Nau mai, haere mai - Welcome!  Starting school is an exciting time and an important milestone in your child’s life and maybe also your life – particularly if this is your first child to come to school.

The staff at Māngere East Primary School welcome you and your whānau.   We look forward to working with you and your tamariki to make the transition from preschool or a different school to our school a positive experience.  

At Māngere East Primary School we have an open door policy and see communication between home and school as a very important part of your child’s learning.  If you have any questions, please come and see us so we can discuss these. 

The key people you will be in contact with initially are:

• Ange Koia - Receptionist.  She will contact you when she receives your online enrolment form to organise a time for an enrolment interview.

• Rudi Easthouse - Assistant Principal.  He will meet with you and your child to start our home-school partnership.

• Charmainne Tolich - Learning Support Coordinator.  She might meet with you instead of or as well as Mr Eastshouse.  She will also help you get started with Te Ara Hāpai - our home-school learning programme.

If your child is starting in one of our Bilingual Programmes, the you will meet with one of the leaders below.

• Te Rauhī Brown - Rōpū Leader for Te Poho o Rāwhiti, our Māori Bilingual Programme (Years 1-6).

• Malo Sepuloni - Team Leader for O Lou Ala i Malo, our Samoan Bilingual Programme (Years 1-8).

• Sela Afungia - Assistant Principal, and leader of our Tongan Bilingual Programme (Year 0-2)

If this is your first child at school often it is new for you as a parent as well as so much has changed perhaps since you were last a student. Some children are comfortable and gain confidence quickly while it is natural for some to take a little longer to settle into school life. 

We recognise that children bring many different skills and experiences to school with them so along with the literacy and numeracy skills that are focused on in the first year, we encourage the children to begin to develop the key competencies through our school programmes. These are the skills identified in the New Zealand Curriculum that they will need to be successful life-long learners. Thinking, Relating to Others, Using Language, Symbols, and Texts, Managing self, Participating and Contributing.