Kaurihohore School Week Seven, Term Four 2025
Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua," Let our past guide our future
Manaaki te katoa - be kind to all.
Respect - Empathy - Kindness
Kia ora e te whānau,
We’ve had a busy couple of weeks here at school, with teachers working hard to get reporting comments out to you via seesaw and to fill in end of year reports.
It was disappointing that we could not go ahead with the athletics day, but the teachers worked hard to ensure the Year 5 and 6 events were completed so that a group could go to Glenbervie yesterday. We know it is disappointing when you do not get an opportunity to watch your child, but while we wish we could control the weather, it is very much out of our control.
We will find another date for the Year 3 - 4 events and the Year 1-2 events and let you know as soon as we can. As I am sure you can understand, the calendar is pretty packed at this time of year.
I wanted to make a special mention of all our fabulous sponsors for our Christmas raffle. Thank you so much for the support you show our school.
We may be on the downhill slide towards the holidays, but here at school there is still a lot of work to do. Classes are busy going over crucial learning, particularly in literacy and numeracy amongst all of the other business at the end of the year. Please ensure children are still coming to school each day, attendance remains very important.
Leslee Allen
Behaviour
At this time of the year, children’s behaviour can slip. We understand behaviour is a form of communication and negative behaviour can be communicating many things. This might be tiredness, overwhelm due to the business of end of year events, the excitement at changing classes, or even the excitement at moving to Intermediate. Like us, children get tired, their ability to regulate decreases and like us, they become much more likely to react to small triggers.
Please talk to your child about continuing to make good choices, continuing to show manaakitanga and aroha towards others and continuing to show respect to those around them. Encourage them to take time out in Te Kōhanga when they need it, or simply walk away from situations that are overwhelming them.
While we don’t have school rules, we do have habits that we like children to adopt to be a positive citizen of our school, and understand that our actions have an impact on others.
We have noticed over the last five years a real decline in basic manners, emotional and social skills, this of course impacts inside and outside of the classroom. Rather than accepting this, we want to play our role in turning this around.
As a staff, we sat down and wrote a list of minimum expectations that we expect from all of our children, of course taking into account their developmental stage and any other needs (an acknowledgement of a greeting, the way I listen, or say please and thank you etc, may be different for some children and that is ok and accepted here.)
We then shared these with children and asked for their input (remarkably these were very similar to ours.)
The list below is what we have settled on for now, under the headings of respect, ready and safe. We will be using these as a foundation for conversations in class next year, with the aim to have all children work together to set a positive tone for our school.
You might like to go over them with your child because the more we practice a habit the more natural it will become.
This of course does not replace all of the other things we do, but adds to our kete as we strive to create a place of belonging and safety for all of our ākonga.
Obviously these are minimum expectations, we will be making sure to recognise those that go above and beyond these on a daily basis.
Class Swaps
Today, the 25th of November and the 2nd of December, we will be running class swaps. The idea of these is to dispel any unease children may be feeling about changing classes and allow teachers to begin to build strong relationships with the children they will have next year.
While some schools will wait until the end of the year to put our class lists or even wait till the first day back, we don’t feel this approach is affirming to the needs of our children and hence prefer to follow this process.
We understand that some children will be expecting to be in a certain class and may be disappointed. We want to reassure you that we have put a LOT of thought into these classes and started this process during Term 3. We usually find that by the end of the third visit, they are feeling much more positive about the change.
Having three visits, allows children to feel more confident and settled about where they will be going next year.
All of our teachers are amazing, we all have our own strengths and children’s perception of us as teachers when they are not in our class, is often not the reality. They are often very attached to the teacher they are leaving and worried about the change. We thank you for supporting them through this process and understanding that change is ok and in fact a very positive process.
Those children not returning to us, will be supervised for a swim during class swap time.
Reporting
Teachers are currently busy working on reports. Via seesaw you will receive reports in English and Maths and at the end of the term you will receive a general report.
It is really important that you are aware of the changes in curriculum, in particular reading, writing and maths. We were given new curriculums to work with this year, on the understanding that these were confirmed. As we told you last year, the bar that these curriculums set in English and Maths were already far higher than before. A matter of weeks ago, without any warning, the MOE then released new updated curriculums in English and Maths. These amended curriculums had significant changes that again raised the bar even higher for our children. That means we have had three changes to our English and Maths curriculums over the last two years.
While we are absolutely not against having high expectations for achievement, we want you to be aware that for a child to meet expectations for their year level, the bar is set high and it may be that your child is marked as progressing towards or needing support.
As a staff, we agreed to continue reporting against the curriculum expectations we used at the beginning of the year to report on and will adopt the changes next year.
You will see four indicators at the top of the report, as you did in term one. Exceeding and Proficient both mean that your child has met year level expectations, or slightly exceeded current year level expectations. Progressing towards and needs support are both indicators that mean your child has not yet met expectations for their year level.
Next year, the MOE has added indicators to be used.
Please understand, we are doing the best we can in what is a very changeable landscape in education right now. Many of these changes, we hear about at the same time as you. We will continue to do our best to report accurately to you.
For children moving to Intermediate, this will also mean the Intermediate is working with the newest iteration of the curriculum, so expectations from 2025, will be different in 2026.
Swimming
Please ensure that children have their togs at school on their allocated swimming days. Swimming is part of the curriculum and it is expected that all children swim unless they have a reason they should not be swimming.
Hats
In Term 1 and 4, the expectation is that all children will wear hats when outside. Hats must have a full brim or a flap at the back. We recommend having a school hat that gets left in your child’s bag. If children do not have a hat, they will have to play in the courtyard area of the school. Please support us by ensuring your child knows the importance of wearing a hat.
Out of Zone Positions
Positions for new entrant children for 2026 have now all been filled. However, we still have positions available for other year levels in the school, particularly year 2 and 4 for 2026. If you know of anyone thinking of enrolling, tell them to get in touch with us. If you know of anyone moving into our zone, encourage them to get in touch as soon as possible. All of this information helps us in the confirmation of classes for 2026.
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: $13 001.76
In Term 3 - $9803.80
Total so far - $28 086.76 (Term one two and three)
Term 4 Fundraisers-
Halloween - we do not yet have a final total, but will let you know as soon as we do.
Christmas Raffle - raffle tickets have come home with your children. This raffle is simply awesome, with so many awesome prizes on offer.
Cookie time cookies - raised $885 in total!
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 Four
19th November - Class swap #1
25th November - Class swap #2
2nd December - Class swap #3
4th December - End of Term Awards 2.00pm - whole school
10th December - Junior Prizegiving 1.30pm (Year 1 - 3)
11th December - Senior Prizegiving 1.30pm (Year 4 - 6)
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
Food for thought…
Learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, learning to live together.
