New Leadership for Oxford Club Committee

by Emily Chapman

The Oxford Club recently held elections for their Committee. The Club is run by this committee of volunteers, and also a General Manager Donna Hughes and her team of staff.

Kyle Scott was elected President, and Lin Fagan Vice-President. While they realise they are taking these positions after what has been an extremely challenging time in hospitality, brought on initially by the Covid pandemic, they and management are focused on moving the Club forward.

Kyle says “The Oxford Club is an important part of the tapestry of the District, and we want to make sure it continues in the future”. The Club is rumoured to be one of the oldest of it’s type in the country, having been formed 136 years ago. Bringing with him years of experience with community organisations, including 8 years as President of the Hokitika Club, Kyle says it was with the encouragement of his wife Liz that he stood for President in this election. He says “I really want to acknowledge and thank my wife, who is an incredibly supportive woman”.

Kyle has also had a lot of experience in being involved in events, and enjoys the variety of events the Club offers. It comes as no surprise that he enjoys this, being a musician himself.

Lin joined the committee last year, and was pleased to be elected Vice-President this election. She has been a member of the Club for 9 years, and says “The Club was a real lifeline for me when my husband passed away”. She realised she would like some more social interaction, and joined both the Cards and Travel Sections of the Club. She has loved her involvement in both of these Sections, and these are just 2 of the twelve sections covering a wide range of interests that are offered at the Oxford Club. Lin met lots of different people through this and says “If I hadn’t stepped out and joined these groups - where would I be?”. When she got involved she was looking at where she could be most valuable, and one of the things she decided to work on was the Club Library.

Many people may not know that there is a Library, as it had become a bit of a storage area, but with a lot of hard work it was able to reopen at the beginning of the year.

Both Kyle and Lin would like to see a range of activities to appeal to everyone in the Community, with Lin saying “ I would really like to see it become a family venue in the weekends”. They are looking to embrace new and different things to encourage every demographic to make the Club their social hub, and for it to be a vibrant and welcoming venue for the Community.

The Committee are going through the process of strategic planning soon, and both Kyle and Lin reiterate that while these are challenging times, the momentum of this very proactive committee can move the Club forward. They can see that they will work well together, with their different skills complementing each other. There are already some exciting events planned for this year, including the Court Jesters, a Grease Tribute show and a Halloween event, and of course many regular events including the weekly quiz night.

The Club is also available as a venue for hire for your private event. Junior memberships are available for 12-18 year olds who are able to make use of the Club’s facilities, but are unable to purchase alcohol, or access the TAB or gaming rooms.

To see what is coming up at the Oxford Club - check out the ad on the opposite page. If you are a member, and not receiving emails from the Club, let them know on info@oxfordclub.co.nz as regular emails are sent out to members to keep everyone updated.

If Club members or members of the local community would like to contact Kyle regarding matters relating to the Club, they are welcome to contact him on 027 755 6581.

New members are always welcome, you can contact the office, or ask at the bar for an application. It is a great time to join the Oxford Club and help them secure their future for the district.

Mike Hart : Tumuaki|Principal

High-quality teaching and learning.

If you were to follow some media stories you would be led to believe that the Year 1-8 students in our country need to be taught the basics better. I can reassure you our teachers are doing a fantastic job teaching and adapting the curriculum for our students, with particular focus and priority on reading, writing, and mathematics.

If you walk into a Year 1-8 class, you will see our teachers doing just that. Reading, writing, and mathematics are priorities in the classroom. Our teaching staff can confidently identify where our students are up to in the curriculum using the developed learning progressions we share with whānau | families. Toward the end of last term, our evaluative partner from the Education Review Office visited our classrooms coming to the same conclusion.

Last term we presented to our School Trustees evidence of last year's progress.

The exciting news is:

2022

Year 1-10 Expected learning within a year

Reading 85% ( 48% of this group progressed with acceleatred learning)*

Writing 88% (53% of this group progressed with acceleatred learning)*

Maths 83% (55% of this group progressed with acceleatred learning)*

*ie student has progressed more than one year's worth of learning in one year

In 2022 NCEA, 94.4% (80.8% national average) of our Level 1 students achieved their Numeracy requirements and 96.3% (81.6% national average) achieved their Literacy requirements.

These excellent outcomes are a result of (to name but a few):

• powerful student, family, and teacher relationships

• high quality trained and qualified teachers

• responsive learning support

• a feeling of safety and wellbeing

• low student to teacher class ratios

We are very proud of our achievements from 2022 as we continue to grow together, learn together and shine together.

Ngā mihi | thank you,

Mike Hart

Tumuaki | Principal

It has been really exciting this year to welcome international students back to Oxford Area School. We have hosted students from Japan, Thailand and Germany and look forward to hosting a group from Shanghai in August. Would you like to be part of our team? We are looking to build our database of host families and especially encourage families with younger children to consider hosting.

If you are interested or have any questions please contact: Mary our International Homestay Coordinator homestay@oxford.school.nz

On Friday 19th May our school had our Pink Shirt Day. Pink Shirt Day is to help raise awareness for Bullying and to also show those being bullied that they have the support of the nation.

It was great to see so many people swapping out a uniform item for a Pink Shirt and some even coming to school in all pink. We raised a total of $242.40 and our bake sale raised a total of $417.30. Thank you to all of those who donated and showed their support.

Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu, Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora! Speak Up, Stand Together, Stop Bullying!

Oxford Area School was one of six schools that attended the Canterbury Area Schools Cultural and Sporting Festival (CASAfest) which was hosted by Rangiora New Life School from Monday 3 - Wednesday 5 April.

Over the course of 3 days, students participated in six rounds of activities. Students opted into a variety of different activities which included backyard cricket, handball, athletics pentathlon, technology and bouldering, bowls, CrossFit, hockey, theatre sports, a quiz plus many more traditional and non-traditional sports so lots of variety and lots of fun! On the Tuesday night, a 'bright and white' themed social was held in the gym.Based on placings across all of the activities, Oxford finished as the top school. Hurunui College received the Fair play cup.Thank you to the staff who assisted over the three days - Tara Egerton, Megan Lowen, Paula Christensen and Reese Kean. A special thanks goes to Nicky Stagg and Anita Stubbs who assisted with transport.

Deb Baggott

In May, the Year 9 students went on camp! We stayed at the Forest Lodge at Mt. Cheeseman in the Craigieburns and did a variety of activities testing our resilience and pushing our comfort zones.

by Jesse Moore

That's a wrap! What an amazing time we've had during our time performing 'HOOD'! We hope that everyone that came enjoyed it and had as much fun as we did putting on the show.

A show like this takes a village to run so I want to thank everyone that was involved in some way...

- To all the cast members, thank you for all your hard work and dedication to performing such a great show, you guys should be super super proud!

- To all the behind-the-scenes crew (the hair and makeup, the costumes, the lights, the set, the sound, the stage managers), thank you for committing time and effort to making the show the best it could be (even working right up to opening night!) www.facebook.com/oxfordarea http://www.oxford.school.nz/

- To the front of house crew (tickets, sales, programmes), you have made my job so much easier and having your friendly faces on the door made the experience top notch!

We left from school and first headed to the rocks at Castle Hill, we worked as a team to climb over obstacles, pushed our way through squeezes, and bouldered as we explored the beautiful natural environment. From there we headed over to the lodge at Mt. Cheeseman. Here we walked through the high-country wetlands and got our feet wet on our way and finally arrived at the lodge where the boys set up tents and girls settled into bunkrooms. That night the boys cooked on their cookers and bundled up for a cold night. The next morning we woke to fresh snow and flurries coming down. As the sun came out, we took off on a tramp which included on and off-track walking developing our map reading and navigation skills.

- To Miss Wallace, thanks for directing such an amazing, well-polished show; everyone can see the time and mahi that you have invested into the directing and choreographing of the show, and you too should be super proud of this final product.

Finally, thank you to everyone that came out and supported the show!

I'm super biased but I think we have an amazing Performing Arts department, and being able to showcase the great talent from Oxford Area School will always be a highlight for me, as I'm sure it is for you too!

When we returned to the lodge the girls pitched their tents and cooked on cookers before the boys joined them from the lodge for s’mores to celebrate all the Year 9’s hard work throughout camp. The final morning we had some tired campers, but they all managed to pack their gear and clean the lodge before heading out for the bus. We ended camp burning off our remaining energy running up a big hill before boarding the bus for school. Overall camp was a fantastic experience for all the students and staff involved and I cannot wait for the next one!