July 23rd 2025, Week 2

Principal's Message

Term 3 Week 2 2025

Wednesday 23rd July

Kia ora koutou

Welcome to Seyoni who has started in Kōtare 2 this week, we hope you have enjoyed your first few days at school. 

We look forward to our mihi whakatau this Friday morning to welcome new families to Northland School.

For those of you who are new to Northland School, we hope you have already heard of Northland CHAMPs. The CHAMP acronym has been developed to incorporate our school values and our expectations in a way that is easy for all of us to understand. Further information on our mahi and playground CHAMPs can be found on our website Our Values – Northland School

A huge thank you to our fantastic Year 6-8 Road Patrollers. These dedicated children are doing an incredible job helping everyone cross the road safely. Thank you for helping them be on time in the morning when they are rostered on. We celebrated their hard work yesterday with an ice cream! 

Keeping our children safe is a team effort, and we're asking for your help. We've noticed that parking on yellow lines or double-parking can make it difficult for our patrollers and create unsafe situations. Please help us by parking considerately and legally. Over the years, we've worked with the Wellington City Council and police to establish the safest crossing points: the marked pedestrian crossing on Northland Road and the red painted area on Harbour View Road. A gentle reminder to everyone to model safe behaviour by using these designated crossings every time you come to and from school.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for school donations and payments. We appreciate how many of you are spreading payments throughout the year. We can report that over 88% of the Year 7/8 camp fees are paid, and over 55% of parent donations have been received. At the end of this week, you will receive a financial statement on HERO.

We're excited to announce that the funds raised from our recent Colour Run have made some fantastic new additions and experiences possible for our children. We've secured a Strike percussion performance in Week 4, and we know it's going to be a great show for everyone. This will start at 2pm on 6th August in Te Kōhanga, parents are also welcome.

We've ordered some new Kapa Haka uniforms and are eagerly awaiting their arrival. In the meantime, we are busy making new headbands with feathers on, to add just a little more to the overall look for our Kapa Haka, of almost 100 children!

Adding to our outdoor learning environment, we're in the process of building a beautiful whare in the upper courtyard area. Some of our children might remember the whare at Childspace – this new addition will be a special place for play and connection.

We continue to upskill ourselves on the refreshed Maths Curriculum and know that confidence and accuracy in knowing basic facts is making a difference. Basic Facts are the quick recall of maths questions that are used to solve parts of bigger problems as children get older.  Each fortnight we will add an idea to the newsletter that you could try at home with your child. 

The love of reading and writing is alive and well in our community. We would like to give our best wishes to one of our parents, Jane Arthur who is a finalist in this year’s NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, in the junior fiction category. 

Her novel Brown Bird (Puffin/Penguin Random House) is about a quiet, anxious 11-year-old who makes an unexpected friend one summer. Team Kākā have the opportunity to meet with Jane this week and hear how she approaches her writing.

Northland School has agreed to take part in a research project with the School of Linguistics and Applied Language studies at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. We expect the findings from this research will provide us with insights on language development and expression, focusing on the question: "How do children learn to use language?" All children from Year 1-6 will be invited to take part; participation is entirely voluntary. For those who give consent, this research will be carried out over the next few weeks at school. A HERO post will outline further details and provide the link for consent.

Our Year 7 & 8 students are nearing the final stages of their Science Fair investigations. Projects began last term, and there has been a flurry of completing research, creating graphs, analysing data, planning a logical layout of their presentation, and pondering on the findings. We will be selecting up to 20 presentations to be entered into the NIWA Regional Science Fair held between August 28th - 30th at Victoria University. All parents are welcome to come and view the final presentations in Te Kōhanga next Wednesday and Thursday from 3:00 - 4:30pm. 

For the remainder of this term, newsletters will now be fortnightly. You will receive a team newsletter next week that will give you more detail of programmes and activities happening in each team. 

Finally, if you have any questions or concerns about your child, please follow our process to ensure the right people can address things efficiently: start with your Classroom Teacher as the first point of contact, then the Team Leader/Deputy Principal if unresolved, and finally the Principal if further support is needed.

Ngā mihi

Andrea

NEW - Variable Speed Limits Project

Safe Speed Limits Outside Our School.

Wellington City Council is rolling out safe speed limits outside schools across the city, including ours. As part of this programme, a new variable speed limit of 30km/h will operate during school travel times on roads outside our school gates. This change will apply within 150 metres of the school gates, helping to create a safer environment for our whānau as they arrive and leave each day. 

You can find more information about the project, including which schools are included and when the changes are expected to happen, on the Council’s website:

NEW - Supporting your child to learn Basic Facts

Playing Cards 

Numbers before or after

Take a pack of playing cards and remove all the picture cards and the aces. Then shuffle the pack.   Turn over one card.  Depending on where your child is at with number recognition,  they may be able to tell you the name of the number in the card or say the number that comes after or before the number on the card.  The idea is to speed up recall of number order so introduce a speed requirement. You can gradually decrease the answer time when the learner is ready - so answer before 5, 3, 2 seconds or dealer wins! Next step - Turn over two cards to make a two digit number - 34.  What comes before/after, 10 more, 10 less.

Times Tables

Take a pack of playing cards and remove all the picture cards and the aces. Then shuffle the pack.  Choose a times table to practise eg. 3 times.  Turn over a card and multiple the number you turn over by 3.  

The idea is to speed up recall of times tables so introduce a speed requirement. You can gradually decrease the answer time when the learner is ready - so answer before 5, 3, 2 seconds or dealer wins!

You can also remove some "easier" cards like 2, 3, 5, 10 from the pack if you want to focus on the harder tables.

REPEAT - School Board Elections

Every three years, state school communities elect their parent and staff representatives to help govern their schools. This year the School Board Elections are happening in September. If you would like to learn more about School Board responsibilities, our current Board members are very happy to be flexible with a variety of options (e.g. phone calls, meeting parents at drop off/pick up time at school or meeting in the city during the day for coffee). This would be a very informal discussion about what it's like to be on a School Board and what it entails and answer any questions you may have. We are always looking for variety and different areas of experience to help our Board be well balanced and represent our school community. Below are the contact details for a few of our parent Board members.

• Jono W        027 645 8306
• Deborah Q  021 709 467
• Katie C-S      027 513 2951

Some current Board members will also be available in the staff room on 24th July from 9am onwards for parents to come and hear about the role of the School Board, and Board members will also be present at the Whānau hui on July 29th.

A quick timeline for the Elections 

• 16 July    Call for Nominations
• 06 Aug    Nominations Close  (Roll is closed for voting)
• 13 Aug    Voting papers sent out 
• 10 Sep    Voting Closes 4pm 

For further information on the role that School Boards play in the governance of a school, and what the work of the Board looks like, see Kōrari for Aspiring Board Members Webinar, Te Whakarōputanga Kaitiaki Kura o Aotearoa - NZ School Boards Association — What are school boards? and Community-member-guide-to-the-role-of-the-board-of-trustees_Sept-2020-v2.pdf

REPEAT - Northland School Board Election - Parent notice

Northland School
School Board Elections

Parent Election Notice

Nominations are open for the election of three (3) parent representatives to the school
board.

All eligible voters will receive this nomination form. Use this form to nominate yourself or
someone in your community. Information on who is not eligible to be a board member is
provided with this notice.

If you need more nomination forms, contact the school office.

Nominations close at noon on Wednesday 6 August. You may provide a signed candidate
statement and photograph with your nomination.

The electoral roll is held at the school and can be viewed during normal school hours.

As nominations are received, there will be a list of candidates’ names kept at the school up
until election day, which you can view.

Voting closes at 12pm on Wednesday 10 September 2025

Signed Ann Dalton
Returning Officer

REPEAT - Netball for Years 1 & 2

Calling all year 1 and 2  future netballers!

If your child could be interested in playing netball for Northland school, now is a great chance to give it a go and see what it's all about.

Sessions started on Monday 21st July and will continue for 4 weeks. It will be held straight after school. Our focus will be having fun and learning basic skills. Sessions will be led by yr 7 Star Helpers, supported by the yr 8 team's coach Claire. Parents/carers are very welcome to come along and participation is encouraged!

Key information:
● Sessions are free and run Mondays, 21st July - 18th August
● Time: 3pm for about 40 mins
● The game is played using soft balls, hula hoops and a lot of laughing
● Two fun festival days held at Cardinal McKeefry School on Saturdays 16th & 23rd August, with a rain date of 30th August.
● To sign up or for more information, see: https://www.sporty.co.nz/northland

If you have any questions, please contact Christina Young on 021 494 039 or email: christinayoungnz@gmail.com

REPEAT - Save the Date – Northland School Disco Friday August 15th

Our school disco will be on Friday August 15th and thanks to Cameron MacEachen of Handy Rentals (and a Northland School parent), this year’s disco is once again free! Koha is welcome if you wish.

We will need you to fill out a permission and contact form, so we know how many students to expect and supervise, and so we will know who will drop off and pick up your child. Please ensure you complete this information. We will have the permission and contact form sent out on Hero later this week.

Handy Rentals are also kindly providing a small bag of snacks for each student, please note this is not dinner and everyone will need to eat beforehand - and make sure to bring along a named drink bottle.

Years 1-4: 5:30 – 6:30pm

Years 5-8: 7 – 8:30pm

Please encourage your children to submit their favourite songs to their teacher who will collate for the DJ, and for those who would like some quiet space, the library will be available throughout both discos. Spot prizes will be given out on the night so break out your best dance moves! 

While parents do not need to remain on site, we do need at least 10 parents to supervise both the year 1-4 and year 5-8 disco. For parents whose children would prefer you to stay on site, you're more than welcome to help supervise the disco, or alternatively, you can have tea or coffee in the library and chat with the other parents.

If you're available to help the PTA set up the disco, supervise, and/or clean up afterwards please get in touch parentandschool@northland.school.n

REPEAT - Pizza Friday 1st August

All pizzas must be ordered by 1pm Wednesday 30th July, we are unable to process late orders. This is to help with making orders easier due to the sheer amount of pizzas arriving. 

The process is you pay online and we have paper slips in the school office to be filled in before 1pm on the Wednesday. 

We also had pizzas ordered with no payment AND payments with no order, please make sure you remember to pay AND order. 

Library News

Scholastic Book Club Term 3 2025 - Issue  5 is out now!

Term 3 Issue 5 2025 catalogues have been distributed in your child's class. Deadline for orders is on 1 August.  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

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 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 28th October - 30th October 2025
  

Community Notices