Term 2, Week 3, 12/5/2025 - 16/5/2025

From the Principal's Desk

Kia ora kotou katoa, Greetings Parents and Caregivers

Reporting

Recently, the Ministry of Education announced the new reporting related to the changes occurring around Literacy and Numeracy. We have already adopted these changes, and all staff are going through professional development to ensure consistency. We have made changes to our student management system that will allow us to report against the changes. The mid-year reports will have these changes and will come out early in term 3. More information to follow that will allow better parent/community understanding and feedback.

Mothers Day

We hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. This year, we ran a Friday afternoon tea. We appreciated all the mahi completed by students/teachers to organise this event. I took photos of the students preparing and the rich learning that was involved with the process.

Pātaka Kai

In English, "pātaka kai" translates to storehouse or pantry, specifically a free food pantry. It's a Māori term for a place where people can leave food for others to take for free, encouraging a "take what you need, leave what you can" ethos. These pātaka kai are often community-led initiatives that help reduce food waste and provide access to food for those in need. If you are in the community and can leave food items, please just place on the shelves or let us know so we can help manage.

Pink Shirt Day

We appreciate everyone who supported and was involved with the Pink Shirt day. We continue to look  at anti-bullying programmes. This will link into some fun activities for students to be involved with related to the House groups and points. We are working towards becoming a Peace foundation member and running the Cool Schools Prorgamme.

Music Lessons

We welcome Rata McMillan who will be organising music lessons at the school. Please see the information below and contact her if you would like your child to take individual or small group lessons. These lessons will start on Tuesday 27th of May. There are still spaces and time to get your child involved. then Rata can complete a timetable.

Year 6 - 8 Camp

New camp dates for the above camp are now Monday 10 November - Friday 14 November due to warmer weather.

Thanks, Nga mihi Gary Veysi - Principal

Fundraising For the Minivan

If you are having a hard time selling raffles, please bring them back to the office and put in the minivan box so other people can try to sell them. Payments can be made in cash or by online banking in the following account: Whenuakite School Fundraising Team 03 1578 0015991 00. Please make sure your 4-digit book number is included as a reference. Thank you from the fundraising team.

We have secured a prime spot to sell raffle tickets at the Run Fest on May 31st in Whitianga. If you can help with this please contact Marianne 022 415 8064.

A big thanks to the Whitianga Warehouse who has given us  prizes, spot prizes and giveaways as incentives for the students/families to help keep us motivated as we sell tickets. We will do these at Friday's assemblies. We have also given out class sports gear as a thank you!

Last weeks winners

Here are the top sellers in week two:
Beaudyn Dallas and Wave Ryder surf school who kindly donated half of their profit on their Easter school holidays program.

The lucky draws for week two were:
Ari Hopkins, Levi Nicholson, Ryder Coombe and Ashley Grogan

This weeks winners

A big thanks to the following, who are our lucky dip winners for this week

Aart Laird, Sayul Rathnayaka, Luca Shortland, Florence Probett, Hazel Watson, Flo Sherrif and Mya Orbell

Being a K.I.T.E Kid Awards

Certificates presented to: -

Room 1 - Mabel Drewitt-Fisher, Felix Browne

Room 2 - Ivy Bowen, Sayul Rathnayaka

Room 3 - Fleur Palmer, Mariah Baroro

Room 4 -Cohen Ryan, Layla-J Moala

Room 5 - Oscar Greenwood, Ella Newton

Room 6 - Kaia Tuinier, Levi Nicholson

Room 7 - Riley James-Ramaka, Charlie Greenwood

Principal Awards - Kaia Tuiner - For working hard to meet her goals by accelerating her learning.

Jobs at school

Learning Support Assistants

We are looking for kind and energetic people to support our learners and join our team. Specifically to support the transition of younger children into our school, and another role to work in different levels. 

The two roles

1. fixed-term position until the end of the year, Monday to Wednesday, 9.00-1.00pm. This position may also lead to full-time work. 

2. fixed-term position until the end of the year, Monday to Friday, 9.00 - 3pm

 Preferred start date would be as soon as possible, but we are open to negotiation.

Please send an email of interest to nicola@whenuakite.school.nz by Friday, 23rd of May 2025.

Pink Shirt Day

Students coming to school ready for the Pink Shirt day fun!

Sports

Whenuakite Red v Te Rerenga Court Crushers Score 5-25 to Te Rerenga. Player of the day - Evana Jamieson, for putting what she learnt at practice into action.

The team made a huge number of intercepts, showed great teamwork and energy.

Year 5/6 Netball - the Fireballs! The Girls played their hearts out this week! Up against the experienced ‘Te Rerenga Thunder’, it was a challenge. But our girls did so well with such a high scoring game. The opponents shots were going in and our girls were giving it their all. Then a change at half time changed the dynamics with tips, intercepts and good communication and spreading out to get results from our on point shooters. Great shooting from Ava Smith and Ana resulting in the majority of our goals for the game in the 3rd quarter. Great defence from Flo, Ava, Kaia and Emme - great attack by Seazyn, Katie, Ella and Ruby. We were missing Isla though! 
End score of 17-8 in the oppositions favour but still a lot of positives to take away from the game. Flo getting a deserving player of the day for her excellent defence and being new to the game, showing so much potential and grit! Good work from our new up and coming umpire Pippa, Stellar job! Love it girls, keep it up Fireballs 

Saturday 10th of May saw the first games of the football season.  We had perfect weather conditions and everyone had a fun morning of football.  Our U6 and U8 teams played over in Tairua and our U10 and U12 teams were up against Mercury Bay, always a challenge but our players showed loads of skill and potential, so we look forward to seeing how they all develop over the season.

Congratulations to our players of the day:

U6 :  Daisy Land and Jordi Scotland

U8 : POD : Elfie Jensen and Arlo Guilford and 

Sportsmanship Awards : Wyatt Wood and Gihansa Perera

U10 Red Rockets : Gavin Perera and Kahu Gemmell (opposition POD) 

U10 Red Dragons : Israel Black and Kate Walker

U12 Isla Walker and Jaxon Walker (opposition POD)

Soccer

The 2025 netball season has started, and our players are having a ball!  Players of all levels are working hard with their coaches to develop their skills and use what they are learning effectively on court.

The team spirit and Positive Vibes are high.

This past Monday we took a large team of Years 3-6 netballers to Moewai Park for an Inter School Tournament.  They truly shone and pushed their limits as they all played throughout the day - so many games!  They were all exhausted by the end of the day, parents and teachers too, but what a day!  Superb teamwork, Positive Vibes and fabulous support from team members and whanau saw many players overcome challenges - from endurance, to just learning the rules.  The love of the game was found by many.

An enormous thank you to all whanau who made the day what it was!

Aroha nui!

The New Zealand Youth Fishing Nationals were held over the 2 weeks of the school holidays.  The conditions were terrible thanks to the tropical cyclone but a few of the Whenuakite kids still managed to battle it out there and bring in some great fish!  This is a nationwide competition where clubs across the whole country compete to catch the biggest fish across many different species as well as trying to get the most points per fish, where anglers catch fish on light or ultra light lineweight, giving them extra points if the fish weighs in heavier than the lineweight it was caught on.  This type of fishing takes skill and patience, with many good fish getting away!

Our local Mercury Bay Game Fishing Club had the highest number of entries for NZ with 165 kids entered!  Which makes it even more special that 3 of the top 5 kids were from Whenuakite!

1st : Levi Nicholson 

2nd : Hunter Nicholson 

5th : Corey Fraser

Overall across the whole of NZ Levi placed 10th and Hunter not far behind in 13th.  In the snapper section Levi came 6th with his 6.72kg snapper on 4kg line.  And special mention to Ella Riedinger who also placed 6th in the High-school section of the nationals with a nice 5.81kg snapper.

Well done to all the kids who got out there and gave it their best in the less than ideal conditions!

Events around school

Room 5 - Physical Education linked into Winter sports.

Room 3 - Reading programmes

Small group Literacy and Numeracy acceleration programmes

Room 2 - Dodgeball fun

Congratulations on all the senior (Year 7/8 students) who have started the training for the AIMS Games. At the moment, we have approximately 31 students entering a variety of sports and recreational activities.

Students stretching before their practice for football

Mothers Day preparations

Students using the new Pizza oven (donated by Katrina from Bunnings).

Room 6 - working on the Mother day food.

Room 6 - students completing their Mothers day cards

Aladdin Junior

After months of practicing twice a week, plus some weekends, the cast of 51 incredibly talented students is finally able to show off their hard work and skills! All shows have sold out and everyone who was lucky enough to see the performance so far was blown away! Aila, Coco, Flo, Hazel, Indi, Raewyn, Ruby, and Sophie all did so well. It was also lovely to see former Whenuakite School students Ella, Tahlia and Taylor. This show is a real community effort with many generous sponsors, volunteers and of course the cast. All of them brought together, organised and kept on track by the wonderful Fabian Roberts, who is already thinking about the next show! While it is a big commitment it is also an incredible opportunity for the kids and they all had so much fun. So if you're interested in getting involved next time, keep your eyes peeled for Mercury Bay Performing Arts on Facebook.

Up and coming events

Term 2 Week 4

Winter sports day with Coroglen and Te Rerenga