May 7th 2025, Week 2

Principal's Message

Term 2 Week 2 2025

Wednesday 7th May

Kia ora koutou

We are all saddened to hear of the sudden death of Grant McKeen on Saturday. Our thoughts are with Marissa and Vincent. Many of our children have been mentored and supported in their football endeavours with Grant through the Waterside Karori Football Club. He has great mana within our community and will be sorely missed. 

We appreciate that this is a difficult time and respect the privacy of the family. I would like to thank everyone who is supporting the family in many different ways. The school has been supporting all children who have been affected by this news and we are available if any of you require support. 

Thank you all for reading the HERO posts last week with the change to times for drop off and pick up due to the weather warnings that were in place for Wellington. We wanted to ease congestion and are pleased many of you took the opportunity to stagger the start and end of the day. We are now back to the usual times of 8:50 start and the end of the day at 3pm. Please continue to inform us when your child is late, sick or absent through the HERO app, this saves our office staff and you extra phone calls. 

Team Kākā are settled at camp and are enjoying a different routine and challenges. I was most impressed with how organised their gear looked yesterday as they boarded the bus. We are in regular contact with the teachers and it sounds like the weather is great and the children are having an awesome time. 

Next week we will be having school cross country on Tuesday, please see further details for approximate timing and the organisation for the afternoon. We hope you are able to attend at Northland Park.

Our mihi whakatau will take place on Friday 16th May from 9-10am to  welcome a number of new children and families to Northland School. You are all welcome to attend as tangata whenua. 

Next week you will also receive a team newsletter with details of learning and planned events. Please also check the school calendar for future dates. 

We want to highlight some of the main communication processes to keep everyone informed.

• School Newsletters this term will be uploaded through the Community Feed on HERO in Weeks 1,2,3, and then fortnightly until the end of the term.
• Team newsletters will be published in Week 3 and 8 and will be uploaded through the Community Feed on HERO.
• Teachers will post information for class trips, activities, resources or help required through the Community Feed on HERO
• Updates about learning will be shared throughout the term by teachers through the Sharing Learning page on HERO. You can comment on these posts. 
• In the last week of this term Mid Year Reports will be viewed on your child's main page on HERO. Previous years reports are currently offline until we publish at mid year.

If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please follow our process:

• Classroom Teacher as the first point of contact. 
• Team Leader/ Deputy Principal if unresolved. 
• Principal (if further support is needed). This will ensure the right people can address things efficiently.

Ngā mihi

Andrea

REPEAT - Northland CHAMP

The Northland CHAMP represents our values and our expectations. The bird image is known by all children and reminds us of our ‘ways of being’ at Northland School. Every term we re-establish our routines and remind one another of our expectations for mahi, the playground and how to show respect when we are talking with one another. 

Classes and teams discuss ways that the values and expectations are acknowledged and we also celebrate as a school the mahi and values that we see regularly.  We encourage you to discuss these expectations with your children. 

UPDATED - The Northland School cross country, to be held on Tuesday 13 May, starting at approximately 12:20

The cross country will have a different look to how it has been in recent years. This year we will be running it as a whole school event, with all year 1-8 students participating, to be held at Northland Park. Students will run on the park, surrounding pathways and streets. There will be slightly different courses, for different year levels, with the aim of maximising spectator visibility.

Year 1-3 students will run a course entirely within Northland Park. There will be competitive events for year 4-8 students who would like to be considered for selection for Western Zone cross country. The courses have been marked out so for those who are wanting to be considered for selection to the Western Zone Cross Country ( Year 4-8) will be running between 1-3km. There will also be non-competitive events for year 5-8 students. 

If we need to postpone because of the weather, our back-up days are Wednesday 14 and Friday 16 May. We welcome your support for your child as they prepare and participate in our school cross country and look forward to seeing many of you at the event. Please see the courses below. 

Further details with approximate starting times for each year group are linked below.

If you are able to help on the day please contact Neil, neils@northland.school.nz or Alex, alexm@northland.school.nz

NEW - Updating contacts and details

The recent wild weather—and its impact on school pick-up and drop-off routines—highlights the importance of keeping your authorised contact details up to date. Road closures and restricted access may prevent parents from reaching the school, so it's vital we have accurate information about who is permitted to collect your child in your absence.

Please get in contact if you did not fill in the Reunification Form distributed last year. New families to the school will receive an email shortly with the Reunification form attached. If your contact details have changed or you'd like to update your authorised contacts, please email us at office@northland.school.nz.

Thank you for your support in keeping all our students safe.

NEW - Colour Fun Run Prizes are on their way!

A big thank you to everyone who donated and supported our recent fundraising efforts—your generosity is truly appreciated!

We’re pleased to share that the prizes are now on their way. Over the coming days, we’ll be organising the distribution process to ensure everything runs smoothly.

We kindly ask that students and families do not visit the Office to enquire about prizes. Once everything is ready, we will notify you through HERO with details on when and where to collect them.

Thank you once again for your amazing support!

REPEAT - Relationships and Sexuality Education

Last year we sought feedback from the community about our Health programmes. We held an information session for parents to outline the variety of programmes we run and give an overview of the Navigating the Journey programme. Teacher and parent feedback has helped us to relook at how we spread the content of our Health programmes across the year. This year we continue with the current curriculum and would like to provide you with the slideshow which gives you information on what is taught within each team. 

In Term One the main focus in all teams has been on building a positive learning environment, knowing ourselves and developing relationships with others. We would like to let you know that teams will inform you of the content that will be taught in each term for the remainder of the year. Please contact your classroom teacher if you have any questions when you know what sessions will be taught this term. For some aspects of Navigating the Journey you may want your child to have an alternative activity or require a little extra information on the content.

You may already be aware that the Ministry of Education is drafting a revised framework for this area of the curriculum. The Ministry is also interested in feedback from school communities, and have invited whānau to have their say through social media. If you are interested in providing feedback please refer to the link below. 

The draft framework for relationships and sexuality education (RSE) is open for feedback until 9 May. The framework aims to provide consistent, age-appropriate and evidence-informed content from Years 0 to 13.

Consultation open for draft relationships and sexuality education framework – Ministry of Education

Library News

Scholastic Book Club Term 2 2025 - Issue  3 is out now!

Term 2 Issue 3 2025 catalogues have been distributed in your child's class. Deadline for orders is on 9 May.  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

HELL Pizza Reading Challenge

The 2025 HELL Reading Challenge is back!!  Students receive a stamp on their pizza wheel for each book they read from Term 2 onwards. Once they have read seven books, they can exchange their completed wheel for a free 333 kids’ pizza at HELL  Pizza.  The pizza wheel is available from the library.  This challenge runs for the whole year.  There is no limit to the number of pizza wheels each student can complete within the year.
For the younger students who still cannot read nor write, they can come to Erwin to retell a story that has been read to them or they can challenge themselves to try and read the  book to Erwin.  Older students need to write a quick book review about the book they read. Book review forms come with the pizza wheel.  Submit it to Erwin and their pizza wheel will be stamped and signed.

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

• Kings Birthday - Monday 2nd June
• Matariki Holiday - Friday 20th June
• Teacher Only Day - Friday 27th June - (Mathematics curriculum)

Term 3 -  14th July - 19th September

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

Term 4 - 6th October - 17th December

• Labour Day - Monday 27th October

CAMP DATES

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

Community Notices