Nau mai ki tenei wiki Kōrero. The end of the year is fast approaching and I’m sure you’re all looking forward to a well-deserved rest in what has been a year of new challenges as we negotiated our way through maintaining quality early childhood services amidst a global pandemic. With just under 3 weeks to go until the end of our working year, we hope you are finding some ways to celebrate together the ways you worked together as a team to embrace these challenges. Waiho i te toipoto, Kaua i te toiroa Let us keep close together, not wide apart. Jane 
Pays Over Christmas and New Year There is one more payday before Christmas – on Tuesday 15 December. The next one is Tuesday 29 December. The Payroll Team won’t have long to process this pay (as the office will be closed) so we need kindergartens to send in their returns a little early. - On Friday 18 December send in Returns/Staff Hour count for:
- Week of 14-18 Dec; and
- Prediction for the following week, Monday 21 (for part-year) and Tuesday 22 (for full-year)
- On Monday 21 or Tuesday 22 December (your last day) send in amended Returns/Staff Hour count for those days by 9am.
If you have any questions please email payroll@wmkindergartens.org.nz or call the Porirua office and someone in the team can help you. Or you can email karen.skett@wmkindergartens.org.nz.
Applying For Jobs – Here’s Some Advice After one month using the new online processing system for job applications, the new system is working well. If you are looking for a position, make sure you read all the information under the ‘Work for us’ section of the website. This includes information on what we are looking for and what the process is. Don’t just go straight to the “Current Vacancies’ section and apply from there without reading all the other sections. These contain brief but useful information that can help you be successful. When you have applied for a job, you will be sent an email that is automatically generated. This email may go to your junk folder, so check there if you don’t receive anything. Lansdowne Kindergarten teacher Sheena Given is one of the teachers who has used the new online job application system to successfully apply for a teaching position. Sheena says it is easy to fill out and upload the information online. “It’s nice and simple.” After a vacancy has closed, the details about it disappear, so you may want to print off the key requirements, or take a screenshot. However, you should have addressed these requirements in your cover letter so that should also provide a record if you are selected for an interview.
End Of Year Celebrations It is great to see the ways teams are using the money that has been allocated to celebrate the year that has been. There have been a few queries as to how to make payment – you can do this by: - Reimbursement if you use your own funds on an Employee Reimbursement form or;
- by invoice if the place you are going willing to issues an invoice or;
- by HWM credit/debit card
If you have any queries please contact Jane Braun at jane.braun@wmkindergartens.org.nz The team at Cottle Kindergarten have already had their celebration at the Upper Hutt Traditional Thai Restaurant. We would love to hear what you have done to celebrate this year, send through your pictures to korero@wmkindergartens.org.nz.  
Thousands Of Children Continue To Live In Poverty The 2020 report of the Child Poverty Monitor has revealed 150,000 kids experience “material hardship” in New Zealand, meaning they don’t have enough warm clothes, fresh vegetables or enough to eat. The annual report is released by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, and was presented to parliament this week to Prime Minister and Child Poverty Reduction Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and Minister for Children, Kelvin Davis. Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft warns poverty could be even worse than the report shows because of Covid-19. Material hardship means children live in households unable to afford six or more essential items – including having enough to eat, fresh vegetables, and warm clothes, two good pairs of shoes and the ability to see a doctor when needed. Judge Becroft said the “tentacles of poverty” reached into every aspect of children’s lives. “About a quarter of children live in damp and sometimes moldy homes, and children living in deprivation are twice as likely to end up in hospital. He said Covid-19 means that the Government should do more for children, it's “not an excuse to do less”. About 235,400 children lived in low-income households - about one in five (20.8 per cent) of people aged under 18. These were households earning less than 50 per cent of median household income after housing costs. This was up from the 2019 report, which had about 17 per cent living in this category. The Children’s Commissioner called for an increase in benefits, increased supply of state and social housing, and “new ways” to manage rental costs. He called for the Government to expand the food in schools programme and extend free medical care to everyone under 18.
Pacific Island MPs Welcomed Whānau Manaaki staff (Ngavaine John, Mata Tengaru, Ina Ropu-Trengaru, Nga Ropu, Talamalie Moamoa Faleafaga, Helen Laupama, Caroline Mareko), and kindergarten parents and grandparents were involved in welcoming five new Pacific members of Parliament this week. It began with a Turou from members of the Porirua Cook Island community led by Papa Tuainekore Tengaru, then a Whaikorero by the Kaumatua of Parliament. Minister of Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio started the lauga Fa’afeiloaiga (Samoan welcome speech), followed by the Ava ceremony, where Talamalie Moamoa Faleaga, one of WM's Community Navigators, had the honour of being the Tufa’ava (Ava distributor, usually an orator chief, who calls out, one by one, the names and the order of those to be served with the 'ava beverage.) There are four new Labour MPs from Pacific backgrounds, Anae Dr Neru Leavasa (Samoa)-Takanini, Tangi Utikere (Cook Island)-Palmerston North, Barbara Edmonds (Samoa) -Mana, Terisa Ngobi (Samoa)- Otaki. Teanau Tuiono (Cook Islands) is the first Pacific Green MP. There are now 10 Pacific Members of Parliament which is an historical achievement for the Pacific communities of New Zealand.  
Moamoa on the right. WM staff who involved in the welcome.  The MPs who were welcomed to Parliament
Congratulations! The Coulston whānau would like to share with you the birth of Mateo Jenkins who was born on 1 November 2020 weighing in at 4.365 kilos (9lb 10oz). His mum Trinity, Senior Head Teacher at Toru Fetu Kindergarten, his dad Vin and big brother Bob are rapt! 
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