Welcome Back 2025

Tauranga Primary School

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Principal's Update

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ngā mihi nui kia koutou katoa - Warm greetings to you all.

Happy New Year to all our TPS families.

The following newsletter contains back to school information for 2025

The 3rd February is our Whānau Connect Day - parents have been sent information via email. Please check your spam folder, sometimes the school email address needs to be reclassified to go to your primary email folder. Please let our office know if you have not received this email so we can check that your contact details are correct.

For the Whanau Connect Day please book an individual conference time with your child’s teacher. This is an opportunity for the teacher to listen and understand what is important for your family for the school year ahead. We will set a goal(s) that will be a focus and reported on in the Term 2 report and Learning Conference.

Book a time: www.schoolinterviews.co.nz
Our school code is: G6M3H

The 4th of February is the first at school for the children.

The school gates on 5th Avenue will open at 8.20am.

The first day will be filled with excitement and maybe some anxiety as well. Please reassure your child that everything will be fine, and that they have the skills and strategies to cope with this next new adventure this year. Talk through any concerns that they may have, and help them work on strategies to manage their concerns. For example if finding friends at break times is a worry, then setting up a meeting point with their friends could help, or organise a play date prior to school starting to re-kindle or start new friendships. For some children arriving at school with friends, especially for the first day, will help them settle into school quicker and reduce the anxiety when it's time to say goodbye to parents. If the concern is about moving to the "big side", then bring them into school to play prior to school starting so they can get familiar with the playgrounds and have a peek through the windows at their new class.

Most importantly, it will be how you approach their concerns that will influence how well they will respond and manage the change. If you are confident and positive about the new year it will provide the best platform for your child to succeed; speak positively about school, their teacher, and their ability to cope and manage this new year of school. This is an excellent learning opportunity for you and us to help build your child's resiliency and skills to manage change positively.

On the morning of the 4th of February we will have a powhiri to welcome new families and staff to our TPS community. All families are welcome to attend, a separate notice will come out about this closer to the time. If you have any questions or wish to participate (eg whaikorero) please contact Kylie Rae who will be coordinating this krae@tauaranga.school.nz.

On the 20th February, in association with our Friends of the School (FOTS) team, we will host a family picnic, 5:00 - 7:00pm. The picnic is an opportunity to meet and build our school community, all classrooms will be open from 5-6pm for parents to wander through and connect with our teaching staff. Families can bring along a picnic style dinner to eat on the field on the senior site, we will also have food trucks available. Mark this date in your diary.

Enjoy the last few weeks of the school holidays, we look forward to seeing everyone back at school on the 4th of February.

Hei kōnei rā

Fiona Hawes

Principal

principal@tauranga.school.nz

Stationery 2025

As TPS is part of the governments school donations scheme, to start the 2025 school year, the only cost that we request is for school stationery. Stationery can be purchased from the school and all of your child's stationery needs for the year will be provided directly to the classroom throughout the year.

School Stationery 2025:

Your child's stationery for 2025 will be entered onto their school account in early January.

There are three ways you can pay:

through the 'school shop'
via eftpos at the office
directly into our bank account Tauranga Primary School Board (12-3440-0009600-00) Please reference your child (SURNAME, first initials, Stationery)

We have negotiated with our suppliers excellent stationery prices:

Year 1 $39.00 New Entrants - 5 year olds who are new students to TPS in 2025
Year 1 $29.00 Returning 5 year old students who were Year 0 in 2024 @ TPS.
Year 2 $38.00 Rms 11, 12, 13 and the Year 2 students in Room 14 (new students to TPS will also need to purchase a book bag & whiteboard )
Year 3 & 4 $47.00 MH3, MH4 and MH5 (new students to TPS will also need a purchase a book bag and whiteboard)
Year 5 $38.00 SH1 and 2
Year 6 $34.00 SH1 and 2 (new students to TPS will also need to purchase a whiteboard)

School Bank Account

please check that you have the correct details

School Bank Account

There is an updated Confirmation of Payee system coming into NZ to check if the account owner name and number match payments being made. It will either show as a Match, Partial Match or Not a Match.

To ensure our families with gain a Match for payments, please ensure that the school's bank account is noted as: Tauranga Primary School Board not just Tauranga Primary School.

TPS bank account is: Tauranga Primary School Board

School Uniform

Summer uniform details:

Items that can be purchased via the school office. (see above for January office opening hours)

Polo shirt - navy with school logo
Navy shorts or skort.
Polar fleece - royal blue with school logo.
Sunhat - with school logo

Items that can be purchased independently of school supplies:

Sunhat: school logo hat or plain navy

Navy hat for Terms 1 and 4 – there are three options:

Aussie brim, drill flap legionnaire or bucket. No logos or basketball caps, please. If children do not have a sunhat they will not be permitted to play outside of shaded areas in break times.

Footwear

Summer: sneakers, slides, crocs (no jibbitz on crocs please) or sandals. For safety reasons, jandals are discouraged as children are more likely to trip over when running with these or get caught up on play equipment.

Any hair ties or other accessories must be royal blue, navy, black, hair coloured or white. All hair shoulder length or longer is to be tied up, this helps prevent the spread of headlice.

Please keep sparkly and dramatic hair wear for the weekends :-) .

Jewellery: watches and plain ear studs or small hoops are acceptable.

Taonga (treasure) of cultural or religious importance can be worn.

The expectation is that all children will arrive at school with sunblock applied.

There is sunblock available in all classes for use during the day, however if you child has a particular sunblock that works best for them please have a small supply in their bag so that they can reapply.

Term 1 is a 'swimming term' Please be prepared to send your child to school with togs and towel, your whanau teacher will inform you about swimming days. Our new entrant students will need to be able to get changed in and out of their togs independently. It may be worthwhile practising prior to school starting if this skill is not yet quite mastered. Clearly named uniform, underwear, togs and towel are essential for this process to be successful 😀.

No phones are allowed at school - this includes smartwatches with phone ability. Children who require a phone after school hours can leave these at the school office in the morning to be collected at 3pm.

LASTLY - please name everything clearly, it is impossible to return uniform items that are not named or the name has faded beyond recognition. Every term we have a significant amount of unclaimed, unnamed (or unreadable names) uniform items. Unclaimed uniform items that are in good condition are washed and sold via second-hand office sales or gifted to families.

FOTS meeting Tuesday 11th February, 5:30pm in the staffroom - everyone welcome

The FOTS are a group of TPS parents who support the school by organising both fun and fund raising activities. They are focussed on building school community and creating fun school memories for our children. Joining the FOTS is a great way to meet other parents and contribute to your school. The first meeting will be a meet and greet time with some discussion regarding the year ahead and setting a calendar of events. Don't be shy grab a friend and come along.