Kaurihohore School Week Seven, Term Three 2025
Manaaki te katoa - be kind to all.
Respect - Empathy - Kindness
He aroha whakatō, he aroha ka puta mai
“If kindness is sown, then kindness is what you shall receive”
Kia ora e te whānau,
It is hard to believe that there are only four weeks left of this term. This term has been one of mixed attendance, with children sick and away on holidays during term time.
Regular attendance is crucial, not only for academic progress, but for social and emotional development. Unless your child has an attendance plan in place to cater for their needs, they should be at school every day, unless they are sick.
Teachers find it really difficult to catch children up, or achieve any consistency in their teaching programme when they don’t have their whole class at school each day. Some classes this term have only had the whole class present one or two days this term. The graphic below shows where our attendance rates for this term sit so far. If a child is having ten days off a term, that is two weeks of teaching they are missing, if this happens every term, that adds up to almost a full term off school.
The covid response did have a negative impact on school attendance, as a school we have seen a 10% drop on average of regular attendance each term. We need to get back to a point where going to school is prioritised. He waka eke noa, we are all in this together.
We also have quite a few children who arrive late to school, or are being picked up early on a routine basis. Unless this is part of your child’s attendance plan, please ensure they are here before the bell and not picked up early unless they have an appointment that can not be avoided. Along with this we also have a rise in the number of children having an appointment in the morning and having the whole day off school. If a child has an appointment during the morning, please return them to school.
We thank you for your support in helping us to ensure that our children are all at school regularly and achieving the best start they can to their schooling journey.
Leslee Allen
School Disco
A massive thank you to Maria Benson for making the school disco happen. We are very grateful for your efforts! I also want to thank all of the extra helpers we had this year, many hands do really make light work. This year we raised $2015.50 towards providing learning support in our school, what a great effort!
The school disco is a whānau run event, with staff providing supervision on the night. If you think this is something you would be able to take on, or perhaps a small group of you would be able to take on, have a chat with Dianne in the office. Maria will also be able to let you know what is involved.
Getting Ready For Halloween - 31/10/25
This event is coming up fast and we really need your help to make this fundraiser happen. This is a massive event for us and it can’t just fall on the shoulders of a few. Please have a look through and pop your name in an area you are able to help with.
Kaurihohore Halloween 2025 helpers
Please have a look at what your child’s class has been allocated and get involved. We need at least three families from each class to pop their names down for set up or pack up please.
*If you have students from multiple classrooms, please select one class and support them.
Room 1
$ or Baking
Room 2
$ or Baking
Room 3
$/ or Baking
Room 4
Juice box/Fizzy
Room 5
Juice box/Fizzy
Room 6
Juice box/Fizzy
Room 7
$ or wrapped candy
Room 8
$ or wrapped candy
Room 9
$ or wrapped candy
Donations can be made via Kindo, online transfer or cash to the office.
Items can be dropped into the class teacher.
Maths
No doubt, you would have heard that the government has put in place what they call ‘structured maths.’ As a school we have been working hard on our math teaching over the past few years as it has been one of our strategic goals. This year, Year 4 - 6 started teaching from an approach called Math No Problem. The benefit of this for us as a school is that there is a consistency of what is taught and how it is taught across classrooms. We hope that this, along with ongoing professional development will go a long way to ensuring all of our children achieve well in mathematics.
In the junior school we have been teaching from a scope and sequence since 2021 and continue to refine our practice. Our aim is to ensure our Year 1 - 3 children have great foundations in number.
Reading at Home
Helping with reading at home is so important, you can really assist your child’s progress by listening to them read. Setting aside 5-10 minutes a day where you can listen to them and help them where needed, will not only help their progress, but the time spent with you will also be a time your child values.
Reading books to your child is something else that is really important, sadly, books seem to have been replaced by youtube. Creating a night time ritual, where you read a chapter book or picture book to your child, will not only help their language development, but again, it will be a cherished time that they look forward to.
Please remember, that reading is not a race to get through to the harder stages, time spent building fluency (good accuracy and at a good pace) is very important. When your child brings a book home, we don’t want them to be stumbling over every word, if this happens, take turns reading, you read that section first, then they re-read that same section. Re-reading the same books is also really useful to build fluency. We want children to feel successful.
Social Media and Gaming Concerns
We are really concerned about the amount of our children having unfiltered access to social media, like tiktok, snapchat and instagram. Not only is there an age restriction on these platforms, but they are really not appropriate for our children. Children run the risk of coming across inappropriate content, people who lie about their identity and are immersed in a comparison culture, where they compare how they look to others. We need to prioritise their childhood and keep them away from these platforms as long as we can. Gaming is also a major concern, with children talking about games they are playing that have age restrictions. Roblox and platforms such as this are well known for online predators. Rather than putting a device in your child’s hand, let them play, there is nothing wrong with being bored, in fact, that is when the creativity happens.
Strategic Planning 2026-2028
Thank you to everyone that input ideas on our recent survey towards our strategic plan. The next step will involve gathering voice from the children and looking closely at our data in core learning areas. We will then share the final goals that will make up our strategic plan towards the end of the year. I did share a document summarising the key areas of thought from the survey, thank you to those that read this and provided further input.
While this initial process has completed, the school board will again be seeking your input into the future direction for property maintenance and development in the school. Currently in this area we have a planned project to convert the Rūma Kāhu toilets into a resource storage area and a room where children can take sensory breaks. We are also working on getting quotes to upgrade/maintain the top playground and to create a junior sandpit adjacent to the Matariki garden. Both these projects will have to be funded by grants as the Ministry of Education does not fund playgrounds.
Places For 2026
We currently have new entrant, year 2 and year 4 positions for 2026. If you know of anyone considering changing schools, moving into our area, or enrolling their new entrant they can email kaurienrolments@gmail.com for more information.
If you know of anyone who is in our zone, with a child who will be starting school next year, please make sure they have been in contact. This helps us greatly as it determines how many out of zone places we can offer.
Pizza Day
The next pizza lunch is the 4th of September. You can order through KINDO, look out on facebook or seesaw for information on ordering. Orders close on Sunday the 31st.
Ag and Flower Day - 10th October
This will be held in the first week back of next term and it is time to register animals. Please see
Dianne to register your calf, lamb or goat for this day. More information will come home soon about this day.
Fundraising
Our target this year is to raise $40 000 to cover learning support needs. This learning support serves to ensure we have people on the ground outside of classroom teachers that can give our children the support they need, when they need it. Unfortunately this is not currently funded by the Government.
Total raised in Term 1 was- $5281.20.
In Term 2 we raised:
Winter sports food - $1027.05
Community hall food selling - $445
Pizza lunch - $2218.22
Sponsored run - $9311.49 (profit after the purchase of the prizes and administration fee)
Total so far - $18,282.96 (Term one and two)
Term 3 so far
Disco - $2015.60
Term 3 Fundraisers-
Chocolates
We will continue to sell these towards our fundraising target during Term 3 and 4.
Pizza Lunch
The next pizza lunch is the 4th of September. You can order through KINDO, look out on facebook or seesaw for information on ordering.
Halloween
To be held on the 31st of October
Come Scare With Me
Interested in being a scarer on the day? I would love your help. From 4pm - 5.30pm we will be running ‘kid friendly scaring’ . This is a great time for older children or teenagers to help out who would like to add a bit of atmosphere by dressing up as fairy tale characters and interacting with our visitors. From 5.30pm onwards it will be big kid friendly. This is when we will need to bring our ‘expert’ scarers out, the more scarers we can have wandering around adding to the atmosphere, the better the night will be. Please contact me (Leslee) if you would like to join my scaring team and are able to be on scaring duty from 5.30pm - 7.30pm.
Dates for 2026
First day back 3rd February. Last day of the school year 15th December
Contacting Us
You can find all staff emails on our blog page under the tab ‘our staff,’ however the best way to contact your child’s teacher is via seesaw message. Teachers will endeavour to answer when they have time during the day, however please don’t expect replies to messages or emails after 5pm. We will respond the next day as soon as we can. Please refrain from using Facebook messenger, or our personal phone numbers to contact us.
Our school blog is kaurihohoreschool.blogspot.com
Office emails are:
Shelley- admin@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz
Dianne - reception@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz
Chelsea/Enrolments - kaurienrolments@gmail.com
Leslee - principal@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz
Reporting Absence - kauriabsences@gmail.com
If you have questions or concerns, please direct these to your child’s teacher as soon as you can, so we can nip anything in the bud before it becomes a bigger issue.
KINDO
Kindo is an app that allows online payments for items at school like pizza days etc. If you go to the links below to either create an account, or log in. These links are also at the top of our school blog site.
Create and account.
https://shop.tgcl.co.nz/shop/flow_join.shtml
Log in
https://shop.tgcl.co.nz/shop/index.html
Term Three
9th September - NED Show
12th September - Empty Classroom Day
19th September - Last Day of Term
Term Four
6th October - First Day Back
10th October - Ag and Flower Day
31st October - Halloween Event
12th November - Year 3 - 6 Athletics
Last day of the year - 16th of December 12pm finish
2026 Dates - 3rd February to the 15th December
School Bank Account Details -
Account 12-3093-0200709-00
Kaurihohore school board of Trustees
