I hope you have all had a positive start to the 2024 school year.  As usual, school continues to be a busy place.  It has been awesome to see students reconnecting with their friends and teachers.  We enjoyed two weeks of daily swimming lessons with the SwimWell team.  Classes will continue to swim daily while the weather stays warm. 

It has been awesome to wander through classes this term, hearing students and teachers unpacking our new school Values - whanaungatanga, kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga and mahi tahi.  Many classes are also starting to look at the conditions required to LEARN.  The first word in our new school vision - LEARN, GROW, LEAD,

We have our annual school Triathlon coming up in Week 7.  See more information about this below.

For some time we have been working on securing grants to help purchase a new playground.  The Board has committed a large portion of our 2023 Bike Day money towards this project and we have been fortunate to receive a significant grant from Pelorus Trust.  We are still a bit short on the cost of the new playground, but are hopeful to secure some more funding in the coming months.  We are extremely hopeful that we will have a new playground sometime in Term 2 or 3.

If anyone is interested, or know someone who may be interested in purchasing our existing playgrounds, please get in touch with Shirley - shirleyb@kuratau.school.nz or call 07 386 5801. 

"From the beginning of Term 1 2024, schools and kura with students in years 0-8 will spend an average of one hour a day teaching each reading, writing, and maths. This could be in dedicated lessons and in other learning areas as students read, write, and engage with maths in a variety of purposes and contexts. 

Teachers will deliberately and purposefully dedicate time to teaching these core skills. Teaching techniques like investigations, collaborative learning, and games will continue to be used so students stay engaged with their learning. 

This change sets a clear expectation that all year 0-8 students should receive regular, focussed instruction in these core areas. 

Learning to read, write, and do maths is important in everything we do. Daily teaching has been shown to lift student progress, when coupled with a high-quality curriculum taught using evidence-informed teaching practices. "

Retrieved from: Tāhurangi | New Zealand Curriculum

• Our approach is “away for the day”, meaning the device should be turned off, and handed in to the teacher to be locked away during the school day. If a student does bring their cellphone for emergency contact or health reasons, these must be handed to the teacher to be locked away for the day.
• There may be times when students will be able to access and use their cellphones. However, this is the exception and will always be monitored by teaching staff. If cellphones are used for a learning activity, this will be at the teacher's discretion and the phone's use will be supervised by a staff member. Guidelines on appropriate usage still apply.
• If we see a student using a personal digital device inappropriately, we confiscate it. After the student locks the device, we place it in the office to be collected at the end of the day by a parent or guardian. 
• If a student uses a cellphone inappropriately multiple times in a week the cellphone will be confiscated and can only be retrieved by a parent or caregiver following a discussion with the principal or deputy principal.

• Community Social Media Guidelines
• Community Conduct Expectations
• Communicating with Parents
• Parent Involvement

• lunch and drink
• sunblock / hat / warm jumper
• togs, towel, goggles (optional)
• Optional - their own bike and helmet