Welcome to our latest update of information and stories you may be interested in... Jane. 
Budget News The budget this afternoon is expected to provide news for the ECE sector – and we will send out a full budget email to all staff tomorrow to give you further details. As Kōrero is prepared, there has already been an announcement of extra money for learning support in the early childhood area. The 21.5 million for early intervention in behaviour, learning, and speech and language support is is expected to halve the waiting lists for children to receive extra help. It will also provide scholarships for people to train to work in this area with young children. The Prime Minister made the announcement at the Education Summit last weekend. NZEI Te Riu Roa welcomed the move, but called for funding for a pay equity settlement for support workers in ealry childhood services, who earn little more than the minimum wage. Here’s a link to a news story about the funding announcement. Another announcement made ahead of the budget provided for $2 million more funding for the longitudinal study Growing Up in New Zealand. This study, which gathers information over time about growing up in the 21st Century, had its sample size reduced by more than two thirds because of funding. The extra money will enable the sample size to be restored for the current data collection.
EOM Have you ever seen the acronym EOM in the subject line of your emails? Sat there pondering what it could mean? So it means - End Of Message. This acronym is being used more and more in the subject line to save time repeating a very short message in the body of an email. It might look like this: Subject Sally is off sick today EOM Saves opening an email to read the same message as the subject. Try it out!
Kindergarten Photos Kia Ora Team, Last year I spent the better half of term 4 out and about taking photos of your kindergartens. We have finally worked through the endless piles of photos and created a ‘content bank’ for each kindergarten. I will be sending your content bank over the next week so that you can double check to ensure we have permission to use photos of the children. Once you’ve received the content bank could you please let me know if there are any photos of children who do not have permission for photos. It’s important to remember children come and go from our kindergartens all the time so it’s almost impossible to maintain current photos. Please do not be surprised if there are a few photos of children who have left the kindergarten, these are still valid with us so long as we had permission at the time the photo was taken. Thanks, Chanelle PS there were some "bloopers" taken, as you can see! :-) 
Rebuild of Johnsonville Kindergarten You may be aware that Johnsonville Kindergarten is to be rebuilt. The new kindergarten will be situated above the new library in Johnsonville on Frankmoore Ave. Construction has begun and the full project (including new pool reception, public toilets and walkway through a memorial park) is destined to be completed by December 2019. The kindergarten will continue to operate from its current site until the new premises are ready. However there will be some changes to the kindergarten over the build period, the first being in the next few weeks to the outdoor playground. The fence between the kindergarten and the construction site is being moved. To allow for this the swing set is being moved to a new position and the sheds are being relocated around the playground. The trees along the fence site are also being removed with the fence being moved closer to the sandpit.
The children decided they needed to have a party for the trees, so they helped the teachers decorate the trees and then they sat underneath and had some party food to say goodbye.
Kindergarten will continue to operate as usual as the work is being done over the weekends.
If you are interested in keeping up to date with the construction of the new library/kindergarten click here. 
Conference Update Welcome to the second Conference update, there will be further news, information and guidance in weekly editions of Kōrero. We look forward to welcoming you to this year’s annual All Staff Conference on the 9thand 10th of July! The theme of this year’s two day Staff Conference is - PANONI - Celebrate! Challenge! Change! The All Staff Conference will once again be held in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, on Cable St in Wellington City. He Whānau Manaaki Staff Conference information. Non-teaching staff The All Staff Conference begins at 8.30am for non-teaching staff on Monday morning 9thJuly. A Conference Key Note speaker and a variety of workshops will take place for Homebased TONI Educators, Community Navigators, Transport Teams, Teacher Aides and Administrators. All non-teaching staff are warmly invited to attend and then to stay on for the whole staff meeting in the afternoon. Whole Staff Meeting The compulsory Whole Staff Meeting will be held on Monday, 9thJuly starting at 1.00pm at Te Papa in Wellington. All teachers, kindergarten based students and office staff are required to attend and all other staff strongly encouraged to attend. Teachers Conference The Teachers Conference will take place on Tuesday, 10 July at Te Papa in Wellington, beginning at 8.00am, with a prompt start of 8.30am. More details regarding content will be available in future editions of the Kōrero. Conference Registration Registration for workshops will open early in June through HR.Net, confirmation of dates for registration will be given in in future Kōrero editions. Please note that each staff membermustenrol into HR.NET themselves using their personal login details. Accommodation We will once again provide accommodation for staff who are attending the Conference and live in Waikanae or further north, or in the Wairarapa. Accommodation will be booked for the night of Monday 9thJuly with the cost of the room will be paid for by the Association. To organise your accommodation please e-mail Lorraine Coulston at lorraine.coulston@wmkindergartens.org.nz before Friday 1stJune 2018.
Child Poverty – Whānau Manaaki Speaks Up Whānau Manaaki met with the Social Services and Community Select Committee at parliament yesterday to discuss our submission on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. The bill proposes measuring child poverty, and setting targets to reduce child poverty and reporting against those targets. Whānau Manaaki supports the setting of targets and measuring the effects of policies, but argued that children in poverty need help immediately to improve their long term prospects. We had a good hearing from the committee who were interested to hear examples of children suffering from poor health, insufficient food, benefit sanctions against parents, insecure work, with uncertain incomes and other problems. The presentation was part of our role to advocate for children and to make the early childhood sector visible, and to promote the holistic nature of our work with children and families and the impact we can have on society as a whole. Here’s our full submission which has been released on parliament’s website.
Education Summit A second education summit was held in Auckland last weekend, with a range of people contributing their views about what needs to change. Early childhood teacher Tiffany Te Moni had this to say: I would give all teachers a pay rise and I would make sure that there was pay parity and equity between early childhood and school. At the moment early childhood is the least funded of them, yet we are expected to deliver the same outcome as all other teachers. I would also make te reo Māori a core subject, and with te reo comes ngā tikanga - Māori history and whakapapa. I feel that is a huge learning path that gives me confidence in who I am. I'm growing resilient learners and they are resilient because they are confident in who they are. Here’s a full report from the Herald website, with views from students, parents, boards of trustees, community leaders, employers, teachers and academics.
Education Support Workers Needed The Ministry of Education are looking to increase their Education Support Workers Pool and have released a job advertisement on their website. They would love to hear from anyone who may be interested – it’s possible you may have some great people within your kindergarten parent communities! It says ‘early childhood experience is ideal’. They just want someone who wants to work in early childhood – experience not necessary, it’s all about attitude! Here’s the link to the job advertisement.
Farewell! Julie Crawley, Head Teacher at Cottle Kindergarten, is being farewelled this week after 25 years service with us. Good luck for the future, and read all about her farewell next week.
Congratulations to Camilla Yuen - Petone Kindergarten! Congratulations Camellia and Benny Introducing Miss Evie Rose Mei-Yee Yuen. Born early on 10 May at 3:43pm. 2.5kgs ~ tiny and perfect. 
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