2026 Newsletter - Week 8, Term 3

Kia ora koutou,

We are gearing up for the many activities that round out Term 3. And there are plenty!

Next Tuesday a large contingent are competing at the Napier primary schools cross-country event. If the successful GMS event is anything to go by, we will have another great day at Park Island. Our team of 48 runners are looking fit and ready. By lunch time on Tuesday next week we will know whether GMS has added to our champion school run of the last three years, or will it be someone else???

This evening a number of our cultural groups are performing two concerts in the GMS Hall. These are timed for 5.00pm and 6.00pm. These groups are fantastic and are bound to entertain.

Next Friday morning (18th September) our Pasifika and Kapa haka groups are giving final dress rehearsals before their respective festivals in Week 10. Our GMS Pasifika group will perform at the HB Junior Polyfest 2026 at Toitoi on the morning of Monday 21st, while our GMS Kapa Haka roopu are on stage at the Ōtātara Kapa Haka Festival at PGA on the evening of Tuesday 22nd. A number of students double up and are performing in both groups, showing incredible commitment.

There is plenty of other activity also going on - a touch team is representing GMS in the annual Year 5 and 6 touch tournament in Week 10, which is the day before the Colour Run!! All excitement ahead.

We also need to recognise our two Year 6 Mathletics teams who competed at Puketapu School last week. They finished a very respectable 3rd and 8th among all the local schools, showing impressive maths skills and problem-solving abilities. Well done to Callan Stewart, Asher Healey, Aryan Ghodke, Adham Orcullo, Michael Denard and Zoe Hicks.

Finally, I can give wonderful feedback on those Year 3 and 6 students who were randomly selected to take part in a national survey on health/PE and the learning of langauges. The visiting teachers were not only impressed by the look of our school, but they also loved working with our students. They both mentioned how independent, enthusiastic, and supportive of their peers they were. So good to hear that they saw what we see every day from our GMS stars!

Ngā mihi

Mark Johnson

Principal/Tumuaki

Greenemadows School continues to grow.

A fun fact: over the course of this year we have enrolled eighty-one students to date. This includes sixty-one New Entrant students, as well as twenty older children. And fourteen have moved out of the district.

We have had the following new students start with us in the last two weeks:

Koa Riley, Gigi Brighouse and Stevie Vincent. A warm welcome to all of you!

Our school roll is currently 496. And fun fact #2: this total is down slightly on this same date in 2025, when we had 515 students.

Tuesday 15th September - Interschool Cross Country - Park Island

Friday 18th September - Fancy Dress Day

Friday 18th September - Early finish 2pm - First Aid training for staff

Friday 25th September - GMS PTA Colour Run: last day of school for Term 3

Monday 12th October - Term 4 starts

Tuesday 27th October - School closed - Teacher Only Day

Tuesday 15th December - Last day of Term 4

All staff are completing a first aid course on Friday 18th September. If you can, please ensure your child is picked up at this earlier time of 2.00pm. The school can provide supervision for those children who have to stay until 3.00pm.

All staff complete this course every two years to keep their certificates up to date.

Thanks for all your kind donations to a very worthy cause - the school raised a total of $416.50.

The OSCAR children are coming to a fancy dress party on the afternoon of 18th September to farewell their supervisor Tina. So to save the OSCAR children having to bring a change of clothes, they can wear the fancy dress to school for the day. And if that is the case, then we can't have the others missing out then ... so a fancy dress-up day for all of GMS. No money needs to be brought - just fun!!!

If you have a child who is going to turn five at any stage this year or next year, and they are going to attend Greenmeadows School, please let us know as soon as possible.

This also applies to any relatives, neighbours or friends you may have who live in our zone and wish for their children to come to our wonderful school.

Even if you think we may already know, there is no harm in telling us (again).

You can either phone the school or email Sara at saraa@gms.school.nz

Many thanks for your help.

YAY! WE DID IT!

We’ve officially hit our first milestone — $5,000 raised!

And you know what that means…

TWO TEACHERS ARE GETTING SLIMED!

A HUGE thank you to everyone who has donated and helped us get to this incredible milestone. We couldn’t have done it without your amazing support!

But wait… there’s MORE!

Any child who has signed up could be one of FOUR lucky children chosen to slime a teacher!

Four names will be randomly selected on Friday morning!

We’ll also be selecting TWO children who have received at least one donation to win a special prize!

PLUS, the TWO classes with the most children signed up will win a juicy!

So there are LOTS of prizes, lots of excitement, and plenty of slime happening this Friday!

Keep up the amazing work — let’s see how much further we can go!

Stay tuned… Friday is going to be SO much fun!

Our PTA has had a very successful year to date raising funds. The school had some big plans for the fundraising to go towards in 2026. Fortunately, in a series of wonderful surprises, we have been able to secure alternate funding for these projects.

Our school board had aimed to get solar panels installed at school to start trying to reduce our astronomical power costs. These panels will now be provided for us by the Ministry of Education, which is an amazing piece of news! We also had been making plans to fund the development of the area that was our old junior playground—again, we have sourced funding from the Ministry of Education! We are able to do this and divert funds because our school is in such great condition.

We had also planned that the PTA would help cover any shortfall in expenses for the senior camps. The extremely successful Spellathon and the individual camp fees have now been added to by two successful grant applications—many thanks to Sara Anderson for all her dedication to this task.

As you see, lots of planning ... but now we have Plan B!

So at last night's meeting of the PTA, we have decided to dedicate funds to these 'super six' projects this year:

1. New library shelving

2. $3000 worth of new library books

3. Replace the surface of the artificial cricket wicket

4. New seating benches for the hall

5. LEGO resources for the library

6. New sand pit toys

We also wonder whether anyone in the community might be able to construct a sturdy digger along the lines of this photo for the sandpit? This would be permanently fixed, but can rotate, dig and spin. Anyone have some engineering skills and want to help - and mean that we don't have to fork out $10K? Pleas elet us know if you can help.

EXCITING STUFF - and everything will benefit the children of GMS in a variety of ways.

Orders close at 11:59pm on Wednesday, 16 September 2026.

There are calendars, cards, diaries, mouse mats or sketch pads available to order, with your child's own artwork.

They make great Christmas presents!!

Bellyful Hawkes Bay is partaking in Bellyful NZ's national campaign - "Spaghetti September".

Bellyful cooks and delivers free, nutritious, family-friendly meals to whānau with babies or young children who need extra support.

The branch is seeking packets of spaghetti pasta to use at their monthly cookathon.

Greenmeadows School is one of the drop-off points for this campaign. The campaign runs for the month of September and you can drop off your donations to the school office.

Once again we are running the Hell Pizza Challenge. This is open to all students in the school. Collect a sheet from the library, read 7 books from school, home, or a library, fill it in, and return it to the library. A voucher will be given for a free 333 kids' pizza from Hell Pizza. There is no limit on how many wheels a student can earn. Vouchers expire 31st January 2027.

Time to stock up the coffee supplies? You can choose between 250g, 500g, or 1kg sized coffee beans or plunger style grounds. The coffee is available in strong, medium, mild or decaffeinated blends.

Sales from the Greenmeadows School coffee will go towards funding sport and athletic related activities/equipment at our school. For a large 1kg bag, which sells for $52.50, the school will receive around $15.00 back.

Ordering is open so head to our purchase page to get your bag delivered tomorrow! Please EITHER scan the QR code or click on the link below to order. Orders will arrive at the school reception office and can be collected or sent home with students. Please select ‘Pick Up’ at checkout for this option. Delivery is also available via the shipping option.

Email: admin@gms.school.nz
Website: http://www.gms.school.nz/
Location: Greenmeadows School 45 Osier Road, Greenmeadows, Napier, New Zealand
Phone: +64 06-844 7024
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmsnapier