August 21 2024, Week 5

Principal's Message

Wednesday 21 August

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to Artie who joins us and his brother at Northland school. 

Last Thursday there was a good turn out for the community AED/ CPR training run by Wellington Free Ambulance. I heard from a number of parents who attended, that it was excellent. Thank you Rose from the board for coordinating and leading this event.

Our Kapa Haka certainly performed with confidence last week both at the Festival and in Te Kōhanga for the school community. The bus ride over in the morning was also a treat and without any prompting, the students sang beautifully and it was clear they were ready to be on stage. A huge thank you to Hemi, Lyndsey and Jane for all the preparation with the students. It is always a privilege to see our students represent our school with pride. 

On Monday we had Nano Girl provide two shows for our students and a hands on science staff meeting for teachers after school.  Each show had a variety of experiments and explanations that sparked curiosity. The Matter Marvels show for the year 1-4, looked at solids, liquids and gases in temporary and permanent states. While Captivating Chemistry looked at reactions, explosives and the importance of chemistry in our daily lives. All students will know a little more about elephants’ toothpaste!

Books Alive is an event that Erwin took some of our committed student librarians to on Tuesday. This event is for students to be immersed with authors and illustrators who are the finalists in the annual New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

We are now seeing stronger parent engagement on HERO. There are regular communications for events, finance, sharing of learning, and bookings for learning conversations.  We have been tracking our parent and camp donations and want to thank you for the payments made to date. Last year we received 62% donations for the Year 7 /8 camp and this year, we have received 84% already. We received 76% in parent donations in 2023 and so far this year, we have received 65%. We really appreciate the contributions you are all making to the school both financially, and your time to support the various out of school activities.

Please read the August Board update section that provides a summary of overall progress and achievement at mid year. We are very pleased with our results and as always encourage you to talk with your child’s teacher if you have questions or would like to know how you can support your child’s learning at home. 

Learning Conversation Bookings

The bookings for Learning Conversations are done through HERO. These are now open and we have over half of the time slots booked already. If you are unsure how to do this, please go to the HERO page on the website for details, https://www.northland.school.nz/our-school/hero/.  Thank you for seeing the value in meeting with teachers to discuss progress, goals and next steps for the remainder of the year.  The focus of these conversations is on progress since you received the mid year report. 

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

Ngā mihi nui

Andrea

Northland School Board August update

Tēnā Koe,

Hoping everyone is enjoying the beginning of term, with its shifting weather and end of winter sports. Like many, we are looking for those glimpses of spring and enjoying the slightly longer days.

The board met during the third week of the term and were very pleased to have our mid-year progress and achievement report data presented. This data showed a clear and continuing trend of improvement and is a testament to the commitment of our teachers and the hard work of our tamariki. Please see below for a summary of the findings. The Board wishes to thank the teachers for all their hard mahi – we are so lucky to have such a fantastic teaching team.

We were also grateful to have Nathalie come and share the work that she has led in relation to our school poutama, and how she and the team are continuously growing our schools commitment to Te Ao Māori. There are many obvious expressions of this across the school from our powerful kapa haka rōpū, and pūrakau focused learning, to less obvious but crucial commitments from parents and educators to embedding te reo, a focus on Māori learners, and structural documents to guide us such as the poutama. 

We need to say thank you to two people. Firstly, a huge thank you to Tony Cullinane who for many years (30+ years we believe!!) has served as our school electrical support. His generosity and skills have been so greatly appreciated and his contribution has made a significant difference to our school community. We wish him all the very best for his well deserved retirement.

Secondly, thank you to Rhiannon Forgie, who is stepping back from her Board role, for the amazing work to date leading our play space update and extension. We are so grateful for the sharing of your expertise Rhiannon and will miss your positive and open attitude. We are lucky and grateful that Rhiannon has agreed to continue to support the play space work.

Summary of the mid-year progress and achievement report

This report provides data to show the progress and achievement of our current students at the middle of the year. The data is based on 240 current students. This report provides evidence of our pou, Ako- a learning area of our annual plan. By the end of the year we are aiming for at least 90% of students to be meeting the expected curriculum level in reading, writing and maths. This is in line with the Ministry of Education goal to have 80% of Year 8 students at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing and maths by December. Also the PAT tests, a moment in time test, have also been used to support curriculum levels and affirm judgements for students from Year 4 - Year 8.

Overall our progress and achievement in the middle of the year shows students at Northland continue to attain a high level of achievement at the expected curriculum level in writing, reading and maths. We expect to be able to maintain this level at the end of the year.

Reading

In July 2024, 90% (compared to 85% at the end of 2023) of students were achieving at or above the expected curriculum level in Reading.

Writing

In July 2024, 87% (79%) of our students were achieving at or above the expected curriculum level in Writing.

Maths

In July 2024, 89% (86%) of our students were achieving at or above the expected curriculum in Maths.

2024 Identified Target Groups

For those identified in the school wide targets at the beginning of the year, closer monitoring occurs each term to check that progress is being made, either relative to the expected curriculum level or to the curriculum level they are working in.

For reading, writing and maths each student is making progress, some making significant progress towards their goals. This targeted approach by teachers and teacher aids has provided a greater focus on what learning needs reinforcing, specific goals that can be supported at home and more regular communication with parents.

Progressive Achievement Tests or PATs

PATs are administered each year in most New Zealand schools. Teachers use the information to develop programmes that meet both class and individual needs. They also look for changes from one year to the next and investigate further when major differences in cohorts or individual results are seen.

Stanines/Scaled scores - Each raw score a student gets can be converted to a stanine and a scale score. Both of these align with a student’s position in the curriculum on that day.

The graphs below show Northland School scores compared to the NZ average. The light grey box is the national norm, and the blue and the green represent Northland. These ‘progress over time’ graphs provide us with longitudinal information following a cohort of students through the years. Our results show our students are performing well in comparison to the national norm.

Thank you

Rose Simpson, On behalf of the Northland School Board

Open Day

Do you know families in the area with school age children looking to enroll? We are having an open day on September Thursday the 12th which you may want to invite them to. It will be a great opportunity for families to have a walk around and learn what Northland School has to offer. 

Cultural Day - Friday 20 September

Our annual Cultural Day is coming up again this term on Friday 20 September (week 9). It would be great to include as many cultures as possible and we would love it if you, or anyone in your family, is able to share their culture with different groups of up to 12 children for about 25 minutes at a time. You could share a traditional activity, craft, video, song etc. or any combination of these. 

There will be 4 sessions on the day: 9.30am - 10am, 10am - 10.30am, 11.30am - 12pm, 12pm - 12.30pm. 

Please email me if you are able to participate. It is possible to do just two of the sessions, if that suits you better.

Ngā mihi, Nathalie nathaliel@northland.school.nz

Civil Defence Emergency Contact Form

We would like to remind you to return the civil defence emergency form back to the office. It is very important that we have your  contacts up to date before we undertake a reunification drill during term 4. All of these details will be kept in our Emergency Register. 

Judith Locke Parent Evening

Our Kāhui Ako has committed to providing a number of parent events throughout the year and we are pleased to let you know Judith Locke, a former teacher, now a clinical psychologist with experience in adult, child and family therapy  will be presenting at Wellington College on 4th September 7-8:30pm.  She is the author of the Bonsai Child and the Bonsai Student which provide great insight for parenting.

You can sign up for Judith Locke here.

Learning Conversations Book on HERO

Learning Conversations are planned for Thursday 5th September and Wednesday 11th September from 3:15- 8pm. These are 15 minutes for teachers and parents to discuss progress and goals. To book an appointment time please go to the HERO app and select School Bookings.

Please go to the website https://www.northland.school.nz/news-events/general-news/ for a step by step guide on how to book a learning conversation.

If you have any issues booking on HERO please contact the office.

Jumping June

I'm pleased to let you know that we raised $2,170.50  for the Heart Foundation this year! This is a great result for Northland School.

A big thankyou to all those that fundraised and donated. We have some fun, new ideas that we will put in place for next year! 

Nga mihi, Alex M

PhotoLife - School Photos

We wanted to let you know that we have spoken with Photolife regarding the school photos. They agree with our concerns and are very apologetic. They are wanting to work with us to make this right. 

PhotoLife have offered to re-edit the images and tidy up the groups to a satisfactory standard at NO extra cost and are happy to extend / redo the FREE DELIVERY period so that no parents miss out on the opportunity to order.

For those of you that have already ordered and are wanting replacements, we have been advised that these will be replaced at NO extra cost. We will advise once we have more information on how this will be done.

This is a great result and we want to thank you all for your patience while we have been working through this. We will update you once we know dates for ordering. 

Student Rep -Daffodil Day

The Student Rep team is fundraising for the Cancer Society for Daffodil Day. They will be selling 3D printed daffodil pin badges (made by Year 7 and 8 students) outside the library this Thursday and Friday from 3-3.15pm this week, and Monday 26th August. 

We will have QR codes which link to our fundraising page, and will have a collection box if you would just like to donate to this amazing cause.

Western Zone Swimming

The Western Zone swimming event will take place on Thursday September 26th at Wellington Regional Aquatic centre. Due to the Karori Swimming pool being closed we will not be holding a school swimming sports this year.

For those students in year 4-8, how they can be selected for competing will be sent out on HERO.

Quiz Night!

The Home & School Committee have arranged a quiz night to raise funds for STEM resources. Reach out to family, friends, workmates, sports teams, and get a team together for a fun night out! There will be spot prizes, games, and we have some great prizes from delicious restaurants, eateries, and producers including Bebemos, Nolita, The Botanist, Otto, and Elysian Foods. 

Tables are already filling up so get in quick! Get a team together and book a table! 

Thursday 12 September at The Shepherd's Arms on Tinakori Road.

Quiz starts at 7pm but the tables are available from 6pm if you want to go earlier. Teams of 6, $120 per team - if you don't have a group of six, we can arrange a team.

To register your Team, or if you have any questions, get in touch with H&S homeandschool@northland.school.nz. 

Calendar Art

The kids have been busy making beautiful art work here and it is almost time to place orders! 

Keep an eye out on HERO and coming Newsletters with info on how to order.

Sport Shirts - Cleaned and Returned

Can we PLEASE have all sports shirts returned to the school office.  Can you please check bags, draws and under the bed - we are missing many many shirts, thank you.

Library News

Library News  

Our Librarians enjoyed meeting Rachael King, author of The Grimmelings, and Ruth Paul who both signed a number of our school books. The highlight was learning how to write a book with Feana Tu’akoi who ran a very interactive workshop.

"This term, Northland School was lucky enough to have a few select student librarians go to the Books Alive Book Awards at the National Library of Wellington. It was awesome! We got to meet some award-winning authors like Rachael King and Ruth Paul. Also, we went to a creative writing workshop with Feana Tu'akoi.  Overall, it was lots of fun and I would like to thank Erwin for taking us." - Marni Orange, Year 6

What's New?

Our school library has these new book series called “Seriously Silly Stories”. These books give a hilarious twist to much-loved fairy tales.  They can be found in the same shelf as the books written by Susan Anita Jones in the Junior Quick-Reads area.

Also, more Rainbow Magic books are added to our current library collection.

Pizza Day - September 6th

Pizza Friday is becoming very popular here, which is great! A few things to note though:

All pizzas MUST be ordered by 3pm Wednesday 3rd, no exceptions. This is to help with making orders easier due to the sheer amount of pizzas arriving. 

Thank you for all the payments, however we have had some payments come in with no Pizza orders! This means some miss out. Please if you are paying online for a Pizza, can you make sure that one is ordered at the office.

We also have had pizzas ordered with no payment, please make sure you remember to pay for pizzas. 

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.

Western Zone and School Sports Days

Western Zone sports day are usually held on a Tuesday with the Thursday of the same week being the postponement day.  Information is sent home separately for each of these events, with updates on HERO or the school website.

WZ Hockey  27 August

WZ Swimming 26 September 

School Athletics Day  23 October (Wednesday)

WZ Athletics  1 November  (Friday)

Term Dates

2024 Dates 

Term 3 Monday 22 July - Friday 27 Sept                    

Term 4 Monday 14 October - Wednesday 18 Dec   

Our teacher only days are 

Term 3   Friday 30 August 

Term 4  Tuesday 29 October 

2025 Dates

We have confirmed the dates for 2025. We will have an open afternoon for families on January 29th to help the transition back into school, see the class space and meet the teachers in the learning space. This is prior to the first day of school on 30th January.   We are yet to confirm Teacher Only Days and once these have been decided we will let you know.

Term 1 - 30 January - 11 April  

Public Holiday- Thurs 6th Feb- Waitangi

Please note Easter and ANZAC day are within the Term holiday in 2025

Good Friday - 18th April

Easter Monday - 21st and Easter Tuesday 22.

ANZAC Friday 25th April

Term 2 - Mon 28 April - 27 June 

Kings Birthday - Monday 2nd June

Matariki - Friday 20th June

Term 3 - 14 July - 19 September 

 Term 4 - 6 October - 17 December    Labour Day- Monday 27th October

Community Notices