Site Visit & Community Consultation Evening

We have had to very significant and special events this week.  First, we had our first official site visit where the #DreamTeam plus James did a tour of the building in it's current state.  It was so valuable to be able to get a sense of the floor plan and the size of the spaces.  

We then went to Huapai District School to set up for our second Community Consultation evening.  A lot of preparation went into this evening, including a mail drop in the school zone conducted by Kirstin, Wendy and I (plus our whanau), advertising in the local papers and newsletters (thanks Sam!) and preparation of the resources and presentation on the night.See our slides from the evening below:

See the thank you email I sent to our EBoT and team below:

Yesterday was epic.  The Matua Ngaru team of educators had an amazing site visit with Andrew.  It was very exciting to see how the build is shaping up and for us to begin to visualise what our kura will look like when finished.  It was the fuel to fire me up!  See the photos here.

Then what followed was an outstanding team approach to our Community Consultation evening.  Micheal King reckons that we had around 100 guests- a great turn out for sure.  This wouldn't have been possible without John and Sam from Huapai for being the most accommodating hosts (soon to be roommates)- thanks to you both for the venue, the IT kit and Sam for organising the creche/early advertising as well.    

I  can't thank you all enough for your contributions to a very successful and insightful evening with our many prospective Matua Ngaru parents (and potential future Learning Coaches).  I can easily align our 4 Vision Principles to the night:

• Curious-Mahirahira:  the community was full of curiosity and had the opportunity to learn from our presentation.  They really enjoyed the opportunity to question us at the 6 stations

• Collaborative-Mahi tahi: the collective effort of the EBoT and SLT (including Amanda) was organic and I must say we make a great team!  Thanks to Wendy and Kirstin for getting our supplies, Michael for getting me on the wifi and Alan for coordinating catering and Micheal for blessing the food.   

• Creative-Auaha: our SLT pumped their creative juices into the evening through the displays, activities and the fab media Kirstin prepared.

• Communicative-Whakaro: this was our goal for the evening and... tick!  We were able to convey clarity around our vision and big picture ideas/approach and the essence of Matua Ngaru.  We are committed to using our 4Cs, adaptive expertise, the NZC and Te Reo/Tikanga Maori.  We will be adding the slides (with the community feedback) to our social media next week.

Finally, an extra special thank you to Michael, Heike and Amanda for taking the time to contribute to our evening- this is very much appreciated.

Heike, Wendy, Kirstin and I visited the Forest School today (and Heike's collaborative magic at Windy Ridge) and we were able to discuss the evening.  We are feeling really positive and invigorated.  

Thanks again everyone- he waka eke noa!