School grant for ICT

An extra $3000 will be put to good use at David Henry School.

The Tokoroa school was one of two in the Waikato to receive funding from the Mazda Foundation in the first round of grants for 2015.

The money has fully sponsored the purchase of licences for Reading Eggs and Mathletics.

The school is decile 1 and located in a low socioeconomic area, but Principal Fiona Gott said all children should have access to the best possible resources to improve their education.

‘‘Our mission statement is ‘Educate Today for Tomorrow’ and we believe teaching through ICT is vital to prepare our students for the future.

‘‘Currently a number of our children are achieving below national standards so our focus for the coming year is to continue to lift reading and math levels. We anticipate these programmes, made possible by the Mazda Foundation, will help us achieve this.’’

She said the school has been running Reading Eggs for four years now, but has never had it fully sponsored.

The school was able to purchase 10 new laptops with the money that was originally set aside for information technology.

‘‘It means you can just jiggle things around a bit more,’’ Gott said.

The school is also on a high after receiving $2000 from the Endeavour Community Foundation. The money will go towards the school camp paying for accommodation and transport.

‘‘It just supports the families,’’ Gott said.

She said David Henry School would not be alone in having to rely on external funding for those niceties.

‘‘ It’s like Christmas.’’

extra

gifts

for Mazda Foundation The Mazda Foundation is funded through a contribution from the sale of every new Mazda in New Zealand. This round has seen more than $80,000 donated to 28 individuals and groups.

The Foundation has gifted over $ 1.7million back to the community since its inception. Three funding rounds are held each year, selecting New Zealanders, community groups and charities in need of support.

The closing date for the next round of Mazda Foundation applications is 30 June 2015. Endeavour Foundation The Endeavour Community Foundation has invested more than $100,000 in the South Waikato community this year.

Every month the organisation, which gets its funds through gambling, hands out grants to different not for profit bodies, in seven areas where the foundation has gambling venues, such as Tokoroa’s Retox Bar.