Waikari School Newsletter

Confident, Curious & Respectful Kids

Email: principal@waikari.school.nz
Website: https://waikari.school.nz
Location: 23 Princes Street, Waikari, New Zealand
Phone: (03)314 4250

Kia ora e te whānau,

Firstly, a big warm welcome to Romy Beach, who started school last week. It's great to have you joining our school whānau, Romy!

During the past week, I was fortunate to attend the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Course with Dr. Ross Greene from the USA. Dr. Greene is a specialist in working with children with concerning behaviors and has written multiple books, including Lost at School, The Explosive Child, and Raising Human Beings, to name a few. He has pioneered the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions approach to help parents, teachers, social workers, and others understand the underlying issues that children are trying to communicate. There were many takeaways for me that I am excited to bring back to school, but the key one was: kids do well if they can! If you're interested in learning more, please follow this link.

On another note, the end of the term is a busy time, filled with lots of after-school activities, sleepovers, and Christmas celebrations. We encourage the children (and staff) to ensure that during this busy period, we continue to get enough sleep each night and rest when needed—especially as students will be doing assessments in the classrooms over the next few weeks as teachers prepare to write reports.

Staff are looking forward to their teacher-only days coming up, where we will dive into the new curriculum and map out a plan for next year's learning. We are excited to announce the engaging learning we have planned for 2025.

Thank you for your continued support.

Noho ora mai,

Phoebe Todd

Congratulations to the following people who represented Waikari School at the Hurunui Athletics today:

Year 4: Odin , Emily A , Emily R

Year 5: Ethan, Aiden

Year 6: Max, Fergus, Rosie, Zara, Amelia

Year 7: Nico, Maddison, Te Atawhai

Year 8: Tom, James, Will, Manaaki, Macy, Lotti, Shakaiyah

We were really proud of the attitude and sportsmanship you competed with and we hear there were some great results. We look forward to announcing them once we get the formal results.

On Friday 13th December you will recieve your child's end of year report on Hero. The report will contain:

• Reading, Writing & Maths Graph which shows child's progress and academic progress
• Reading, Writing & Maths Comment
• Teachers General Comment
• Principal's Comment
• PRIDE Values Assessment
• Attendance

Please note that in order to prepare for these reports staff will be completing assessments over the next few weeks. You may have noticed that your child's Hero 'Report Page' has been locked while we upload our assessment details and write our report comments.

If you would like your report printed please let Phoebe know before the 10th December.

Thanks to everyone who came along to the whānau information session on Wednesday with Constable Ken, it was great to hear the questions and concerns.

Our curriculum starts this coming week, please see the breakdown of what is being taught each week so that you can follow this up with rich discussions at home or answer any questions the students might have.

Recently, the Kea Class had the opportunity to provide feedback on the 'Student Leaders' initiative that we implemented this year. They had lots of positive feedback and expressed a desire to see it continue. We will be voting for our 2025 Student Leaders this year, so we can announce our new leaders at the End of Year Prizegiving. Here is some important information:

We will have 3 student leaders from Years 7 and 8.

• Sports Leaders and Library Monitor roles are also available.
• Students will present their speeches or presentations on Monday, December 9th.
• Students and teachers will have the opportunity to vote afterward.

Please see the attached job description for more information. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Phoebe.

If any one from the community has any feedback about the student leaders initiative, could they please send me an email - we would love to hear it. principal@waikari.school.nz

Congratulations to all of those tamariki who received their 20 token reward last week.

Congratulations to the following students for being awarded certificates for showing RESPECT.

• James Reynolds - Showing respect by listening to other peoples opinions.
• Romy Beach - Having a great start to school by showing others respect.
• Nico Oberholzer - Always showing respect to those around him.
• Te Atawhai - looking after hers and others belongings
• Bridie - Looking after her belongings.

This week, we discussed our PRIDE focus of Respect, we discussed what Respect means:

• If you are not respectful you think of yourself as huge and very important. You think that everyone else is tiny and their ideas are not as important as yours.
• When you are not respectful people don't want to be around you.
• Respect means knowing that your not always the most important, treating others how you want to be treated.
• We watched the video of Mojo and discussed how respect is not earned instantly, you need to be respectful in the long run and understand that it takes time.

Respect means to: treat others the way that we want to be treated.

Absences

• If your child is not going to be at school please contact the school before 9:00am. This can now also be done through the HERO app.

School Bank Account

• Automatic payments are also welcome (weekly & fortnightly) and our Student Management system can also handle Payments in Advance.

Office Hours

• School office will be manned by Caryn from 9.00-9:30 and 1:30-3:00

Break Times

• 10:45-11:10 Morning Tea
• 12:45-1:20 Lunch

Waikari School uses SchoolDocs to maintain a comprehensive, up-to-date set of policies and procedures online. These policies and procedures follow guidelines and legislation and best practice, and have been tailored for our school.
Policies being reviewed this term are:

• Finance and Asset Management Policy (board)
• Managing Income and Expenditure (board)
• Financial Conflicts of Interest (board)
• School Donations and Student Activity Payments /
  Attendance Dues and Other Income
• Expenditure
• Asset Management and Protection (board)
• Property Planning and Maintenance
• Prevention of Bribery, Corruption, Fraud, and Theft

You can use the SchoolDocs website to participate in a review. https://waikari.schooldocs.co.nz/Logon.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f

Username: waikari

Password: pride

We as a B.O.T really value your feedback.

Members of our school Board have recently participated in some training on concerns and complaints. Please read below to understand the steps to follow if you or a member of the community have a concern or complaint.

• Wednesday 13th November - Teacher Only Afternoon (school will close at 12:30 supervision will be provided if you can't pick up your child).
• Thursday 14th November - Teacher Only Day
• Friday 15th November - Canterbury Show Weekend
• Wednesday 20th November - Hurunui College Transition Day
• Thursday 21st November - Assembly 2:30pm in Kea Class
• Thursday 28th November - Musical Soiree 5pm at School (Sally's Music Recital) please note date change
• Wednesday 4th December - Singing at the Hospital
• Wednesday 4th December - Board Meeting 5pm
• Thursday 12th December - Big Day Out
• Friday 13th December - End of Year Prizegiving
• Monday 16th December - Last Day of Term 4 - School Finishing at 12pm