Welcome Back - from David Bach - Room 6 Teacher 2013

Welcome to the Official Class Blog of Room 6, St Mary's Catholic School Rotorua. 
In 2013 I intend to make this blog the home page for communication with parents and caregivers about what is happening in Room 6 and around the school generally. With words and photos we can also celebrate the children's learning and discuss special trips and visits that we may undertake. Hopefully we can get the children blogging away with their own posts as the year progresses.

I will write a letter at some stage soon, for all parents and caregivers, introducing myself and my teaching philosophy. I will post the letter here and send a hard copy home with the children.

To get a response the same day, the best way to contact me is through my school email address, which is:
david@stmarys.rotorua.school.nz     - note no b after the David as it was once recorded.
For truly urgent matters I am happy for you to contact me through my cellphone, please come and see me to receive my mobile phone number.
And of course I have an open door policy so you can come and see me in person at any time for urgent matters, otherwise after school from Wednesday onwards are the best times to come in - or email me for a meeting time. Mornings are usually a very busy time, so please try to avoid them except for urgent or quick matters.

As you can see from the photo above I have a family of my own. Contrary to a popular myth that circulated around the school for awhile I am not French, but my wife Betty is French, my children are bilingual and  I speak (mostly) fluent French.
I have been a keen fly fisherman all my life but I have recently discovered kayak trout fishing and am now able to combine exercise with my favourite activity.

This is my second year teaching in the middle school and I can honestly say I am looking forward to returning to teach children of this age again, hopefully all keen and ready to progress with their learning in 2013.

 Room 6 had a simply awesome first day of school for 2013. The temperature wasn't too hot today.

 I must say that Room 6 are looking like a fantastic bunch of eager learners, ready to make excellent progress. I suspect that they are all keen readers too - or they will be soon with Mr. Bach's enthusiasm for reading.

Today we learnt that the best way to become a better learner is to improve our self management. We learnt that it is up to us to look after our own lives and take responsibility for our own behaviour and actions.