This Week

Couple of reminders....this week Outdoor Classroom day is on Thursday 17th of May. Children need a change of clothes (or even two) a towel and a couple of plastic bags, or reusable bags would also be valuable for dirty clothes storage. They will need clothes they can play outside in if it is cold...jumpers and rain jackets are a great idea. If it is light rain we will go ahead, if the weather is really bad, we will postpone. Just as the name suggest, children will spend the day outside playing. Adults are all welcome to come along and play during the day, supervised pre-schoolers also welcome. Children may bring along to school anything they think they may need for the day (I know many will have been planning an outdoor project.)

Also...this Friday the 18th of May is Pink Shirt Day. We urge you to assist children to wear anything pink, a touch of pink, or head to toe pinkness is up to them. Gold coin donation from everyone please, money raised will go towards supporting victims of bullying. This is an issue close to all of our hearts and we would love to see everyone get in behind a great cause!

Health Survey Results

Thank you to those that filled in our recent Health survey that was circulated
at our whånau evening.  The staff and BOT appreciate your responses.

It was great to have such positive feedback about our focus on kindness and
empathy, you can be rest assured that this will continue to be important to us
and an integral part of Kaurihohore school.

From our survey the areas identified in order of importance were:

1.Understanding bullying and being an upstander

2.Kindness and empathy

3.Keeping myself safe (police programme)

4.Body care and physical safety

5.Eating for good health

6.Water Safety

7.Sun Safety

8.Road Safety

9.Mental Health

10.Building relationships

11.Safety at home

12.Mindset

13. Fire safety

14.Coping with anxiety

15.Sexuality education (puberty, understanding my body)

16.Drug and Alcohol awareness

17. Coping with grief and loss

18.Finding out about helping agencies

Obviously many of the areas crossover and can be grouped together.  
Some items like kindness, mindset, empathy, eating well, understanding bullying,
sun safety, having healthy friendships (relationships) are covered regularly, often on a
daily basis and are delivered as and when needed.  Water safety is taught in Term 1 and 4
through our swimming programme.
Many of the aspects of body awareness, physical safety, and keeping ourselves safe are
delivered to all classes every second year through a recognised police programme.  

All of these areas are always pitched to the level of the children and are age appropriate.  

Puberty is taught to Year 6 children. Drugs and alcohol awareness is not something
that is taught at a primary level, but is taught at an intermediate level,
so is still in the primary curriculum.  This would only be covered if the need arose and any
need to do so would be clearly communicated to parents.

In many instances we are responsive to need.  Classes will focus on a certain area of Health
if a need arises.  Thank you to those that commented on our abilities to do this.

Capturing the Essence or Signature of our Place

https://docs.google.com/document/d/161qOf-24eZ1sVMFocZm4PbNIxWjOqgWp4XEJMRcfVwI/edit?usp=sharing

What is the essence of Kaurihohore?

This year as part of our curriculum review process we are exploring how
we can deepen and consolidate our understanding around the culture of our school.  
Through this we are particularly focusing on values, competencies and principles
that are important to us. We believe competencies and principles identified as important
in Måori culture offer a valuable lens for us to really look at what makes our school special.  
Particularly the values of:

• Whanaungatanga (belonging)
• Manaakitanga (respect, empathy, extending kindness)
• Wånanga (communication, problem solving, innovation)
• Tuakana/Teina (older/younger relationships)
• Kaitiakitanga (guardianship of our natural resources)
• Aroha (love and kindness)
• Hiringa (perseverance and determination)Kotahitanga (oneness, togetherness)

• Mohiotanga (sharing of information, knowledge and understanding)

• Wairua (wellbeing and connectedness)

We would really like is to decide on a Maori proverb/Whakataukī that captures the
essence of our school.  We have been given a couple of ideas but want to ensure that
whatever we decide really captures what our school community believes us to be.  
We want our community to have ownership over what is decided upon.

To do this we want your input.  We will also be asking for the input of the children and
teaching staff as part of the process.  

Once we have this Whakatauki we will be ensuring it takes pride of place in and
around our school and will be celebrating its inclusion into our school in a more formal way.  
(if you would like to help with this, please let us know.)

So far in english our school motto or values statement is:

“Enthusiasm and values for life through learning”

With the pillars or framework that makes the strong foundation of our school being
“Learning to be, Learning it do, Learning to learn, Learning to live together.”  
The values listed above fit beautifully within this framework and add a more specific focus to
what these statements actually mean.

The Whakataukī will sit alongside these statements or intentions, and will
capture who we are and what we want for our children.

This is where we would like your input.  We would appreciate if below this blurb,
you could write words that you think encapsulate who we are and what we want for our children.
 If someone else has added a word that you would also like to tautoko (agree with)
simply put an asterisk next to it.  These words can encapsulate things we do, values and
dispositions we encourage, or specific ways of learning (anything goes really as long as it is positive.)

From there Jo Kake will seek support from knowledgeable others to find a whakatauki that
captures these words as best we can.  If you would like to assist with this please contact
Jo or I directly. Leslee (principal@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz) or Jo (rm6kauri@gmail.com) or
alternatively, just add your name below indicating you would like further input into this.  
We would really appreciate your help and support with this.

We will also be sending this home in hard copy if you are having difficulty accessing the doc.

Please click on the link at the top of the post to visit the google doc and add your thoughts.

Our Next Focus - Manaakitanga

 Over the past weeks we have been focusing on displaying aroha for others.  Each class has had a jar, for every act of kindness a marble has been placed in this jar.  These marbles have then been combined by placing them in our big jar. 

Now the jar is full, we will move onto our next focus.  This focus will be manaakitanga, displaying respect and caring for others.  This virtue is so important, respect is something that is lacking in our society today and desperately needs to be modelled for our children.  It also links beautifully with kindness and goes hand and hand.

This is something you can talk about at home, and something you can directly model for your child.  

Just as we have done for our last focus, we will work together to fill the jar.  

Love and kindness received, love and kindness given.

Our next group of Good Citizens

If you are new to our school and wondering about the concept of Good Citizens, I have included a description below.  It is amazing to reflect back on how we were, and how we are now.  I love our school.

Kaurihohore Good Citizens

The Good Citizen project was begun in 2006 in response to a lack of leadership and role models amongst children in our school.  We had a lot of children making poor choices, particularly boys.  Research showed that to promote leadership the children who may be consistently well behaved and perhaps go 'unnoticed' a lot of the time needed to be promoted to positions of leadership and be given a more visual presence in the school.

In conjunction with other strategies we saw this project have huge benefits for our children and children became much more aware of the effect their actions had on others.

Good Citizens continue to have a big role to play in our school.  Good Citizens are selected based on the fact that they consistently help others and display empathy, without need for reward.  They show the ability to be role models for others and a willingness to carry out extra responsibilities in their own time if required.  Good citizens also display excellent manners and a high level of respect for others.  Being selected as a Good Citizen is a huge acknowledgement and not given lightly, it is always given for a genuine reason and not one that is shared around to all children unless well deserved.  This means that some children may get it more than once in acknowledgement of their consistent citizenship.

Teachers do not take their decision lightly when choosing their two representatives and if for any reason the child lets themselves down during this time, the award may be taken away from them.

Parents can be assured that if a child is selected as Good Citizen that they have truly earnt it.

At the end of the term all Good Citizens are awarded with a certificate in recognition of their efforts.  One child is voted by the children as the overall citizen for their class and then the school votes on these finalists to find the Good Citizen of the term.

At the end of year the whole school again votes out of the four finalists to find our Good Citizen of the Year.  This is a very coveted prize.

Whanau Afternoon

This coming Thursday (1st March) is our Whanau afternoon.  The school will be open from 3.20pm- 6.30pm and all teachers will be available in their classrooms to speak with you.  This afternoon replaces parent interviews.  We urge you to come along between these times at some stage to meet your child's teacher and talk about how they are settling in and ask any questions you would like to ask.  Turn up at a time that suits you, and stay as long as you like.

Members of the BOT will be sizzling some sausages in the courtyard area and would appreciate your ideas on the Health curriculum and how we can ensure success for Mãori learners.  Please take the time to talk to them and fill in the surveys they will have on hand.  We appreciate your input greatly. (please note the newsletter said they would be in the library, but that was incorrect.)  These surveys will also be available in classrooms if you do not have an opportunity to meet with a member of the BOT.

The targets we have set for our school in 2018 will be on display in every classroom so you know what we are aiming for this year.

You are welcome to wander through all classrooms and to join in on the games on offer.  Netball, golf and soccer will have activities on site.

The coffee girl will also be on site, so bring along some money if you would like a coffee or hot chocolate.

As always if you need to speak to your child's teacher more formally, please take the time to email them and set up a time that suits you both.   We are happy to catch up with you at any stage and want to keep the lines of communication open. 

Zero Heroes

Although the title of this post sounds frivolous, the intention behind it is certainly not.

For many years now we have been doing our part as a school to reduce waste.  One way this can easily be done is considering what goes in your child's lunch box.

We encourage a rubbish free lunch box, the beauty of this is that by default, lunch boxes often become healthier.

Even better, this approach to reducing lunch box waste often makes the making of lunches cheaper for you.

We encourage you to buy in bulk and use small reusable containers to give a portion to your child each day.  This can be done easily with crackers, chippies, yogurt etc.  We encourage you to look for alternatives to muesli bars, that contribute to a huge amount of lunch box rubbish and to walk past products like Le-snack crackers that are simply more packaging than product!

Sandwiches do not need gladwrap, nor for that matter does anything else if you invest in a lunchbox container with compartments.

We want to instill in children positive attitudes to be reducing rubbish, not because it is nice, but because it is an absolute necessity to protect our planet and environment.

We believe with a little bit of effort now, you can help your child establish lifelong habits, that will benefit everyone.

We have what we call 'zero heroes' each week we total up the amount of children in each class who have zero waste in their lunch box.  This is then turned into a percent, and the class with the highest percentage of zero heroes wins each week.  At the end of the year, the class with the most wins, receives the zero waste shield at prize giving.  Last year this award went to Room 10.

You can help your child's class to win, by supporting your child to make good, rubbish free choices in their lunch box. 

This week the winner was Room 8.  Our school total was 84%. 

We urge you to support this value, it is a huge part of our school and who we are.