Ted Robinson.... http://www.ted.com/
So if both the Minister and Bruce Hammonds are quoting the same gentleman maybe there is really something to it!!!!
The Secretary of Education also spoke to the group about directions and changes within the Ministry as well as her 'vision' for education.
Francis Salt head of ERO spoke down to the group for an hour.

There was a very productive discussion on the governance role of trustees and whether change is needed to this structure in light of growing evidence that many school have difficulty with the current model.
Absolutely great day for me and I hope to get this information to the CTELA asap!

Friday the 3rd of March
We had a neat day at Kawaroa Rock Pools. A really big contingent of parents allowed us to have the entire school there with less than a 1 to 5 ratio! A big thank you to Kevin Archer of the Regional Council for helping us out on the day!

Tuesday the 6th of March
CTELA meets for the first time in 2006 and a valuable day I feel.
Parent interviews at Toko School. These will run over three days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thuesday!

Jackie away for two days now so who gets toilet duty??!!

Wednesday the 14th
Well Richard is at the PDPC. That is Principal Development Planning Center in Wellington. It is very demanding and intensive... And thus far rewarding too! The outcome is a development plan for your principal, after a triangulation of evaluation and analysis. I am with 4 other principals. The range is from large urban secondary, Special character schools and to a school smaller than Toko. So a wide range of people. Each of us has a lead facilitator. All of us are involved in various simulations and exercises which help evaluate our strengths and areas for development! Phew!

Turnbull Cup Success
We had a wonderful success at the annual Turnbull Cup competition. Toko School won the small schools relay, the Turnbull Cup! Congratualtions to the team! This is the second year in a row that we have won this particular competition!

Welcome to Brenda, trainee teacher in room 4 for the next three weeks!

Trustee Elections 2007
With five nominations the new Board of Trustees for Toko School is:
Gavin Jordan: Chairman and Property
Debra Avery: Treasurer
Celia Howatson: Secretary
Tracey Burnell New in 2007!
Fiona Jones New in 2007!
Richard Bradley:Principal
Staff Rep Megan Heazlewood
Link to the Board page

Monday the 26th of March
Fantastic weather and a fantastic athletic sports at Toko School. A big thank you to the kids in Room 4 that really did a fantastic job putting the gear out ( and getting it in too). Well done to Room 4 and Kelly for her work getting the day to run as smooth as it could!! Toko did well with 7 age champions! They were:

Tuesday the 3rd was PJ Day!! Organsied by the School Council!! It was neat. Something pretty different!
Thursday the 5th last day of term 1 2007! We were also on duty at the Stratford High School so that made it a long day! Now, YAH holidays!