School News - Week Nine

  

Kaurihohore School Week Nine, Term Two 2023

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,

This will be our last newsletter of the term.  The holidays are just around the corner and it has been lovely to have some fine days.  Long may this continue!

I want to thank you for your support of our colour run, this went a significant way towards our fundraising goal and was a whole heap of fun! Our kids showed persistence and determination on the day, nothing less than I would expect from Kauri kids!  I hope you have logged on and claimed their prizes.

I want to thank the staff for another amazing term, you truly make this place what it is.  Our staff really do go above and beyond for the children at our school.  Despite the lack of funding or external support, they put in place programmes and specific targeted support that really make a difference to our children.  

Next week is support staff week.  Dianne, Chrissie, Shelley, Savannah, Chelsea and Lena make up our support staff team.  These wonderful ladies are worth their weight in gold and work to ensure our children and teachers have what they need.  Our support staff provide regular, just in time aroha for our students, sometimes this is what helps them through the day and enables us to keep them in school.  Believe me, what this group does is not common practice, they frequently work outside of their job descriptions just to ensure everything runs smoothly.  For many of our children they are a trusted adult that fulfils a role of co-regulation and that person that helps to fill those learning gaps, that enables them success in the classroom.  In the office, Dianne and Chrissie work to keep our school on track.  They have a million and one jobs on the go, but are never too busy to help out.  In fact, the way they run the office enables me to teach three days a week, which is quite unheard of in a school our size.  Please show your gratitude for this fantastic team, not just next week, but whenever you see them, the pay they receive does not come close to what they deserve.  Sadly Lena will be leaving us next term, this being the reality of poor funding on our government's behalf.

We are very excited to open our Matariki garden next term,  which acknowledges and honours our past and to unveil our school plaque.  We are even more excited to share our new school song with you, which embodies who we are now.

Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua. 

I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past. 

Leslee Allen

Attendance:

The Ministry of Education has recently had a massive focus on attendance.  Now after five days of absence that is not within school policy, children will be referred to attendance services.  I will send a copy of the policy home via seesaw, please read it. 

It is a legal requirement for children to be at school, if they are not, we must record a reason.  Some reasons, like family holidays and problems with transport, while explained, are not within school policy, so in effect will be recorded as truant.  The Ministry is now closely monitoring our attendance data.  Regular attendance is counted as 90% or above, anything under this is a concern.  Please do not be offended if you receive a letter regarding your child’s attendance, it is our legal obligation to ensure children are at school on a regular basis.  If you go on holiday within term time, you need to seek permission for this if it is going to be for any length of time, while this does not make it justified, it does ensure we know and wont make referrals to attendance services.

Please work with us on this and ensure children are at school unless they are unwell.

Matariki Ceremony - 

This will be held on Friday the 21st of July.  We will be unveiling our Matariki native bush garden. This garden was created to acknowledge and show gratitude to Mr. Hugh McKenzie who donated the land for our kura.  The opening of this garden is a nod to the past as we recognise the start of schooling at Kaurihohore and a merging of the now with our school whakatauki as we move forward into the future.  If you know of any past members of our school who would like to join us, please let them know.  We will assemble as a school at 10.20am with a start time of 10.30am.  This will be the first opportunity to hear our school song that has been written based on your voices and your children’s voices, specifically about what makes our school special.  Children will also be taking part in Matariki based activities on this day, working in teams of mixed ages.

At 2.30pm we will come to the courtyard to sing some songs together and you are welcome to join us at this time.

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 to contact us.

Our school blog is kaurihohoreschool.blogspot.com

Office emails are: 

Chrissie - admin@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz

Dianne - reception@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz

Chelsea/Enrolments - kaurienrolments@gmail.com

Leslee - principal@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz

Reporting Absence - kauriabsences@gmail.com

School Apps

Please take the time to ensure these apps are on your device and that notifications are on, so that you don’t miss anything.

Skool Loop - On this app you can view newsletters, report attendance and book parent/teacher conferences.

Seesaw - This app is where we share with you about your child’s learning, it is where we will report to you, It is a way we can send you messages, and you can also easily message us.  Newsletters and notices are also shared via seesaw.

Kindo - This is a payment app where you can easily purchase items for school without having to have cash.  Over time most payments will be taken in this way.

Reporting

At the end of this term, your child’s teacher will send home a dispositional comment about your child on our report template.  

On the 3rd of August, we will hold parent teacher conferences. This will be an early school finish, with children picked up by 1.15pm and conferences starting from 1.30pm.  This is to allow us to get through all the conferences in one day.  

Whānau conferences are a time to catch up with your child’s teacher about how they are going at school.  Children in year 5 and 6 are welcome to come along to these conferences, but they are not required to come and you may prefer not to bring them.  Children are welcome to play outside while they are waiting for you.  We do provide a lot of information with you on seesaw, so you may feel that you do not need to come and see your child’s teacher, this is absolutely fine, your child’s teacher will specifically request you come if they feel there is something that needs to be talked about.

You will need to go onto the Skool Loop to book these from 27th of  June 2023 and bookings will close on the 1st August 2023.  Teachers do not have access to this app, so if you are unable to use it, you will need to check in with the school office.

To get ready for this you will need to make sure you have the Skool Loop App loaded and ready to go.

Please find attached instructions on how to get Skool Loop onto your phone.

We will be sending out more information and reminders closer to the time.

Empty Classroom - Help Needed

Empty classroom day is on the last day of term and we have our fingers and toes crossed for fine weather.  We need lots of help cleaning up our new garden and creating the path, cleaning up our native bush, weeding  around the school and  putting bark in the playground.  Wheelbarrows and spades a bonus if you have them.   We have so many jobs to get done and we would appreciate any help you can give on the day, even if it is only an hour or two.

Chocolate Money

All chocolate money needs to be returned to school by the end of this week.

Colour Run - Top Runners

Here are our classroom results.Top girl and boy runners and class total.

Rūma Pīwakawaka - 17 runners

192 laps

Rawiri 16 laps

Lydia and Harper 15 laps

Rūma Ruru - 10 runners

111 laps

Reef, Cory, Arlo 14 laps

Sasha 14 laps

Rūma Kahu - 20 runners

282 laps

Zane 19 laps

Indi 17 laps

Rūma Pukeko - 16 runners

217 laps

Billie 17 laps

Tommy, Jordan 18 laps

Rūma Kotare - 18 runners

268 laps

Jackson 23 laps

Zara 17 laps

Rūma Tūī - 18 runners

266 laps

Tūī, Edie, Heidi, Haven 16 laps

Weston 23 laps

Rūma Huia - 20 runners

342 laps

Mack 26 laps. (Top Overall Boy)

Ivy 23 laps

Rūma Kiwi - 20 runners

Taylor 23 laps

Lydia 20 laps

Rūma Miromiro -

300 laps total

Zaine 24 laps

Shizaya 20 laps

Rūma Kereru - 15 runners

245 laps

Jimmy 23 laps

Ruby 25 laps. (Top Overall Girl)

We will let you know the final amount raised after the cut off, which is the 22nd of June.

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Fundraisers - Please support us if you can

We raised almost $6000 last term.  That means we have $20 000 left to raise.  

Our aim this term is $8000.  

The money that is raised through fundraisers, frees up money from curriculum spending to help keep our classes as small as possible.  This benefits ALL children.

 Calendars

Children are busy creating beautiful pictures that will be made into calendars ($15.50), greeting cards - 8 in a pack ($15.50), mouse mats ($15.50), diaries ($17.50) and sketch pads ($17.50).

Please note, this will be a KINDO ONLY fundraiser...no paper forms will be sent home. This will start WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 and finish TUESDAY, JUNE 27. No orders can be accepted after this date as all the orders must be sorted and sent away.

As your child completes their art, their teacher will post a picture of it on Seesaw so you can have a look.

As always this is optional, but many families love to buy them for presents, which is why we have continued with the fundraiser this year.

Halloween Event

Again we will hold it on Halloween which is more fun for our tāmariki Tuesday 31st October.

If you would like to get involved and help make this night fun and a successful fundraiser for our tāmariki and School, then please join us through our facebook group Kaurihohore Fundraising, or watch out for notes on facebook.  This year we are combining market day with the Halloween event, if you are interested in making small crafts that can be sold, we would really appreciate that!  

We will also be making jolly jars and would appreciate any donations of good sized, clean jars to fill with goodies.  We are after wrapped, halloween themed lollies, good quality toys that will fit in the jar, small halloween themed items that will go nicely in a jar.  You can bring any donations along to the office anytime now onwards.

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Awards Assembly 

This will be held on the 29th of June at 2.15pm under the canopy.  Each class teacher has awards to give out, and our citizens of the term will be announced.  Everyone is welcome to attend.

Term Two

29th of June - Awards assembly - 2.15pm

30th of June - Empty Classroom Day

Term Three

21st of July - Matariki ceremony - 10.30am

3rd of August - Whānau conferences 1.30pm - 7pm (early finish of 1pm) Book on Skool Loop App

16th of August - School Cross Country

22nd of September - Empty Classroom Day

Term Four - 

24th of November - Teacher Only Day

Last day 15th of December 12.00pm

School Bank Account Details - 

All payments now go through the one account.

Account 12-3093-0200709-00

Kaurihohore school board of Trustees

Food for thought…

Noho ora mai -

Leslee Allen