Week 1- 11 October 2023 - Term 4

Principal's Message

Kia ora Koutou

We welcome  Maya and Wesam to our school. 

What a great way to start the term with the sun appearing, new school signs and everyone recharged ready for a fun and busy term. Our first event is our Book Week and the excitement for our Character Dress Up parade next Friday. 

Thank you for expressing your views on Camps at Northland by completing our survey. We will close this survey on Friday 13th October. Responses will be collated to inform a decision on frequency of camps and overnight experiences and we will let you know. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MVT6T8K

We are Northland CHAMPs! 

We are excited to continue on our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) journey and make it visual around the school. Our values are a key part of what PB4L will look like at Northland School and will underpin decisions we make. To keep them front of mind, we have been able to make the perfect acronym to describe what we want to be. 

C - confident (whakamanawa)

H - hikohiko (active)

A - auahatanga (creative)

M - manaaki (kind)

P - pataitai (curious)

As part of our PB4L journey, we have been starting to talk about expected behaviour in different areas in the school. We have started with the playground, office and library, as well as talked about expected behaviour during eating time. We have made matrices of expected behaviour using CHAMP which will start to appear around the school. 

We want CHAMP to become part of our everyday school language as a way of acknowledging students. For example, being a classroom CHAMP, a library CHAMP, an athletics CHAMP or a friendship CHAMP. We look forward to encouraging many different types of Northland CHAMPs. Keep a lookout for our community workshop.

Before the end of the week you will receive team newsletters that provide details of the programme for the first half of this term. These will be posted on the community feed. 

Many of you will be aware of the Peter Pan production that is being held at the community hall this weekend. We are delighted so many of our students are involved. I look forward to attending on Sunday and hope to see many of you there.

As part of our community consultation to assist us plan for the next two years we would love to hear from you on what we are doing well, what we need to sustain and what we can improve on for everyone in our community.  Please go to the Northland School Parent survey section in this newletter.

If you would like to come and chat or have questions or concerns please get in touch with any of the senior leadership team, Andrea, Jane and Judith.

Ngā mihi nui

Andrea

Northland School Parent Survey

Each year Northland School (in conjunction with its Board of Trustees) refreshes and updates the school's strategy for the forthcoming year.  The purpose of our strategy is to identify and focus on areas of opportunity that can help the school to deliver its long term goal and objectives (i.e. 'to reach great heights' through the creation of 'a community of confident, kind, curious, active, and creative learners').

Our strategic planning work takes into account various different sources of evidence. One of these sources is the views and experiences of parents within the Northland School community.

The purpose of this survey is to collect your views - as the parent of a child/children at Northland School - to gauge the impact of initiatives and developments in the last two years and to inform our planning for 2024 and 2025.

Our strategy influences the things the school identifies as being most in need of greater focus (and therefore focuses on). As such, our strategy affects all learners at Northland School. This survey is looking at 3 pou/pillars that we are particularly interested in: learning - ako, relationships- whanaungatanga, and wellbeing - oranga. We ask you to spend the 5-10 minutes that's required to respond to this survey, and in doing so, ensure that your views are represented in our planning efforts on behalf of your children.

The information collected through this survey will only be used by the Northland School Board of Trustees for research purposes, to inform and support our strategic planning work. All data will be compiled into a single set, and any qualitative information you provide will be anonymised by the survey administrator, so that you cannot be identified.   

The survey is being sent (via e-mail) to all parents/primary caregivers of children at Northland School. We understand that parents/caregivers are extremely busy people, and we appreciate any information you can provide. Individuals who receive the e-mail survey are welcome to complete it in an individual capacity, or to provide a combined response (with the other parent/caregiver) if this is more convenient. For parents with more than one child at the school, we invite you to consider whether a single overarching response is possible, or more than one response is required to account for different learning experiences at Northland School.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LZHVRV3

2024 Enrolments

2024 Enrolments

To help us with our planning for next year we do need to know the number of students who will be attending.  If your child is in Year 1 – 7 and is leaving at the end of the year, please let us know as soon as possible.  If you have children due to start at Northland School in 2024, please check with Julia and Ann in the office to ensure that we have these details recorded.

If you know of children from other families who are likely to start next year, please encourage their parents to contact us. The more information the school has about potential in-zone enrolments the better equipped we are to provide the best possible class organisation for the coming year.

Hero - Tech Support 12 and 19 October

Have you downloaded the Hero App on your mobile phone? Are you receiving notifications when a new message has been posted? If you would like a helping hand to get this organised or a better understanding of how to navigate this app, please pop into the library tomorrow, Thursday 12th or next Thursday the 19th from 2:30- 3pm. Jane will be in the library to support anyone who would like some help with using Hero. 

Have you signed up to Hero.    Please find below PDF instructions on how to sign up.  

If you have changed contact details, emergency contact information, phone/email or address please let the office staff know.  We need to make sure you are all receiving the correct information from the office and staff.  This includes  SeeSaw   Hero   Email   Newsletter.   

This is vital information in an Emergency.   

Zones of Regulation

Stretch it Out 

Lets Talk Parenting

Library News

2023 Book Week

Book Week starts on Monday, 16 October, Week 2 starting off with an author visit. This year, Northland School welcomes Fifi Colston who is a local multi-award winning author,  an illustrator of many books, and a WOW designer, among other things.. During the week, each class is able to join an activity during the morning play time. On Friday, 20 October, the students and staff will have a parade at the school grounds each dressing up as a book character.  

Scholastic Book Club Term 4 2023 - Issue 7 is out now!
Term 4 Issue 7 2023 catalogues have been distributed in your child's class. Deadline for orders is on 25 October 2023. Please note that we do not take paper order forms or cash payments - all orders are done online via LOOP. Please go to https://mybookclub.scholastic.co.nz/Parent/Login.aspx to register. 

Should you wish to gift the books you ordered to someone, please place your order then email Erwin so she knows.  When the order has arrived, she can then put it aside and get in touch with you so you can come and pick it up. Any other queries to Erwin Palado by emailing librarian@northland.school.nz

Calendar Art

Students have been working hard to produce creative designs for their calendar artwork as a fundraiser for the school.  Order forms have been sent home  with your child’s unique code. Orders are online at www.kidsartworks.com using the code for your child.

Orders close This Friday 13 October 2023.

Northland School Requests

• Northland School Shirts be returned to the office asap
• 1.5 litre soda bottles/plastic bottles for science experiments Kōtare/Tieke
  

Sports Events

Athletics Day - Wednesday 1st November, information coming soon.

Weetbix Tri-athalon

I have created a Weetbix Tryatholon school group, so please make sure to sign your student up through our school group. The tryatholon is on Sunday the 17th of March 2024. It's an engaging and fun event for kids of all ages. More information can be found here: https://tryathlon.co.nz/locations/wellington/ 

email   rachelp@northland.school.nz  

Home & School

Thank you to everyone who ordered an apron (15 so far), raising funds for literacy resources. For anyone still looking to place an order you can follow this link https://forms.gle/dVyyK9yc2TnjSFMYA 

Thanks so much to Judy, a student's Grandma who made the aprons. You can find more of her creations at the Spot Shop, Johnsonville Community Centre.

Working Bee

Sunday 5 November  11am till 2pm.  Matthew George has kindly offered to co-ordinate a working bee at Northland School, more information to come, pop this date in your diary, sausage sizzle & cold drinks will be onsite at school.

BSC - Before School Care

Bridget Hall  runs the Before School Care.  The cost from 7:30-8:30 is $10 or  from 8-8:30, the cost is $5. We are fortunate to be able to continue to provide this for you to make your mornings run well. 

Wellbeing - Positive Parenting

https://northland.nz.schooltv.me/newsletter/positive-parenting

Positive parenting is an approach that emphasises the importance of creating a supportive and nurturing environment for children, where they feel valued, respected, and encouraged to grow and develop to their full potential. It focuses on building strong relationships with children and fostering their emotional, social, and behavioural wellbeing, rather than relying solely on punishment and control. By recognising and responding to a child’s needs, setting clear and consistent boundaries, and teaching life skills and values, can help children develop resilience, self-esteem, and a sense of responsibility, which will serve them well into adulthood.

Our Value Kind - Manaaki

Our quality is  - Compassion is having kind feelings toward someone who is hurt or troubled. It is caring deeply and wanting to help, even if you don’t know them. It is being kind and forgiving to someone who has hurt you.

Term Dates

Term 4     Monday 9 October - Friday 15 December  12pm         TOD  24 November    Curriculum Refresh

2024 Dates 

Tuesday 30 January Open day for families from 1pm 

Term 1 Wednesday 31 January-Friday 12 April      TOD 28 March   

Term 2 Monday 29 April - Friday 5 July                   TOD 31 May 

Term 3 Monday 22 July - Friday 27 Sept 

Term 4 Monday 14 October - Wednesday 18 Dec

2 more TOD dates will be confirmed by the MOE 

Peter Pan Production

Come to the show!   

50 Northland school children are starring in this year's GNAT show - Peter Pan. This weekend at the Northland Memorial Community Centre (Saturday and Sunday 1:30pm and 4pm). They would love you to come and enjoy the show. Tickets ($10/$5) at the door or from www.gnatc.wordpress.com.

Community Notices

Check out our  New Notice Board in the school office, come in out check it out !