School Start First Impressions - a family vision

School

Start First Impressions Marlborough works to reduce the impact of poverty on the education of Marlborough children. The charitable organisation has identified that a child’s fifth birthday and entry to school presents an impossible challenge to Marlborough families in a financial crisis. With school returning Chris Valli spoke to the ladies behind making a social and educational difference for those in need.

You know there is an uncanny dynamic or sense of knowing one another when one finishes off one’s sentence. Or when the daughter laughs like her auntie or should that be when the mother laughs like the sister?

Cue Margaret Smith, Michelle Munro and Brenda Munro.

School Start First Impressions

Marlborough is a registered charity governed by three trustees who represent sixth and seventh generations of a local Marlborough family. The trustees are supported by a group of dedicated volunteers who assist in the operation.

Chairperson Michelle is a mother, photographer and ‘active local’. Margaret knows a thing or three about the inequity of education after a lifetime of moulding, nurturing young tamariki as a teacher. Then there’s Brenda - Mum, sister, who knows her way around an Excel sheet and administration 101 and then some. The attention to detail if you will.

Michelle says the idea of implementing such an organisation in Marlborough came about when she came across a link on Facebook. In 2019 School Start First Impressions delivered their 1000th ‘5 Kitbox’ (includes school uniform or essential school clothing, school bag, lunchbox, drink bottle) in Auckland and were featured in an article on TV1’s Seven Sharp.

“I shared the link on my own Facebook page and commented I would love to do something like that, helping kids, if only I had the resources,” she says.

“A few weeks later I attended a birthday dinner with Mum (Brenda) for Margaret (auntie) and they said, ‘we’ll do it with you’. Mum said, ‘don’t wait for resources’.”

Founded by the Addenbrooke Foundation in 2015, the initiative was originally developed in Auckland and continues to operate there under the name School Start First Impressions.

“Even before Covid we did research and approached social agencies and schools if there was a need”

Michelle says dialogue with the Auckland family who started the charity was immediate and within the timeframe of a month they had flown down to Blenheim to discuss the finer points of a Marlborough equivalent at Giesen’s Wines. SSFIM was initiated.

Covid provided some challenges with Marlburians adjusting to life from home from late March and new territory with lockdown. However, Michelle says the time was used wisely to set up websites and administrative tasks and developing contacts and relationships. SSFIM officially launched in July 2020 with their first ‘5 Kitbox’ being delivered.

“Even before Covid we did re - search and approached social agencies and schools if there was a need,” Margaret says. “We asked questions like what the percentages were nationally for children ‘in need’ and how that translated to numbers in Marlborough. It was important we were and looked professional especially when it came to asking for money.”

Margaret says 2022 statistics show that 20% or one in five of New Zealand primary students are starting school for the first time in ‘hardship’.

“Brenda went online and found data that suggested 600 new entrant students in the region were starting school, and so we estimated approximately 20% (120 new entrants) are in need of basic requirements like uniforms and books each year,” Margaret says.

Brenda says working alongside referral agencies like the Marlborough Pacific Trust has allowed conversations and communication to be established between SSFIM and respective primary schools throughout the Marlborough region.

“It’s too late for the schools to do it (develop communication and or transition from home to school) because in effect they don’t know who is coming,” says Margaret. “The schools are at the end of the system or chain.”

“Working with these referral agencies we are giving the families the chance or opportunity to start the e nrolment p rocess, say one month from their fifth birthday. As a new entrant teacher, there is one thing that makes a child stand out (from an equity viewpoint) and that is they start school late and they don’t have the transition to school.”

Before Christmas, a giving tree was placed at the entrance to Stadium 2000. Michelle says they were humbled and grateful for the huge effort put in by the Marlborough community with the donations received estimating $4500 worth of goods to continue support Marlborough children in need starting school.

As trustees and as a collective they all believe the best thing about what they are doing is that they are making a difference and one that hasn’t finished yet.

“It’s he art-warming wh en new entrants can start on a level playing field and potentially change the whole future dynamic for these children. If they start school knowing, believing they are worthy, important and equal they w ill start to learn immediately.

“We had a teacher and RTLB (resource teacher learning and behaviour) student starting school recently who said, ‘it was so awesome to walk in the school gate with my full school uniform,” says Margaret.

“A FULL SCHOOL UNIFORM”, adds Brenda.

There goes that uncanny sense of finishing off each other’s sentences and knowing one another once again.

KAI STUCK: Picton resident Donna O’Donnell sent The Sun Newspaper the above pictures last week of her Fox Terrier ‘Kai’ stuck 12 metres in a 14 metre high Macrocarpa shelter belt at her sister’s property. Donna says they had to eventually call the fire brigade who were all well entertained by his predicament. “What a day that was,” says Donna.