Term 3 - Week 2 Newsletter

Kaiapoi High Coffee and Cake Evening

This evening we had a great group of parents and some students come in to meet with KH Principal, Bruce Kearney, and head students, Ben & Destiny,  to talk about transitioning to high school.

Remember, regardless of what high school your child is going to, you need to enrol them for next year now. Please let your child's home class teacher know what school you have selected.

Tōtara Teachers

Week 1 of 2018

Welcome back everyone!

We would especially like to welcome all our new year 7 students and brand new pupils to KNS. 

Our teaching team has some new faces too... Mr Henderson has come back to the year 7/8 team after a year away teaching juniors. Mrs McCarthy has joined our team after being on maternity leave and Miss Lamond is brand new to our staff after teaching at Sefton.

Today both Tōtara hubs settled into our new spaces, built relationships with people we may not have known well before and got used to some of the routines and expectations.

The teachers were please to see everyone leave with a smile at the end of the day. We seem to all have had a very positive start to the year!

Keep an eye out on this blog for learning updates from our team :)

Art Expo

Rm 18/19

Rm 20/21/22

Come and check out our amazing collages at the KNS art expo. 

Monday 3pm-7pm (Our classes will also be open to view passion projects on this evening)

Tuesday 8:30am - 7pm

Wednesday 8:30am-9am

Week 5: Tōtara Weekly Focus

Focus: Respond appropriately

How: Thinking about what has been asked of you and how you should respond.  What context are you in? Is your response appropriate to the person you are speaking to?

The Fully Engaged Tōtara Student

Kia ora Parents and Caregivers,

This term we have introduced a new programme to our students which reflects what a fully engaged Tōtara student looks like at Kaiapoi North School. This is a programme that has been specifically designed for our syndicate by our teachers with the help of behaviour specialists.

Each week we will focus on a new skill or value that will be explicitly taught in home classes. This skill or value will be shared with all staff in our school. Students who show the skill or value we are focussing on for the week may earn Tōtara tokens. Tokens can then be traded in for rewards of differing token values.

The skills or values that we choose to work on come from our framework which encompasses learning, behaviour and attitude/mindset. All Tōtara teachers plan this together and choose skills/values that are relevant at the time.

We have started an extra teaching session for students who may not be grasping the values or skills we are teaching. This is not a detention but rather a small group teaching session during lunchtime. This may be as simple as a quick, practical run through of how to show a certain skill e.g. active listening or a one-to-one conversation with a teacher on how they are going and the reasons why they are struggling to show a particular skill e.g. coping with challenge. Some students who do not complete their learning tasks may also need to attend these sessions to get their work done.

Starting from Week 5, we will be posting our weekly focus on our team blog and sending it out via email to keep you informed. It will be extremely valuable if you can talk to your child about our weekly focus and discuss ways in which they can show or do this at school, at home or in the community. For example, so far this term we have focussed on, Week 1: Greetings, Week 2: Manners, Week 3: Muck up, Own up, Fix up, Move on, Week 4: Active Listening.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s home class teacher.

Regards,

Tōtara Team Teachers

CHESS CLUB

Thanks to the KNS PTA, we now have several new Chess sets and will be getting a proper chess clock to practice with in preparation for the Canterbury Inter-School Chess Competitions in September.   We meet each Thursday lunchtime and everyone is welcome!  We look forward to seeing you there.

Tōtara Swimming

Swimming is on Tuesdays - remember togs and towels!

Week 1, Term 2 - Tōtara Shoutouts!

Welldone Mikayla, Lachie, Libby, Saki and Seth for receiving certificates in this weeks team assembly.

Scooters!

As our students in Year 7 / 8 are aware we have been working on how we can include scooters safely and positively into our school days, whilst respecting the school rules and expectations.

After many trials, ongoing discussions and a few bumps, the decision has been made that Year 7 / 8 students will have scooter use during morning tea and lunch times on a Tuesday and Thursday only.  This does not mean scooters are not to come to school, you are still welcomed and encouraged to ride them to and from KNS each day.

In the future, we will address how this is working for us as a team and make any appropriate changes.

Regards,

Tōtara Teaching Team.

Camp 2 Reminder

Remember to wear covered shoes for day one of our camp. We are doing a big walk so students also need to bring their own lunch, drink bottle, hat and backpack.

Any medications should be clearly labelled in a zip lock bag and handed into the teachers in the morning. Cell phones will also need to be handed in. We will give students set times to use them during camp :)

Looking forward to a great camp!

Camp Notices

Hi all,

A reminder to get your camp notices back to school asap if you have not done so yet.

Thanks,
Tōtara Team Teachers

Parent Emails

Please email your child's home class teacher so that you can be added to their mailing list 👍

Welcome to Tōtara 2017!

Kia ora everyone,

We have started out year off well. Students have begun to settle into their new learning spaces and adapt to our programmes.

Just a reminder that there are many notices going home. Please ensure you return them as soon as possible especially camp health forms.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Waitangi weekend.

Tōtara Teachers