Kia ora koutou,

We have just passed the halfway mark for Term One.  It has been a busy couple of weeks with our recent trips, camps, and working toward the end of our Swimming season - as well as all of our other learning programmes being in full swing.  We have our 8-13-year-old Swimming Sports tomorrow (Thursday 7th March).  We look forward to seeing our students there tomorrow and are crossing our fingers for fine weather.  You can find further details about our swimming sports within this newsletter.  Please note, we have received notice today that spectator access is severely restricted at Ngaruawahia Pools due to the bank being fully fenced off for development so this will mean we will have minimal space.  We will have to ensure all students fit initially, in order to work out if we have room for spectators.  Unfortunately, due to space and health and safety reasons, we may not be able to have many (if any) spectators.  Therefore our transport might only be a drop-off / pick-up scenario.

Tierney Family Support:
Our love and thoughts go out to the Tierney family as they traverse an extremely difficult time.  There are many offers of help and support coming in which is fantastic, and reflects the truly caring community we have.  To help manage and streamline all of the support for the family, we are putting together an email tree so that we can contact any whānau that want to help as the family need it.  If you are wanting to help in any way, please fill out the following form so we have your details.  Tierney Family - Offers of Support
Please note, some help would be appreciated this Friday - please complete the above form if you are available for that.

Harvest Festival - two weeks away:
On Friday 22nd March we are holding our popular Harvest Festival (3:00 - 6:00 pm approx).  This is a great way to have fun with your children, catch up with people and meet members of our school and wider community.  We would love to see our pavilion bursting with entries this year, so please encourage your children to participate in the many creative pumpkin, vegetable and scarecrow categories.  We are still on the hunt for some helpers for the afternoon, even just for 30-60 minute shifts.  Further details are included within this newsletter. 

Sabbatical Term 2:
Next term I have been fortunate enough to be awarded a Sabbatical, which means I will be away during Term Two. This is a period of 10 weeks (one term) where I will undertake professional learning and reflection.  During the time of my absence, Nikki Willis will be Acting Principal, she will in turn be supported by Justine Flynn (LC1) who will be Acting Deputy Principal.  Carol Morrissey and Elisabeth Joseph who are currently teaching in LC1 part time will be covering Justine during this time.  Alongside Libby McKay and Bridget Payton who are fulltime in LC1, this will provide good consistency for the students in LC1.   For anyone wanting to contact the Principal in Term 2, my email will still be available, but these will be diverted to Nikki Willis during this time. 

Paid Union Meetings:
We have been informed that there is a Paid Union Meeting on the afternoon of Wednesday 20th March.  All of our teaching staff are members and are entitled to attend.  As we have done in previous years, we will keep the school open on this afternoon, but we will have reduced staff.  If you are willing and able to pick your children up early (12:50 pm) it would be greatly appreciated.  For those that need to remain at school that is fine, we will have an alternative programme in place.  If you are able to collect your children early, you will be able to sign them out at their class.

We look forward to seeing you in and around the school at our various events over the next few weeks.

Juliet Dickinson
Principal

One of the features in HERO is the ability to keep up to date with your child's attendance.  Our Board has set an attendance goal of 92%.  To view this, open your Hero App, select your child and scroll down past the line graphs to their attendance overview.  This will show you their attendance percentage to date (bottom %).  The school day is measured in half-days, so the image below shows that this child has had 30 half-days present at school (15 days), and 6 half-days (3 days) absent so far this term.  The absences were classed as 'Justified' (i.e. sick).

Our aim is to have all students attend school regularly as we know this is strongly linked with academic success and positive social and emotional outcomes.  Where possible, please organise appointments, trips and holidays outside of school time.  

We have a number of families taking holiday leave during term time.  Whilst we understand the financial advantages of this, it is ideal for this to fall during school holidays if possible.  Please advise Juliet Dickinson (julietd@tekowhai.school.nz) if you are planning on taking holidays during term time as we need to keep a record of them.

Nau mai, haere mai - a warm welcome to 2024 to all current and new whānau.  We hope everyone had a wonderful summer - it's great to be able to say that we have had a very warm summer, in comparison to last year.

The board had its first meeting for the year on the 21st February and it was great to catch up with staff and fellow board members.  

Our first meeting of the year is all about looking at the year ahead as well as reviewing the financials for 2023.  We had a good discussion around the school-wide data review of where our tamariki are placed across the curriculum, as well as our strategy documents and what information the Ministry required from the school over the next few months.  The work that Juliet, Nikki and all the Te Kōwhai teaching staff have contributed in these areas has positioned us well in terms of meeting deadlines and submitting a strong strategy to the Ministry.

The Board is very excited about the interim appointments for term two of Nikki and Justine and also want to acknowledge Juliet's well-deserved sabbatical.  As a Board, we are very supportive of the development opportunities this has created for all. 

Mā te wā

Nicole

Also refer to the home page of the school website

Our annual Swimming Sports is tomorrow. This event is for students who are 8 - 13 years old, as at 14th March. We travel to the Ngāruawahia Swimming Pool for this event.  
There will be food and drink sales available (cash only) a menu will come out prior to the day, everything is $2

We will be leaving school as close to 8:45 as possible with events starting at 9:15.  We will be leaving the pools around 2pm.

Your child will need to bring the following…

Fingers crossed the sunshine continues to shine for us.

You will be hearing a bit about Structured Literacy.  Follow this link to watch some videos of what this looks like across our kura.  LINK HERE.

Structured Literacy is a systematic and evidence-based approach that is based on the Science of Reading. The Science of how children learn to read tells us that ALL brains learn to read in the same way.

Our Structured Literacy approach teaches all important components of literacy. These components include both foundational skills (decoding, spelling, handwriting and letter formation) and higher-level literacy skills (reading comprehension, written expression). 

A Structured Literacy approach provides: 

Structured Literacy gives children the skills they need to read, spell and write with confidence. 

Are you sick of not getting a carpark at school?  To fundraise for LC6's Sports Camp and Activity Week, the LC6 fundraising committee are auctioning off one school carpark.  This is a silent auction and the winning bid will win the carpark for all of Term Two.  This will effectively become a 'reserved' park.

All you need to do is enter your name, phone number and bid.  There will be regular updates regarding what the bid is getting to, so if you want to enter further, higher bids then you are able to enter as many times as you like.

This will run from Friday 15th March to Friday 22nd March.  We will be announcing the winner just before the gunging at the Harvest Festival.

Our Harvest festival is only a few weeks away.
We are in the final stages of planning and looking for parent helpers to help with the kitchen, BBQ, selling tickets, running games and a few other jobs.
If you are able to help for up to an hour or two on the 22nd March we would really appreciate it!
Please click the link to fill the roster with what you are able to volunteer for at Harvest Festival
Thank you in advance for contributing to the community spirit.

We really appreciate the support and look forward to an awesome event!
Friends of Te Kowhai School

We have a great opportunity for you to support the FoTKs to purchase pumpkin seeds every year for our annual Harvest Festival.

We are working with Garden Post, offering spring bulbs and seeds as a fundraiser. Perfect timing to get them in the ground in April. Orders will need to be placed by the 28th March and delivery will be the first week of Term 2. See the image below for some of the options.

Please click the link so that you can print your own order form. Order forms will also come home with the eldest and only children this week from school and more can be found at the school office.

We have noticed head lice is once again doing the rounds at school. If you could please take the time over the next few days to check your child/ren(s) hair to ensure they are clear.
If you find any lice, please treat immediately (and again in a week). It is helpful if you let your child's class teacher know too.
If you CLICK ON THE LINK it will take you to the Ministry of Education website where you can find further details on treatment etc. 
Please note - even the cleanest home can be plagued by these little critters so don't be too horrified if you find them. It is helpful to have long hair tied up.

See the attached image for the Rugby Weigh-In information.
Please click the link to pre register your player

Subs are $42 per player and $18 per pair of socks 

Club jerseys and shorts will be provided by your team manager 

Looking forward to seeing you all there! 

Is your child/ren keen to play netball this season?

Click the link to register your Player by Friday 15th March if they would like to play Netball this year. One form per child.

Year 1-2s start on the 9th May and play on Thursdays
Year 3-4s start on the 14th May and play on Tuesdays
Year 5-6s start on the 15th May and play on Wednesdays
Year 7-8s start on the 11th May and play on Saturdays

All games take place at Minogue Park, Forest Lake, while practice is at Te Kowhai School.

If you have any questions please contact Colleen at colleenmarshall25@gmail.com

Click the link to register your netball player.

 Registrations are now open. If you have a keen young footballer wanting to give it a go, hit the link below.

This year as a new initiative and off the back of the Women's World Cup last year, NZFootball and the federations have set up a girls league for First Kicks (U6).

We will be aiming to enter a team into this competition so if you have a young 5 or 6 year old girl wanting to play, this will be a great introduction to the sport.

For returning players we will need to register online by logging in to myComet and registering for this season.

If you're registering a new player you can use this link to create a new profile:

Here's a handy reference guide if you get stuck:

This year, I've been told, we can register multiple players under one login, so if you've registered previously, jump into one profile and any others registered under the same email address should show up.

Once registered / signed in you can go to the Registration link and register your player.

Alternatively you can hit the link below which will take you straight to the Registration page (you'll still need to login though..)

Fees will range from $40 for First Kicks through to around $80 for the older kids. No payment is required for registering, we will collect fees outside of myComet at the Muster.

If you have any issues or concerns just get in touch with me either by email, phone or message - details below, and I'll be happy to help.

Some other big news - thanks to the Te Kowhai Community Group we have brand new playing shirts for this year!

The old gold ones served us well but it was time for an upgrade so we'll roll these out at the muster ahead of the season.

And another huge thankyou to Nathan Joseph and Pinnacles Civil for sponsoring some more new gear for the club.

We have brand new mini goals for the School fields as well as new mid-sized goalposts for Willowbrook. Super flash. Again, we'll be rolling these out ahead of kick off.

We will be looking to have the usual football boot sale where you can donate old boots that no longer fit but still have plenty of life in them, and/or purchase a pair of donated boots for $10.

This will be available at the Muster and all proceeds are shared between TK Football and TK Rugby and the Clothe Our Kids charity.

We're looking to do POD shirts again this year, so if anyone would like to be a sponsor for this run please get in touch with Kat at nzkatwade@gmail.com.

We will have a muster down at school once all registrations are in and teams are finalised, where we'll hand out gear, meet the coaches and name teams. The date for the Muster will be Sunday the 24th March which is the weekend before Easter this year.

Teams are entered at the beginning of April and the first matches are scheduled for the Saturday 4th of May (first weekend of term 2).

That's it for now, if you have any questions or concerns just let me know.

cheers,

Simon Wade

0212900154 

I am sure you all know people who have needed to use donated blood products.  The NZ Blood service is the sole provider tasked with collecting 5,000 donations per week to meet demand.  They desperately need more donors!

The NZ Blood service is coming to Te Kōwhai, and they need your help (specifically your blood).

Eligibility criteria:
* You are aged 16-71 years old
* You weigh 50 kg or more and are at least 150 cm tall
* You have not lived in the UK, France or Republic of Ireland between 1980 and 1996 for more than 6 months.
* You have never injected drugs that were not prescribed by a doctor.

Please book:
Website: www.nzblood.co.nz, click book now and search for Te Kowhai (via calendar). Follow the prompt to set up a donor profile and book your slot.
Mobile App: Download the NZ Blood Service Donor App.  Set up your donor profile and book yourself into the Te Kowhai Donation event.
If you have trouble logging in, email Scott Pearce: Scott.Pearce@nzblood.co.nz

At the end of each term, any un-named lost property gets donated to the Clothe our Kids charity.
This charity has a trivia night fundraiser coming up - see the image fore more details.

Planning for the next holidays already? See the image below for details.
Click the link to book or for more information.