Otewa School

03/07/2026

What an honour to have Mayor Rodney at our Duffy and Badge assembly today! Such a special memory for our school. We are his first school visit as Mayor, pretty cool!

Thank you so much Rodney for coming along today and presenting our special awards and handing out our Duffy books. We know the kids will enjoy reading them these holidays.

It was amazing to have so many of our families joining us today as well. A fantastic end to the term.

We ended the day/term with reward time and snacks. Well deserved!!

Have the best holiday break everyone 😊

03/07/2026

Some cool artefacts and pieces of history!

Did you know that we have recorded all enrolments with their address and family details since 1934. So if you went to our school since then (including all recent enrolments) you are part of a piece of ongoing history.

We also found some signed Margaret Mahy books recently in our library. Now being kept behind glass to ensure longevity!

01/07/2026

One more fundraiser for the term! This one just requires you to do a spot of yummy shopping though. If you are a fan of Pepper & Me products you will love this one, if you don't know the brand then you will be a fan once you have tried them. I can highly recommend the Sanders Seasoning - it makes all homemade chips taste like KFC chips!!

They have so many yummy products though and make great gifts for friends and relatives. All you need to do is click on the link at the end of this post and get shopping. We then get 20% of all sales paid to the school. The fundraiser ends on the 26th of July.

Please share the link with everyone that you know!

Happy shopping!

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30/06/2026

Restarting the tradition of taking a whole school photo each year. Such a cool memory for our students, staff and families to look back on.

18/05/2026

The preliminary numbers are in.....and we have made a record (as far as we can find our records) fundraising amount for our Quiz Night. After taking off our expenses and the GST (really spoils the party that GST!) we have a net total of $13,500 (give or take) raised! This is an amazing result.

We cannot thank all of our sponsors enough! Without you all and your generous donations we could not have had such a successful evening. As a community, we ask that you repay the favour and support them as much as possible to help show our appreciation.

We also could not do it without all the people who come along on the night and buy raffle tickets and bid on auctions. Your generosity really adds up and we really appreciate you!

The night also hinges on people giving their time, effort, equipment and skills! So thank you Porky for your MC skills! You had that crowd under great control. To Peter Wylie our fabulous auctioneer, thank you for encouraging every last bid out of the crowd! To the team that helped put the whole thing together, Sam, Ange and Lana - what a night! All your efforts behind the scenes leading up to it really paid off! To Jen and Kevin who donated the use of their speakers to ensure everyone could hear, thank you! To the wonderful helpers at the end who set up, and Georgia and James who came in and cleaned over the weekend, that was such a load off. And lastly to all our wonderful staff who gave up their Friday nights to help ensure everything ran so smoothly - you are amazing!!

We can't wait to do it all again next year!!

11/05/2026

We have had some great news over the past couple of weeks with regards to Grants that we have applied for through the Ōtorohanga District Council.

We applied for a Sports one to install new basketball hoops on the courts across the road. We were successful in that! So watch this space for new hoops with proper backboards and adjustable heights. These will be amazing, both for our students and those who train for Miniball. As well as community use.

We also applied for the Rural Sports Travel Fund again and were successful in that. So I will purchase petrol vouchers and distribute those to all those families with children playing Soccer this year. It will do a wee bit to help those travel costs of getting to Te Kuiti each week.

And lastly, we applied for the Arts Grant to cover the costs of repainting our block wall that sits at the top of the driveway. So over the next few weeks we will get input from our students as to what they would like to see on there and with the help of Ashleigh they will start to paint it.

We are so grateful to the Council for making these grants available so we can improve our school environment and provide resources for our students and local community!

Send a message to learn more

23/04/2026

Last year we were approached by Remko at The Remiano Charitable Trust to ask if we would paint a piano that then gets put back into the community to be played and admired. We jumped at the chance and once it was delivered Ashleigh was kind and talented enough to lead the project! She designed what was going to go on the piano, and with the help of the children put together this masterpiece!

It carries everyone’s fingerprint along the top!

It was picked up today and is headed to Auckland to be part of a display for a few weeks. It will then be placed in either our community or somewhere else in the Waikato to be enjoyed by all! We will keep you posted on its final placement. How cool though to have it represent our kura!

Thanks Ashleigh and all our students and staff who helped achieve the final design! So beautiful!

01/04/2026

As we end the term I am excited to share the results of our Easter raffle with everyone.

We asked our 3 House Leaders and 3 newest students to draw out the winners (sadly none of them were me!!) and they weren't allowed to look!

The 6 lucky winners were - Mike Ferrier, Susie Woodward, Monique Roberts, Mariesja, Kylie Pereira and Quinn Lautenbach. Congratulations to you all!

We raised an amazing $2219! Such a huge amount for our raffle. Thank you to everyone for supplying treats to go into the raffle packs. We were able to give out 6 fantastic prize packs! Also, to everyone who sold tickets, thank you so much! It was a huge team effort!

The winner of the most raffle books sold is…the Cruickshank family. They sold 25 raffle books! We will get your prize to you soon.

To our winners, enjoy your Easter treats!

31/03/2026

Today Isaac brought in his drone so we could take some photos. We ended up with a cool shot of the kids lying down in the shape of our school name! Thanks, Isaac! We have doubled his pay!