Term 1 Week 2 10.2.25 - 14.2.25

From the Principal's Desk

Greetings Parents and Caregivers,

A big welcome back to everyone especially our new students and families. Our roll has increased to 162 students and we forecast to get over 170 students during the year. If you know of any families moving into the area please let us know so we can organise a transition plan for the children. I feel very privileged to be able to work with such an amazing team here at Whenuakite School. We have made a great start to the school term with all classroom program's up and running. It has been lovely wandering through the classrooms and watching our talented teachers teach and our wonderful students learn—recent photos of students during maths, swimming and out and about at Whenuakite school

Update on target areas - The 3 focus areas

1. Transition, Attendance, and Engagement—The Ministry of Education expects improvements in this area. We need to know from parents/caregivers when a child is away from school and be informed of the reason. A real focus has been placed on children/students being at school on time and ready for learning.                                              2. Literacy - The teaching team is undergoing training in Ideal Structured literacy, encompassing the whole of structured literacy - Reading, Writing and phonics. This is a very focused and intensive structured programme that will give us very good data to support literacy improvement                                                                                 3. Numeracy—We are in the process of getting our maths resources: Numicon for the juniors and Oxford for seniors. These will be the books and materials we use as we develop our teaching skills through the curriculum's Math professional development and ALiM, Accelerating Learning in Maths.

School Assembly 

School assemblies are held on Fridays, starting at 9.05am in the Activities Room. Everyone is welcome to attend. This is a time we celebrate others, share our fantastic work and show respect to our presenters.

Nga mihi, Gary Veysi - Principal 

Out and about at Whenuakite

School Bus runs

Bus controller - Mr Veysi (organises bus, any questions please email - principal@whenuakite.school.nz)

Bus monitors - Senior students who are appointed by the School and trained by the NZ police.

As a passenger if I am unable to observe the rules/requirements at all times and if it is necessary for a bus monitor speak to me, the instructions conveyed by that bus monitor are obeyed with respect shown.

If the bus monitor is required to speak to you as a passenger again during the journey a decision may be made that the passenger be moved to another seat for the remainder of the journey at a time which is suitable to the driver for Health and Safety reasons.

Please remember that small soft toys, any type of items of interest which they are taking to or from School, must be carried in the school bag to avoid any damage made to the item by other passengers on the bus.

Learning Journey Catch Up.

On Thursday, 20th February, (next week) we will be having a Child/Parent/Teacher Learning Journey Catch Ups. These are also known as interviews, goal-setting conferences and just another great way to grow our positive relationships between school and home.

This is an early catch-up to discuss aspirations and to set appropriate goals for your child’s learning and development in areas like the arts, social, cultural and sporting for this year.   We encourage you to bring your child along with you for this meeting and children will be marked present for the day but are not expected to be at school for the remainder of the day.  

The school will still be open with activities running until 2.55 pm for families that are unable to find childcare for their children. On the slip below please let us know if your child/ren will be here for the whole day.  

The booking process is through SkoolLoop – I have included the process of how to get the APP downloaded from the internet. I have also added the process on how to book the interview. If you need any help please see us in the office. This year we will be maximising SKOOL LOOP APP and other features that are linked to it.

Ngā mihi , Kind Regards from the Whenuakite team

Board of Trustees

Our first BOT meeting is on Tuesday 25th of February at school at 3.15pm. If interested in attending please contact our Presiding Member - pmbot@whenuakite.school.nz. Later this year we do have BOT  elections

School Policies

Our school works with SchoolDocs to maintain, update, and review our policies. SchoolDocs provides us with a comprehensive core set of policies, which have been well researched and align with the National Education and Learning Priorities. The policies and procedures are tailored to our school, and we supply specific information such as our charter, and procedures for behaviour management, reporting to parents, etc.

SchoolDocs updates, modifies, or creates policies in response to changes in legislation or Ministry guidelines, significant events, reviews/requests from schools, and regular reviewing from the SchoolDocs team. Our school board has the opportunity to view changes/additions and comment on them before they are implemented. We will advise you when policies are up for review and how you can take part in the review.

We invite you to visit the site at https://whenuakite.schooldocs.co.nz (note that there's no "www."). Our username is "whenuakite" and password "whenschool". You can also access this and other documents from our website.

House Points

Being a K.I.T.E Kid

Certificates presented to: -

• Room 1 - Aart Laird, Kora Hartnett
• Room 2 - Sayul Rathrayaka, Nova Thompson
• Room 3 -  Benji Norriss, Luca Shortland, Mariah Baroro, Tanner Brockett
• Room 4 - Brock Norriss, Wylie Ramage
• Room 5 - Hunter Nicholson, Indi Hayward
• Room 6 - Thea Dozell, Flo Sheriff
• Room 7 - Pippa Buchanan, Ruby Bougen

Welcome Certificates - Charlie Greenwood, Oscar Greenwood, Hunter Velvin-Turner, Hazel Velvin-Turner, Nova Thompson, Ryder Thompson, Arlo Guilford, Yelena Williams, Indie-Rose Smith, Ava Smith, Alice Probett, Charlie Farrance, Molly Jenkins, Jordi Scotland, Aart Laird, Mabel Drewitt-Fisher, Elias Cooney, Arlo Morcom, Nico Eggmann, Kora Hartnett, Leo Goodwin

Principal Awards - River for always having a positive pro-active attitude.

                                        Valerie for always working hard and helping others with their learning.            

Up and Coming Events

Week 3

Tuesday 18th of February - Health Nurse talk with Year 7/8

Thursday 20th of February - Learning Journey Catch Up, Goal setting Conferences.

Week 4

Monday 24th of February - Earthquake drill practice

Tuesday 25th of February - Board of Trustees meeting at school starting at 3.15pm

Friday 28th of February - ART ESCAPE Opening - Community Dinner

NETBALL

Hi, Its netball time again! Leigh and I are a bit busy after school so we need to have the muster during school hours.

Tuesday 18th Feb, At school, at lunch time. Bring:

·         Covered shoes, Water bottle, Energy 

Muster is to get names, approx. numbers and to start to get teams together.

We will discuss practices, and I’ll get an indication of what is possible, and then get all parents feedback to check we are on the right track. Netball is for boys and girls.

ALL PARENTS WILL NEED TO REGISTER THEIR CHILD'S INTEREST and I will add you to a group message so we can communicate about potential practice times and what netball involves. If you and your child do wish to continue with netball we will register them with Mercury bay netball, and fees are paid to the school.

REGISTER INTEREST here: https://form.jotform.com/250395840768064

If you miss the muster just make sure you register interest with the link above. 

Ideally practices will be after school, as running them during the school day is proving really hard on work schedules. We know we will have other sports & activities to work around. We will try to accommodate as many people as possible with this.

Children must wear covered shoes and jewelry will need to be removed for the 1 hour in which they play. Uniforms are provided for the season by the school and this will happen once we have formed the teams.

Regular Wednesday Netball

The season starts Wednesday 30^th April and games are played in Whitianga at Moewai Park.

Yr 1-4 starts at 4pm

Yr5/6 games are at 5pm

Yr7/8 games are at 6pm

Interschool 1 day netball tournament

We are also looking to hold an inter school 1 day netball tournament. Your child does not need to attend regular season netball to be in this tournament. More information will come out about this soon. All for this practices for this will be at school during school hours.

AIMS Games

Year 7/8 team is looking to go to AIMS games this year and will play set positions after the first couple of weeks to get us to really know our jobs. We will have additional meetings about AIMS Games later on.

Thanks Kelly & Leigh             -                   Any questions please contact Kelly on 0220857877 or 078663888