Week Eight News

  

Kaurihohore School Week Eight, 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, 

The term keeps rushing on and here we are at week eight already!  The wet weather has made its presence felt recently, Winter is definitely here.

As we move towards the end of term, classes are busy trying to pack everything in that they need to do and teachers are also really busy reporting to you, either in comments on seesaw, or through our dispositional report that will be shared via seesaw at some stage in the last week of term.

Reporting is no easy task and there is so much thought and effort that goes into the way we report to you.  Our aim is to give you lovely rich information about your child, their strengths and their needs.  We work really hard on these and we’d love it if you would at least like these comments so we know that they have been read.  We also appreciate your comments and are happy to help if you need any clarification.

Next term we will hold whānau conferences, this is the time to raise any questions you have about your child, based on these reports, or anything else.  These will be held on the 8th of August and we will let you know how to book very soon.  If you have pressing questions or concerns, we urge you to get in contact with your child’s teacher as soon as possible.

As always, I am grateful for your ongoing support.

Leslee Allen

Attendance

Over the next few weeks we will be looking closely at attendance, if we are concerned about the amount of time off a child is having, you will receive a letter from us.  If this is an ongoing concern that we have already expressed our worries about, your child’s teacher may ask to sit down with you to discuss this.  Poor attendance directly impacts progress, academically and socially.  We understand that sometimes it is unavoidable that holidays are taken in term time, we discourage holidays of any length in term time, simply because of the impact socially and academically.  If you are planning a trip in holiday time, please email me to let me know.  Please understand, teachers are not expected to provide work for your child while they are away on holiday.

Reporting

Last week I detailed the changes that are happening with reporting.  We are trialling these changes with trepidation, so that we can have a good grasp on them next year.  As I said above, when your child’s teacher sends home a reporting comment on seesaw, they appreciate a ‘like’ at least to let them know you have read it.  We do put a huge amount of effort into reporting rich information to you.

Fundraising Term Two  - Get your child signed up for the colour run!

Every little bit of fundraising this year goes towards our massive target of $35 000.  This money in turn pays for learning support.  Learning support that provides assistance to our neurodiverse children, to those who need extra help with their learning, for those who are just having a rough day, week or term and need some extra awhi.

 Learning support assists our youngest learners transition to school and learning support provides help for teachers when it is most needed.  We provide this support despite a lack of any government funding, because our children deserve it.  We appreciate any help you can give us in reaching our fundraising goal.  

Chocolate Fundraiser

Could families please start bringing money back to the school office. This can be paid via cash, eftpos or online. Kaurihohore Board of Trustees 12-3093-0200709-00

We still have quite a few boxes to sell. If you think you could possibly sell more please see Dianne. We would like to thank everyone who has already sold and returned money.  Some of you went over and above and we so appreciate it.  

Matariki Celebrations and End of Term Awards

We will be holding our Matariki celebration on the 4th of July at 1.45pm under the canopy.  Joby Hopa will be coming along like last year and storytelling with the children around Matariki and our place.  We'd love you to join us in this celebration.  

We are also holding a pizza day on the same day, this is now live on Kindo.  You are welcome to order for yourself and come along from 1pm on the day to share kai with your child.  We hope for fine weather, so you can find a comfy place to put a picnic blanket or similar to sit and eat.

We will also be holding our end of term assembly from 2.15pm on the last day of school for the term, the 5th of July.

As usual this will be a time to hand our class awards and announce our Citizen of the Term.  As always, you are welcome to come and join us to celebrate our children and their achievements.

Halloween 2024 Planning meeting

Message from our wonderful fundraising group.

HELP US, HELP THE SCHOOL

Last year saw a great effort from our small team in putting together our 2nd annual Halloween event.  This event is our biggest fundraiser of the year, raising over $12k, it helps reach our school fundraising goals and goes a long way towards our target of $35 000.

The planning, organising and execution of these tasks doesn’t come lightly… It takes a lot of hours of volunteer work that us busy working Mums and Dads have managed to handle the best we can.

We need more volunteers to help make this event another fun and spooky night for our Tamariki.

We hear you and know everyone is busy, but if we all pitch in, as the saying goes many hands make lite work.

There are multiple ways in which you can help and we will be happy to take any offers and find a job for you.

We love being able to help our school community however it really does take a village.  So please don't be shy, come join our meeting or reach out if you can't make it.

Meeting Thursday 27th June after school pick up, room 3.  Kids can play, parents can talk.

If you can’t make the meeting, make contact with Kim Christensen by commenting on our facebook page, or let Dianne know and she will pass the message on.

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 

28th of June - Matariki observed (school closed)

4th July 1.45 - Matariki Celebration and Pizza Day

5th of July - Last day of Term 2 - End of Term Awards Assembly 2.15pm

22nd of July - First day of Term 3

8th of August - Whānau conferences 1.30pm - 7pm (school finishes at 1pm)

21st of August - School Cross Country 

30th of August - School Disco

27th of September - Last day of Term 3

14th of October - First day of Term 4

14th of October - Life Education Bus Arrives for the week

23rd of October - Calf Club and Flower Day

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…

Week Six News

  

Kaurihohore School Week Six, 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, 

Wow, we are at week six already!  

The chills of Winter are now starting to hit, please ensure children wear warm clothing to school and have a  change of clothing in their bag for any accidents they may have when playing on our wet, muddy grounds.

Teaching staff had a great day of professional learning around mathematics last Friday. We thank you for supporting us, by keeping your children at home.

At the end of this term, we will be sharing the first instalment of your child’s written report.  This is to be read alongside all of the other reporting we do via seesaw throughout the year.  I have written a bit about this reporting in this newsletter.  Please take the time to read this as it is very important.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Leslee Allen

Rubbish

We are noticing a huge increase in the amount of rubbish around our school grounds.  Please look at ways to reduce plastic waste in your child’s lunch box, as most of our rubbish comes from lunchboxes.  Where possible, please aim for a zero waste lunchbox.  This is one way we can help our children develop skills that enable them to care for our environment.  

We do not have rubbish bins at school, so any rubbish must be taken home.

Attendance

Over the next few weeks we will be looking closely at attendance, if we are concerned about the amount of time off a child is having, you will receive a letter from us.  If this is an ongoing concern that we have already expressed our worries about, your child’s teacher may ask to sit down with you to discuss this.  Poor attendance directly impacts progress, academically and socially.

Reporting

Over the year, teachers report to you on seesaw within the areas of reading, writing and maths.  In Term two and in Term four we send home via seesaw a report that shares more about your child’s dispositions as a learner and a person.  That report also includes a best fit level for your child in the areas of maths, reading and writing.

This year we are trialling the new curriculum phases that have to be put in place by 2025.  These phases have made changes to the expectations around progress in reading, writing and maths.  The changes in maths have been particularly dramatic, with big changes in expectations.  In some cases what the curriculum was expecting of a year 4, is now being expected of a year 2.

Maths is broken up into key areas of understanding, these include:

*Number Structure

*Addition and Subtraction

*Multiplication and Division

*Rational Numbers

*Algebra

Along with this there are the strands of Space, Statistics and Measurement

Because the scope of mathematics is so broad in terms of what we are required to assess, it may be that a child is achieving at their phase in one area, but needing extra support in another.  Teachers will do their best to find the ‘best fit’ phase to describe your child’s current achievement, but through seesaw will also report to you on strengths and next steps.

Because of the change of government, there is also a chance that these expectations may again change, so please bear with us as we find our feet with this.

In Term 3 we will hold parent/teacher conferences.  If you would like to meet with your child’s teacher sooner than this, please do so.

Holidays In Term Time

This is something the BOT actively discourages, but understands that sometimes it is unavoidable.  Please understand that the government will be beginning to look closely at attendance and in particular, holidays taken in term time.  If you want to take a holiday in term time, you must put this in as a written request to me, you can do so via email.

Fundraising Term Two  - Get your child signed up for the colour run!

If you have not yet signed your child up for the colour run, please do so.  Even small amounts raised, make a big difference to the overall total.  If people are unable to donate online, Dianne has made up a hard copy sponsorship sheet, come in and see her if you want to know more about this.

The colour run is a lot of fun and a real celebration of togetherness.  You are more than welcome to join in, in fact, we encourage you to do so!

Enrolments

We currently have out of zone positions in year 2, 3 and 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.

We will be advertising new entrant positions for 2025 in August, please encourage families to keep an eye out, if they are wanting to apply for a position. 

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 

19th of June - Sponsored Colour Fun Run

27th of June - Board Meeting 7pm

28th of June - Matariki observed (school closed)

5th of July - Last day of Term 2

(Matariki celebration date to be confirmed)

22nd of July - First day of Term 3

21st of August - School Cross Country 

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…

Week Four - Term Two News

  

Kaurihohore School Week Four, 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, 

It is hard to believe that we are already at week four of term two.  We have been lucky with the weather, but are headed into the Winter months.  Our grounds are becoming wet and muddy and we ask that you ensure your children have a change of clothes in their bag along with something to put wet clothes in.

The timings of end of day pick up are working well, our junior classes (room 1 - 5) will continue to come out five minutes before the bell to allow the line to start moving.  Below is a reminder of the guidelines for the end of the day.

1. We ask that families with children in Room 1 - 5 come between 2.50pm and 3.00pm. Children in these classes will be brought out to the courtyard at this slightly earlier time in the hope that we will clear the line more quickly.

2. If you have children in Room 6-9, we ask that you wait until 3.00pm - 3.15pm to come and pick up your child. Please don’t use the line any earlier than this as it does hold things up.

3. If you have children in both areas of the school, please come at the later time of 3.00-3.15pm. Children are supervised until 3.20pm. All children need to be picked up by 3.20pm.

4. If you have children in Room 6-9 and need to collect them early, they will still be out by 2.55pm, we ask that you park and come in and collect them.

5. Sport training after school - if your child has practice after school, we ask that you come at 3.20pm to ensure you can find parking. Please don't come earlier than this as it will take up parking from those picking up their children at the end of the day.

6. We also ask those with children at Intermediate, who are waiting for the Intermediate bus to wait till 3.15pm to arrive, ensuring parking is available before this.

PLEASE, come in and collect your child if you are parked.  We do not want them walking across the crossing unsupervised and have seen several near misses lately.  PLEASE do not park up on the yellow lines in front of the school and PLEASE do not walk across the car park, use the yellow walkway and the crossing.

Wet days are always difficult for end of day duty and we ask you to be patient with us as we try to get children to their cars as quickly as possible.  Please use car parks available if you are in a particular hurry and come in and collect your children.  

The music man will be performing for us next week.  Please ensure your child has paid their $4 to attend.  This is not compulsory, children will be supervised at school if they do not pay.  The school will attend in two groups and will be walking to the hall, so please send children with a jacket on this day, in case it is wet.

Matariki is coming up and at school children will be taking part in learning around this important time.  We are planning an event at school, but are still working on the date for this. We will let you know as soon as possible to allow you to attend if you are able to.

A reminder that teacher only day is on the 31st of May (next week.)

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Leslee Allen

Respect

Our school values are respect, kindness and empathy.  Respect is something we work hard on, but we are still having ongoing problems with children respecting the school grounds and resources.  Our new school fence has already been damaged several times, some of our school bikes are being treated very poorly and our big pole hut is still out of action, due to children damaging the fall area that was built to keep them safe.  It can all get very disheartening and frustrating at times when we work so hard to ensure children have a school environment that is both safe and engaging.  

Bikes have been giving us a lot of difficulty lately.  We have a LOT of children enthusiastically riding their small bikes, which is awesome, but they continue to ride them in areas that are out of bounds for these bikes.  They often forget their helmets and seem to ‘forget’ the rules almost as soon as they have been reminded.

If you could assist us by talking to your child about respect and the importance of not only respecting people, but our environment and resources, this would be greatly appreciated.  Duty teachers will be keeping a closer eye on the bikes and if your child’s teacher requests that they bike stay at home for a few days, you will know why.

Attendance

It is crucial that your child is at school, unless they are sick.  We currently have some families having a day or two off a week, it is really hard to help your child to achieve socially and academically with this amount of time off.  One day a week is equivalent to two weeks a term.  Two days off a week is equivalent to four weeks.  When put in that way, it is obvious why we are concerned.

Fundraising Term Two  - Get your child signed up for the colour run!

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.  We don’t send home boxes to people unless they opt in because we understand that not everyone is able to sell chocolates or wants to fundraise in this way.

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.

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.

Why all the Fundraising?

Children are coming into school now with a range of very challenging diverse needs.  These needs may be social, emotional, developmental or behavioural.  At our school we choose to meet these needs, rather than use punitive strategies that don’t work (like stand down, suspension and expulsion.)

To meet these needs, we need to employ as many attuned adults as we can, in the form of our wonderful teacher aides.  Sadly this is not funded by our government and the process of applying for any sort of funding is over complicated and not targeted to the actual needs in schools.  

To ensure all our children can have the best possible school experience, we have to fundraise to cover wages.  It is a very sad reality, but this is where all of our fundraising currently goes.

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 1 position 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 

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

29th of May - Board of Trustees Meeting - 7pm

29th of May - Year 5 and 6 Winter Sports Day

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

28th of June - Matariki observed (school closed)

5th of July - Last day of Term 2

(Matariki celebration date to be confirmed)

22nd of July - First day of Term 3

21st of August - School Cross Country 

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…