Wednesday, 10th December 2025

Tēnā koutou katoa,

This is our final newsletter of the year. Included in this is a run-down of the final end of year events (Meet the Teacher afternoon, Award Celebration and Last Day Fun Day on Tuesday 16th December).

Last Friday's Twilight Fiesta went extremely well, and despite the challenging parking we had an incredible turnout. Thank you to eveyone who came along to support our performers, we hope you enjoyed the food and entertainment. Thank you to Marieke Nation for organising such a great event, and also all of our itinerant music teachers who work with our students throughout the year.

Last week, we also held our Year 8 Leavers' Dinner. It was such a privilege to take time to give our leavers a special farewell. They spoke fondly about their time at Te Kōwhai School, their greatest memories and we presented each of them with a greenstone taonga. We wish these students (and families) all the best in their High School years and beyond.

This Friday, we have our Meet the Teacher afternoon. This is for students only. During this time, they will spend the hour with their 2026 teachers and classmates. They will each be given a newsletter to take home which has an introduction to their teachers and information they will need for Day 1 of Term 1 (Monday 2nd February). Also on Friday, all end of year reporting updates will be shared. See further information about this and class placements below.

In conclusion, this year has seen significant changes in the education sector as you will be aware. These have meant we have had to be incredibly agile, open to new learning and highly proactive. I can't thank our dedicated team of teachers and support staff enough for their continual positivity, willingness to learn and openness to critiquing and continually adjusting their teaching practice.

On behalf of our team at TK, I want to wish you all happy holidays and a very Merry Christmas.

Ngā mihi,

Juliet Dickinson
Principal

Each newsletter, we share some of our students' literacy learning.
LC5 has been loving learning about various artists throughout our 'An Abundance of Art’ Inquiry. We have had fun recording our ideas about what if local sculptures came to life and how we have collaborated on projects like selected artists that we have read about. Check out our writing and see all the fun we have been having!

THE HUT
Me and my cousins collaborated together to make a hut out of wood found around my uncles farm so we could go duck shooting and pukeko.

In the holidays and weekends me and my cousins made a hut in my Uncle's gully. By a pond we've also made a deck with steps down to it in the pond there are ducks, pukekoes, and a whole lot of birds

such as fantails and a whole lot of sparrows. There also are 2 cows that eat the grass at the top of the gully. One of the cows is orange so my cousins called her mango and there's a black cow a little bit bigger than mango shes could scout. My cousins also have a chicken that likes to lay eggs in the gully and the eggs are the weirdest eggs I've ever seen .

Secondly we used wood from the old fences from around my Uncle's farm. We used strong the heavy posts to make the frame. Because it's a gully we had to build it on the side of a hill. We used the wood that wasn't used for my cousin's house to make the walls. My uncle brought a big box full of screws the size of an A3 piece of paper. We used them all in a couple weeks. Last weekend we painted the HUT this is the coulor . we painted it after we painted it it started to rain luckily the paint didn't fall off

Lastly, I can't wait until were finished the HUT. And we can hang out in it for hours with our family and friends.

In conclusion I am really happy with what me and my cousins created

And I hope we can make more amazing things like the HUT!

BY JAXON!!

My Art

In Samoa, NZ and India, Tiffany Singh a social–practice artist collaborates and creates installations to make people think differently about the world's issues.

Firstly, we made art at Te Kowhai school. We made art, my art is a tin. The tin art was super fun. We also made tire art, and we made TKrocks. My tin was an eye monster. On my tin, I added a lot of eyes.

Secondly, we made this art to represent TK school. Some of us made our art to represent a taniwha. There was a flower garden in a tyre. We also made our art for inspiration. The tin art is also super fun to find.

Thirdly, this is who worked with me and what they made. The first person was Miss Steiner. She made a bee. The second person was me. I made an eye monster. Kowin and Hunter made the leaning tower of pizza. 4 girls put a plant in their tin. James made a cookie monster. Tom and Tristan made a minion. Aubree made Mickey Mouse. Parker and Beckett made a Christmas tin. Hugo made a grasshopper.

Lastly, this is how I made my tin. The first thing I did to make my art was I got the tin and ripped the wrapper off the tin. After that, I clean off the sticky stuff. I then painted my tin white and waited for it to dry, then painted it brown and waited for it to dry again, after I did not like it so I painted it white again and waited for it to dry AGAIN. Anyway, I glued on so many eyes and two popsicle sticks. Therefore, that is my LC5s art that I made. You should do this one day too.

By Gabby

Little Bull
One gloomy night in Hamilton, New Zealand Little Bull woke up.

Little Bull was planning on causing mass destruction in the night when nobody was watching.

So he started by waking up all his fellow sculptures like Riff Raff, Tongue Of The Dog and Sapper Moore - Jones the sculptures groaned “ohh”.

To help him cause mass destruction to wreak havoc on Hamilton city. He told the sculptures “try not to wake anybody up”.

Then accidentally woke up a kid called Lil Timmy the Little Bull tried running but Lil Timmy was faster than him, Little Bull panted heavily.

Little Bull eventually gave up after one hundred metres and Lil Timmy gave him a pat on the head.

Lil Timmy said “my name is Lil timmy, do you want to be friends?” Little Bull nodded his head and Lil Timmy hopped on his back.

Then they started causing mass destruction by knocking over buildings and houses.

The first building they knocked down was the Waikato museum so they could recruit more sculptures. The sculptures moaned “uhh” when they were woken up.

Then they knocked down countless restaurants, supermarkets and schools. This noise woke up clueless people that went straight back to sleep.

Then they started on empty homes and apartments and ran through hundreds of houses and apartments.

Then he went to Lil Timmy's house and dropped him off and went back to sleep.

THE END

By Benji

School Art
In New Zealand and India, a social artist named Tiffany Singh collaborates with her community to make art and help solve social issues.

Firstly, like Tiffany, LC5 was split up into groups to do collaborative art.

The group I was in got to go to Splashy, and the other groups got to work with house paint to create tyres to put in the garden and tins to put around the school. My tile was brown, green, blue, white, yellow and pink. It had a wharenui with a flowing river and kowhai flowers dangling over a blue sky and a pink border. When we had covered our tiles in vibrant colours. Sue (The lady who worked there) put them into a hot oven called a kiln. It will make our tiles shiny and glazed so that they stand out when they are in the ground.

Secondly, there were ten tiles that had to go into the kiln so it took about two weeks. There were ten people in my group: Lulu, Luuka, me, Marley, Blake, Jamie, Isla, Kensey, Isabella and Anika.

Thirdly, we all painted great tiles that represented our school and communities. People did hibiscus flowers, NFL balls, birds, kowhai flowers and other stuff about New Zealand. Our tiles were 15cm by 15cm.

Lastly, we collaborated like Tiffany by all working together to come up with a cool tile that would stand out. Me, Marley, Lulu and Luuka did tiles with hibiscus flowers, kowhai flowers, leaves, rivers and other things.

In conclusion, LC5 all collaborated like Tiffany Singh to create the tins kowhai canopy, tyres and tiles to brighten up our school.

By Willow

The WaiBOP registrations for Futsal open early in the New Year (before school is back) and will fill very quickly.

Please register for Term 1, 2026 before 31 December 2025 - please be prompt with this so that teams can be formed.

Click the link to register for Futsal and pay the $80 associated cost.

Players: We can only accommodate players born in 2018 or earlier - generally in LC3-LC6.

Cost: $80 per player

Girls Only Leagues: There are girls-only leagues in the U11 and U13 grades. Please select the relevant team if your daughter would prefer to play in a girls-only league. This will be subject to numbers.

The U9 grades are all mixed.

U9 Mixed (born 2016 & 2017)
U11 Girls (born 2014 & 2015)
U11 Mixed (born 2014 & 2015)
U13 Girls (born 2012 & 2013)
U13 Mixed (born 2012 & 2013)

Game Days: Fridays starting 20th February 2026 and running for 6 weeks through to 27th March 2026.

Game Times: To be confirmed. The initial draws are published after registrations close. Games are generally between 3:45pm and 8:15pm (possibly as late as 8:45pm)

Game Venues: To be confirmed once draws are set. The following venues have been used: The Peak (Rototuna), Hamilton Girls High School, St. Pauls Collegiate, Fairfield College, Fraser High School, Horsham Downs Primary School, Berkley Normal Middle School, Hillcrest High School, Waikato Dio, Hamilton Boys High School, Cambridge High School. The venue for a given grade is usually relatively consistent once the league has begun.

Own Clothing / Equipment:

Any sports shoes suitable for use on indoor courts (don't have to be indoor football shoes specifically)
Shin pads (compulsory)
Long black socks
Black shorts
Own TK school-branded T-shirt or own plain black T-shirt

Coaches / Managers: Please volunteer if you can. Every team needs someone to coach/manage on game nights. We can't do it without your help!

Training / Practices: Will be confirmed by the Coach for each team as to what and when they are able or see a need to set a practice.

All are welcome! The Futsal Code Convenor will be in touch with you with further information as it comes to hand. Email futsal@tekowhai.school.nz if you have any questions.