Week One News - Term Two

  

Kaurihohore School Week One, Term Two 2024

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, 

Welcome back to Term Two.  An extra big welcome to all of our new families, we hope that you enjoy your time at our wonderful school.

This term will again be very busy and no doubt it will be week five before we know it!

As we start moving into the colder months, children no longer need to wear hats, but are able to wear caps if they would like to.  Again, they bring these at their own risk, so encourage them to look after them.  

We look forward to working with all you again this term, please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher if you have any queries or concerns.

Leslee Allen

Attendance

I put a big blurb in the last newsletter.  We hope to see ALL children regularly at school this term.  The government defines regular attendance as 90%.  It goes without saying that regular attendance is vital for many reasons.

Sharing of Food For Birthdays

As we have an increasing number of children with severe allergies we have decided to put an end to any food that may be provided on birthdays, such as cakes, lollies etc.  If you are wishing to send something along in recognition of your child’s birthday, please understand that this can no longer be food of any type.

Reporting

Over the year, your child’s teacher will report to you in writing about reading, writing and maths.  This will happen twice a year, once in Term One or Two and once in Term three or four.  These will be reported using seesaw.  This year, the achievement measures have changed to align with the new curriculum.  This means we will be reporting on phases.  While we are learning to work with these phases, we will do our best to report to you on what these look like in terms of achievement.  We are however just finding our feet with these, so please bear with us.  

With the change of government, and the many changes that look to be coming for education, we are unsure if these phases will stay the same, or change, we hope to gain some clarity soon.  

This term you will also receive a dispositional blurb home, forming the first part of your child’s report.  This will come home towards the end of the term via seesaw.

Please make sure you keep your seesaw up to date and check it regularly, it is our main form of communication with you and if you are not checking it, there will be things you may be missing.

Fundraising Term Two

Our two main fundraisers are chocolates and the colour run.  With $28 000 remaining to raise, we hope to raise around $9000 this term.  We appreciate all of your assistance with this.

Chocolates can be collected from the school office for those that opted into selling these.

If you didn’t opt in, because you didn’t get a form, you are more than welcome to come in and pick up a box to sell.

This year we are holding another School Fun Run as a major fundraiser! It will take place on Wednesday the 19th of June here at school.

Your child will bring home all the information needed in a School Fun Run booklet, please check their book bag.

To get started, please create a student profile page at www.schoolfundraising.co.nz.

Enter in our school name Kaurihohore and then your child will be added to our fundraising team.

You can then share the link on social media to start fundraising.

Keep an eye out for some cheap or 2nd hand black clothing to wear, or your child can wear old clothing.  All family and friends are welcome to join us on the day.

Please chat to Michelle if you have any questions.

Music Man Show

The school will be attending this show at the community hall on the 28th of May.  The cost will be $4 per child, which will be able to be paid via Kindo.  If you are unable to pay via Kindo, you are able to pay via internet banking (use reference) or straight to the school office.  Please understand that children must have paid in order to attend.

Teachers Only Day

This is planned for Friday the 31st of May.  This day is one the MOE has put in place for schools to work further on curriculum development and knowledge and we are given a window of dates that it must be taken in.  School is closed for instruction on this day.

Enrolments

We still have a few positions across the school for out of zone children, at the moment we have one position for a year 3 and 2 positions for a Year 5. If you know of anyone looking to enrol, ask them  to email Chelsea.

kaurienrolments@gmail.com and come for a look around.  If they have children who are out of zone at other year levels, it is still worth contacting Chelsea and coming in for a visit in case we have a position come up.

 If you know of any families who live in the zone, or may be moving into the zone, please encourage them to contact us as early as possible, so we can calculate them into our numbers.

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: 

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

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

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Known Term  Dates

15th of May - Science Roadshow Room 7 and 8

28th of May - Whole school music man show ($4 per child)

31st of May - Teachers only day (school closed to children)

3rd of June - King's Birthday (school closed)

19th of June - Sponsored Colour Fun Run

5th of July - Last day of Term 2

22nd of July - First day of Term 3

27th of September - Last day of Term 3

14th of October - First day of Term 4

18th of December - Last day of Term 4

Tentative First Day Back 2025  - Monday 3rd of February

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…

Thank you for all of your ongoing support.

Week Nine News

  

Kaurihohore School Week Nine, Term One 2024

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, 

I hope you managed to have a lovely Easter break with your whānau.  We certainly had some lovely weather.

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter.

I noted in my last newsletter  that we had noticed a decline in the level of respect around the school.  It is pleasing to tell you this has improved greatly, we appreciate any support you gave us in the way of conversations at home.

It is great to see most children now wearing the correct hat reliably, or being in the correct

spot if they do not have one.   

This term, caps must stay at home, however in Term 2 and 3, caps are allowed to be worn to school.

One area we are still noticing that children are having difficulties is around the bikes.  Our

oldest children are not reliably wearing their helmets and if they bring their own bike, they often think they get to choose if they wear their helmet.   Accidents can and do happen, and it is vital that children wear a helmet.   If you could have conversations at home around the wearing of helmets and ensure that children also wear them at home, we would appreciate that.  

Let’s have a great end to our term!

Leslee Allen

Attendance

We generally have great attendance at our school and I thank you all for getting your children to school regularly when they are not sick.  

Many of our neuro-diverse children have flexible attendance agreements with us to support their needs and this works well too.  If you are a parent of a ND child with these flexible attendance agreements, please ignore the blurb below.

We do however have a few children I am concerned about.  One or two days off a week may seem like nothing, but let’s look at it when it is added up in the scheme of things.

This term we will have had 46 full days at school.

If a child has a day off a week, that is 10 days in total, so means they have only attended 36 of those days.  They have in essence had two full weeks off.

If they have an average of two days off a week, they have then had 20 days off in total, which means they have had four full weeks off and only attended 26 full days of the term,  This means they have basically had a half a term off.

I am not sure how that would go down in the workplace, but I am pretty sure it would be frowned upon.  While school is obviously not a ‘job’ , attending school regularly does set children up with good habits for the future.

Poor attendance does not only impact learning, it impacts social wellbeing.  Friendships are very hard to make and keep if they are frequently away.  If children can not rely on them to be there, they will make new friends.

This then becomes a vicious cycle, children won’t want to come to school if they are not happy and if they are not attending regularly it is hard to be happy because they lack a sense of belonging.

Not only that, teachers find it really hard to catch your child up with learning and assessments, it puts pressure on us when children have regular days off.  

We are currently reviewing attendance levels for all of our children and will be sending you attendance letters if we are concerned.  

Awards Assembly- 12th April

We will be holding this on the last day at 2.20pm out under the canopy.  At this assembly teachers will hand out recognition certificates and class good citizen certificates.  I will also announce who the children have selected as their overall citizen.

Behaviour Support

I just wanted to do a quick blurb to help you understand how we get extra monetary resourcing to assist our children with extra needs.  

Basically if we feel a child needs some extra support from an adult, Tanya our LSC needs to fill in some forms and submit these to the MOE simply to get a ‘case’ opened.  This form can not go in without your permission, so she will make time to meet with you to discuss this.  Giving permission for this, does in no way indicate that support will be forthcoming and it is not any sort of label either.  It is simply giving us permission to seek the support we need to help your child be successful at school.   Alongside this we are likely to do a referral to the RTLB, again, this needs your permission, we rely on you giving this permission, so the teacher can get the support they need to help your child.

After the case has been opened (which is not always quick) we can then make an application for some funding to help with any challenging behaviour.   Again this is to support your child to be as successful as possible.  Behaviour has to be seen as a risk to self or others, to get any funding.  If we are lucky to get funding, the maximum we will get is equivalent to two hours a day.   This  is paid at a rate lower than what our current teacher aides are on, so we then make up the difference in hourly rate, as well as paying the full rate for the rest of the hours.  This means the hours your child receives, are added onto hours that others may receive to help us pay our teacher aide to support them.   The real kicker is that we have to apply for this support every term as it is only approved term by term.  Once a child is successful because of the wonderful support we have managed to put in place, this funding is then unable to be accessed and it leaves us, having to ensure we can keep this support in place, without external funding.  

If you are approached to give your permission for RTLB or Ministry referral for your child, please know we do not do this lightly and it is an indication we really need support.  It is often a lot easier for us to access support if a child has been referred via ECE, again this takes your permission, so if you have concerns about your preschooler, consider talking to your ECE.

Our school is very well known for the processes we put in place to help all children, but we are not superhuman and we can not do it without you.   We work really hard to make this a place where everyone can flourish, but it is not an easy job by any means.  

Fundraising Term One

All our fundraising this year goes to help cover the deficit budget we have set.

Why set a deficit budget?

Well, it is certainly not our preferred option, but children coming into school have ever increasing needs.  Our neuro-diverse children, children with learning needs, children with emotional and wellbeing needs, all deserve the support they need to succeed.  

This year the deficit is also higher, because of our lower roll following a large group of Year 6 children leaving.

Sadly, as you may have read above, the ministry does not fund learning support  to an acceptable level.  We choose to staff this with our fabulous teacher aides and provide spaces like Te Kōhanga to enable this success.   Without this commitment from our board, this support would not be possible.

It therefore falls on us to generate that money, necessary to make this support possible.

So far this term we have raised $3489 via the Easter raffle (massive thank you to Dianne for her efforts here) and $614.45 selling bulbs.  We raised $237 from ice block sales at the beach.  We are also very appreciative of receiving donations from our parent community.  These are absolutely not expected, but very much appreciated.   If you do give donations a big portion can be claimed back via the IRD as a tax rebate, you can claim back a third as a tax rebate through IRD, so a $100 donation in effect only costs $67.

We are very grateful for your support so far this term towards our fundraisers and understanding what they are so necessary.  We still have our last fundraiser to go this term, which is our Sausage sizzle.  You can order via KINDO, this is happening on the 12th, which is the last day of term and orders need to be in by the 7th of April.

All of this taken into account we should raise just over $7000 this term, which puts us in a good place.  With $35 000 as a minimum to raise to cover learning support as detailed above we will be left with around $28 000 to raise.  

Term Two Fundraising

Next term our big fundraisers will be chocolate selling (which went really well last year) and our sponsored colour run, which again, was a lot of fun.

If you have ideas for fundraisers, or would like to assist in some way, we always appreciate help.

Enrolments

We still have a few positions across the school for out of zone children, at the moment we have one position for a year 3, one position for a year 4 and 2 positions for a Year 5. If you know of anyone looking to enrol, ask them  to email Chelsea.

kaurienrolments@gmail.com and come for a look around.  If they have children who are out of zone at other year levels, it is still worth contacting Chelsea and coming in for a visit in case we have a position come up.

 If you know of any families who live in the zone, or may be moving into the zone, please encourage them to contact us as early as possible, so we can calculate them into our numbers.

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: 

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

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

—---------

Known Term  Dates

12th of April - Last day of Term 1

29th of April - First day of Term 2

15th of May - Science Roadshow Year 7 and 8

28th of May - Whole school music man show ($4 per child)

31st of May - Teachers only day (school closed to children)

3rd of June - King's Birthday (school closed)

19th of June - Sponsored Colour Run

5th of July - Last day of Term 2

22nd of July - First day of Term 3

27th of September - Last day of Term 3

14th of October - First day of Term 4

18th of December - Last day of Term 4

Tentative First Day Back 2025  - Monday 3rd of February

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…

Thank you for all of your ongoing support.

Week Seven - School News

Kaurihohore School Week Seven, Term One 2024




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 it is Autumn already, those dark mornings certainly make it hard to wake up, that is for sure!

School has continued to be a busy, productive place and on the whole children seem happy and settled.

We have been having some issues with children upholding the school values, particularly our oldest children, so over the next few weeks, until the end of term, your child’s teacher will message you if they notice your child having difficulty with this.

We value respect, kindness and empathy, for each other, for our place and for the resources we have.

We ask all of our children to think about what they say and what they do and how it may impact others. For our oldest children we remind them that our juniors hear what they say and see what they do…so make it something we want them to copy!

The important phrase for us is “what if everyone did that?” We can apply this to all areas of life, if there is a rule or expectation, why should we see ourselves as not having to adhere to it.




Our children see us, they hear us, they then become us. As adults, we must be the role models that demonstrate accountability for our actions.

As a restorative school, we encourage children to own their actions, fix any mistakes and then learn from these mistakes. We hope that you can continue to support us in this work.




Leslee Allen




Pick up and Drop Off




A gentle reminder, if you park your car, no matter the time, you need to walk in and collect your child, they will be waiting for you at the gate. Teachers will ask them not to leave, until their adult has crossed the crossing. We can not have our children thinking it is ok to walk out the gate and run across the crossing. I am aware that this expectation seems silly to some, however, it is a guideline that keeps us all safe. Please get out of your car and walk into school using the pedestrian gate. Our youngest children are always watching to see how this crossing is used and we can not have them thinking it is ok to run across in front of cars.




When dropping off your child in the morning, please park your car if you are wanting to get out and walk in. If using the line, drop your child off and have them use the pedestrian gate. Getting out of your car when it is parked in the line, slows down the system for everyone else.




Nuero-diversity




I really hope you are finding my little series on neuro-diversities useful. To truly be inclusive, we all must come from a place of understanding. Our teachers all teach children about nuero-diversity to build this understanding and promote compassion. There are so many mis-understandings out there and it can feel really isolating and scary to have a child with nuero-diversity. It does not need to be this way. As a community we can ensure everyone is appreciated, accommodated and included if we each come from a place of love and understanding.

People shy away from labels, perhaps because of childhood experiences, but for the individual, labels are important, it helps them to understand who they are, to not feel broken or weird and to better cope and grow as an individual. We have seen our children with ADHD and Autism in particular, become their own best advocates, which is something to aspire to, not shy away from.





Sponsorship




We are currently looking for sponsorship to cover seating needs in the classrooms. Teachers in our senior classrooms are wanting bean bags and swiss balls for their classes to sit on. Alternative seating is really important for our neuro-diverse learners in particular and just makes the classroom a more comfortable place to be, fostering success.




We are more than happy to put up a sign on our new fence in recognition of this sponsorship (once we are allowed to put these all back up.) We would be looking at needing about $500, but any amount is very gratefully received.





Enrolments




We still have a few positions across the school for out of zone children, at the moment we have one position for a year 3, one position for a year 4 and 2 positions for a Year 5. If you know of anyone looking to enrol, ask them to email Chelsea.

kaurienrolments@gmail.com and come for a look around. If they have children who are out of zone at other year levels, it is still worth contacting Chelsea and coming in for a visit in case we have a position come up.

If you know of any families who live in the zone, or may be moving into the zone, please encourage them to contact us as early as possible, so we can calculate them into our numbers.




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:

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




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.




Fundraising Term One

All fundraising is currently covering the deficit budget we have set to cover staffing and learning support for our children. Very sadly, the MOE does not provide the level of support that is needed for the high need that is out there, therefore it is something we endeavour to provide ourselves, to ensure success for everyone. If you are approached by your child’s teacher to apply for resourcing to support them, we encourage you to assist them with this, as with any involvement of an outside agency, we need your permission. However without the funding, having our two TA’s would not be possible. These applications ensure we can provide this, at the very least.




Our first fundraiser is the Easter raffle. Tickets need to all be back by the 22nd of March that is this Friday. We still have loads of tickets outstanding, please get them back to us.

Bulb orders have been sent home this week, these make a great gift, there is no pressure to buy, but you may have whānau or friends that would like to order. Forms need to be returned to the office by the 25th of March. Please excuse my typos in my last newsletter.

We are also having a sausage sizzle, kindo only, this will be on the last day of school.




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 One - Known Dates




21st of March - EPRO8 Competition - For teams selected

28th of March - Girls only football

29th of March - Good Friday - No school

1st of April - Easter Monday - No School

2nd of April - Easter Tuesday - No School

12th of April - Last day of Term 1

29th of April - First day of Term 2




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…





We are grateful each and every day for our fabulous community.