April 2nd 2025, Week 10

Principal's Message

Wednesday 2nd April

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to the following students who have joined us Indie, Kelly and Murphy in Ruru Iti.

This is the last newsletter for the term. Overall we have had a very positive term, routines are well established and teaching and learning is well underway. We are noticing that children are tired and we hope through conversations with your child you are hearing what they can do now, that they couldn’t do at the start of the year.

The Kāhui Ako Staff only day provided our staff with the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of workshops and discussions. Our secondary colleagues provided an update on the NCEA co requisites for English and Maths. This affirmed the focus we have on the structured literacy approach and deliberate teaching of basic facts and quick recall in maths. We appreciate your support that enabled us all to attend.  

Yesterday we had four teams from Year 4-8 participate in Western Zone football at Ian Galloway. They played well and encouraged one another, as Northland Champs do. 

I would like to thank parents who attended the event yesterday and to many of you who have helped with various trips, walks, helping with resources this term and keeping in touch with your child’s teacher. 

The parent teacher learning conversations that took place a few weeks ago, are scheduled at the start of the year to bring both teachers and parents together. Please feel you can contact your child’s teacher if you have questions or there are events happening out of school that are important for us to know. 

We continue to track our attendance and to date we have had 92.5% of students attend everyday. The majority of our students have attended school everyday. This is fantastic. Due to sickness we have had 5.2% of children away and we have had 2.3% of students unjustified. If you are collecting your child during the day for an appointment or returning them during the day, please come to the office to let us know. 

Thank you to those of you who have emailed me to inform me that children will be absent from school for a period of time. It is important to know that holidays during school time, while explained, are recorded as unjustified absences. Each day we must put our numbers through to the ministry. Every day at school counts and allows our students to progress with their academic achievement and social skills. 

We look forward to our end of term team hui’s  next week and hope you are able to attend and celebrate the learning highlights. Year 4-8 Tuesday 8th from 2:15 - 3pm and Year 0-3 Wednesday 9th from 9-10am. 

Have a safe break and we look forward to everyone being ready for Term 2. 

Ngā mihi

Andrea

NEW - 2025 April Board Update

Tēnā Koe

We have a number of items to report back to you on from our last meeting.

First a thank you to all for supporting the Colour Run. We hit the weather jackpot (rare in Wellington in March), the children had a fantastic time, and it was lovely to see so many of the parents and wider community joining in. We greatly appreciate all the work of the parent organisers and the parents that helped on the day. A special thank you to Eleanor and Grant - you were both wonderful for volunteering to be slimed; the kids are still talking about how much fun it was.

Donations

The Board extends our thanks to everyone who is supporting the school by paying the school donation - whether as a lump sum or as payments spread throughout the year. These contributions are vital to the student experience and care provided by the school. We also want to take a moment to extend our gratitude to those families who have made additional donations to support the school. These have been received as general donations along with specific camp donations. 

Annual Plan Update - Strategic Plan 2025-2028

The three pou initiatives last year have begun to shift us closer to our desired outcomes to improve our learning community. The Strategic Plan has been adjusted and shared with the Board, and the priority on a safe and bullying free school environment is stated. 

The main areas of focus for 2025 will be the refreshed English and Maths curriculum, along with assessment changes and attendance. Below are the outcomes and measures listed by pou. The full Strategic Plan 2025-2028 can be found on the school’s website and linked here.

Ako - Teaching and Learning - English Writing & Reading and Maths

Initiative: Implement learning design that promotes purpose, engagement, and a connection to the world.

Outcome: Our tamariki are engaged in the English and Maths curriculums that are responsive, personalised and promote success.

Measures: 

• At least 90% of our tamariki will be meeting the expected phase of the English Curriculum in Reading and Writing and the refreshed curriculum in Maths. 
• Planning will show engagement with, and implementation of, the English and Maths Curriculum.
• Observations of teaching will focus on best practice in Structured Literacy and Structured Math and will show alignment to the Curriculum.
• Classroom programmes will reflect the mandate of providing one hour per day of explicit teaching in Reading and Writing, and in Maths.

Ako - Teaching and Learning - Assessment 

Initiative: Create a framework that develops high performing teachers. 

Outcome: Purposeful tools that capture formative and summative assessment to inform teaching and learning and that accurately capture students’ progress and achievement.

Measures: 

• At least 90% of our tamariki will be meeting the expected phase of the refreshed curriculum in Reading, Writing and Maths, recognising that MOE has set a target of 80% of Year 8 students will be at or above the expected curriculum phase in Reading, Writing and Maths by December 2030.
• Baseline data will be collected at mid and end year, 2025, in relation to curriculum phases in Reading, Writing and Maths.
• Ongoing data collection will be used to track all students’ progress with teacher’s PGC inquiries and planning documentation clearly demonstrating a focus on explicit teaching and learning practices for target students.

Whanaungatanga - Relationships

Initiative: Strengthen partnership and connections with mana whenua, Te Ātiawa, whānau and tamariki. 

Outcome: All members of our community work effectively to support one another to celebrate progress, success and engagement.

Measures: 

• Te reo Māori and te ao Māori will be evident in planning, classroom programmes and within the school environment . 
• Parent engagement will be shown by increased participation in workshops, school events and evidenced by comparing the parent questionnaire from 2025 with previous years data. 
• The playspace will be developed, gardens maintained and shade is increased. 

Oranga - Wellbeing

Initiative: Strengthen positive behaviour for learning. Prioritise a safe and bullying free-school environment 

Outcome: School life fosters a safe, inclusive and caring climate.

Measures: 

• Analysis of school wide behavior posts on HERO will show; consist recording, appropriate responses to unexpected behaviours and a decrease in unexpected behavior incidents across the year.  
• School Evaluation Tool summary will show an improvement in school wide systems, monitoring and implementation of PB4L in 2025 compared to 2023. 
• Analysis of termly attendance data will show at least 90% of students attend regularly.

Playspace and Community & Communication portfolios

At our second board meeting of the year, we spent some time discussing the next steps for both the Playspace and Community & Communication portfolios.

Playspace

We know from the previous play spaces survey that what we need now is shade, trees, planting and seating, and while the immediate focus will be the courtyard between the Ruru classrooms, planting and play ideas will be implemented across the school. Our discussion centered on sharing knowledge from the past year and developing a road map for this work.

Our next steps will be to:

• Engage a Landscape Architect to develop a plan for introducing planter boxes, plants, and trees as well as seating and loose parts play/hut space into the upper courtyard between Ruru iti and Ruru Nui.
• Purchase shrubs to plant along the inside of the fence line between gate number 1 and 2 to provide greening and shelter. 

Community & Communication 

One area that we regularly discuss is how our school connects with our community and how much a part of the school the community feels it is. Previous community surveys have indicated that while parents feel welcomed, included, and enjoy opportunities for parents to be involved in school activities, many parents would like there to be more regular opportunities for community building. 

During our Board meeting we discussed increasing the Board’s visibility in the school community through improved Board presence and communication, and reinvigorating the Parent and School Group, clarifying its purpose and role within the wider school community as well as creating defined roles within the group. An update from the Parent and School Group with further information is included in this newsletter.

We would like to thank the staff for a very positive start to the year and the many learning experiences that have taken place during this term. We look forward to everyone recharging over the break and ready for Term 2.

Ngā mihi nui

Katie and Andrea on behalf of the Board

NEW - Parent and School Group update

Thank you to those that attended the Parent and School Wine & Cheese evening. While there were only a few of us, we had a lovely meeting and were able to come up with quite a few ideas. In discussion with the board, and off the back of the successful Colour Run, we thought that the Parent and School Group could benefit from a slight revamp, and more structure to help enable more clarity in how parents can be part of the Group and assist during events. 

We discussed options for moving to a Parent Teacher Association model or staying with the more informal Parent and School Group. For those that are unaware, a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) aims to build strong links between home and school; it helps coordinate parent involvement, organises school events, and fundraises for the school community, and consists of an executive committee who are elected annually, and who host general committee meetings. 

Many opportunities exist for parents to help within this structure. Some assist without attending PTA meetings, others like to be hands on as well as regularly attending meetings. Another option is to contribute at meetings without any pressure to take on a defined job. While we feel that a more structured group could make role definition and purpose more certain, we wanted to reach out to the community to get your views before we progress any further.

Please complete the 2 questions on this anonymous survey

NEW - University of Canterbury Kiwi English, Mathematics and Science competition Yr 5 - 8

The University of Canterbury is delighted to offer the annual Kiwi English, Mathematics and Science competitions for Primary and Intermediate schools. The skills based Kiwi competitions are written by New Zealand teachers for New Zealand students and closely align with the New Zealand curriculum. The online competitions will run in the last three weeks of Term 2 and the first week of Term 3. The competitions take place in school under exam conditions. Parents/caregivers will be provided with an individual student report outlining student performance. All participating students will be awarded a certificate, and a prize will be awarded to the top student in each competition.

The cost for a student to participate is $9.90 per competition entered. Once entered you will be invoiced via HERO, last day for payment is the 6th of May.

If you are interested in this Year 5 - 8 competition please respond to the upcoming HERO post. For any other questions or enquiries please contact Grant Henderson granth@northland.school.nz

NEW - Moving March 2025

Kia ora tatou,

Thank you to our school community, parents and students for a fantastic Moving March. Today all of the passports were checked and sent off to Wellington Regional Council. All of the passports will go into draws for extra prizes. 

Next Friday during our end of term school hui, we will present our school winners. These are students who have demonstrated our school values over the course of the program.

Again, thank you all.

Grant Henderson

Deputy Principal

HERO

We would like to provide you with a brief outline of all the functions that we are now using on HERO. Please make sure that you are signed up and have notifications on so you can access all the information.

As we progress in our upgrades with HERO we are adding new features to streamline communications.

• Attendance
• Enrolment
• Sharing of Learning
• Community notices
• Group, Class, Team notices
• Trips and request for parent help
• School event reminders and parent information evenings
• Finance 

In the financial section you will notice we have added  Before School Care (BSC), Pizza payments and all our Western Zone Bus payments.   You can check your school account at any time through the App and we  will send statements at the beginning and end of each term.

Please come and talk to us if you need help navigating the  HERO App.

School Lunch Options

Subway  - Every Monday - order online through  www.lunchonline.co.nz

Sushi  -  Every Tuesday - order online through  www.ezlunch.co.nz

Pizza   - Once a month - available the 1st Friday of each month, $6 per pizza  order forms available on the school website or in the school office.

Apps available for Subway and Sushi through the school website.

Term Dates

The bell rings at 8:50 am. Any student arriving after this time will need to sign in at the office and will be marked late. We encourage students to arrive by 8:30 am to meet with friends and get ready for the day. Lessons will begin at 9am. 

Before School Care available from 7:30 am -8:30 am in the Library. Please email the office for further details, office@northland.school.nz

Term 1

Term 1 - 30th January - 11th April 

Term 2

Teacher Only Day - Friday 27th June - (Mathematics curriculum)

Term 2 - 28th April - Thursday 26th June - last day of term

Term 3

Teacher Only Day - Friday 22nd August (Mathematics curriculum)

Term 3 - 14th July - 19th September

Term 4

Term 4 - 6th October - 17th December

CAMP DATES

Year 7 / 8 Camp - Term 2 Kaitoke 6th May- 9th May 2025 

Year 5 / 6 Camp - Term 4 Forest Lakes 29th October - 31st October 2025

Community Notices