Welcome to 2025

Kia ora and welcome back to the 2025 school year. For those of you who are celebrating the Lunar New Year xīn nián kuài lè. Given 2025 is the Year of the Snake and is associated with wisdom, mystery and transformation in traditional Chinese culture this will be very true for us at Long Bay Primary. As tradition describes we will be moving away from old ways, learning from the past and moving into a new future. This could be best described with these changes you and your children will experience in 2025.

Mathematics – We will be using the Maths No Problem resource across the school as the basis of our mathematics programme. This is in line with the structured mathematics and new curriculum approaches outlined by the Ministry of Education.

Classrooms – Many of the school classrooms have been renumbered. This map will show you how the classrooms are now arranged. We expect two new classrooms (Room 12 and 13) will be constructed by the end of the year.

HERO – Our new student management system is called HERO. The main change you will notice initially is reporting absent students. Please follow these links to download the HERO app from the Apple App Store  and here for Google Play Store. These instructions will help you get connected and be ready to use the HERO app . More features will be added throughout the first half of 2025.

Absence Reporting – We are now required to report absent students daily to the Ministry of Education. If your child is going to be absent from school please let us know through the HERO app, by email to admin@longbayprimary.ac.nz or by calling 094736077 as soon as possible at the start of the day.

The teachers have been busy setting up their classrooms and attending a range of Maths no Problem professional learning over the last few days. We are looking forward to a school wide first aid course tomorrow and further work together as a staff on Friday before school starts next week.

Meet the Teacher – We will be holding two Meet the Teacher afternoons / evenings to start the year. Further details on how to reserve your time will be shared with you early next week. In the meantime these will be held on Wednesday 12 February from 3:30 to 7:00pm and Thursday 13 February from 3:30 to 6:00pm.

Hats – A reminder that we ask that hats are worn at school during Term 1 and 4.

Term 1 Key Dates – The Key Dates for Term 1 can be found in this document. We look forward to welcoming our 40 new students to our school during the Mihi Whakatau on Friday 14 February starting at 2:00pm. For the first time in our 46 year history the school will start the year with over 500 students. This is a reflection of the development that has occurred over the past few years within our school zone.

Despite the increasing number of students at Long Bay Primary we remain committed to treating our children as individuals, working hard to give them a feeling of success, pushing them to succeed academically and treating our school community as one big family where we all care for and look after each other.

We look forward to seeing you all on Monday ready for the start of the new school year.

Ngā mihi | Kind regards

Rob Hutton

Tumuaki / Principal