2316 days ago

Hamilton Christian School Integration

Jamie Neighbourly Lead from Chartwell

I'm excited to let you know that state integration has been confirmed for Hamilton Christian School. This has been a long journey for the school, and will provide opportunity for lower fees, increased roll growth, and stronger support from the Ministry of Education.

The following message is from Principal Shaun Brooker:

Kia ora whānau. It is with great excitement that I let you know I received a phone call from our Labour MP Jamie Strange, to let me know the Minister of Education has now signed our integration deed.

This signals the realisation of Hamilton Christian School becoming an Integrated school from the beginning of 2020. This is the most important step in the school becoming integrated. There are now some finer details that we will work through with the Ministry of Education.

One of those details is the Attendance Dues that we will need to charge for the coming year. While we are very excited that the school will become much more affordable for families we are still required to fund two aspects of the school. One is the buildings as we can now begin some significant building projects for more classrooms and a gymnasium. The second aspect of the school which is not funded by the MoE is our special character. For each of these we need to collect funds from parents, however, in return for the MoE not paying for these the MoE allows us to support our special character as we chose.

To fund the above Hamilton Christian School will charge parents Attendance Dues and Special Character Donation. While we do not have the final amount for these the overall total for these is expected to be approximately one-third of the current costs. For your planning we expect this to be between $1800 and $2400.

Please understand that the benefits of integration go well beyond just the money side of things. We will now have access to more Ministry resources for our students including ESOL support, learning support and behaviour support. We will also be able to access a number of Ministry funded initiatives for our NCEA students particularly in areas of the trades and alternative education.

This is a fantastic day for Hamilton Christian School. Thank you for your prayers and patience through this process.

To God be the Glory.

Shaun

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5 hours ago

Some Choice News!

Kia pai from Sharing the Good Stuff

DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.

Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.

For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.

Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?

We hope this brings a smile!

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5 days ago

Poll: 🤖 What skills do you think give a CV the ultimate edge in a robot-filled workplace?

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

The Reserve Bank has shared some pretty blunt advice: there’s no such thing as a “safe” job anymore 🛟😑

Robots are stepping into repetitive roles in factories, plants and warehouses. AI is taking care of the admin tasks that once filled many mid-level office jobs.

We want to know: As the world evolves, what skills do you think give a CV the ultimate edge in a robot-filled workplace?

Want to read more? The Press has you covered!

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🤖 What skills do you think give a CV the ultimate edge in a robot-filled workplace?
  • 52.6% Human-centred experience and communication
    52.6% Complete
  • 14.7% Critical thinking
    14.7% Complete
  • 29.9% Resilience and adaptability
    29.9% Complete
  • 2.7% Other - I will share below!
    2.7% Complete
551 votes
20 hours ago

Share your favourite main crop potato recipe and win a copy of our mag!

William Hansby Reporter from NZ Gardener & Get Growing

Love potatoes? We will give away free copies of the May 2026 issue to readers whose potato recipes are used in our magazine. To be in the running, make sure you email your family's favourite way to enjoy potatoes: mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz, by March 1, 2026.

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