Newsletters

16/05/2025

Kia ora koutou e te whānau,

Ngā mihi nui o te rā me te wiki katoa.

I hope this week’s newsletter finds you well. We are definitely heading into the change of seasons with some wet and fresh starts of late.

PTA – Update

I’d just like to take the time to acknowledge those parents who were able to come along to the PTA AGM last Monday. It was heartwarming to see a staffroom full of parents willing to get on board in support of the school and our tamariki. This helps ensure that the parent voice is reflected in the learning experiences we are able to provide our children.

A big thanks to Kara Prankerd, who was nominated and accepted the role of Chairperson for the next year, and to Stacey Clough, who’ll take on the Secretary role. Karen will continue in the role of Treasurer. We’re very grateful to these people and the 15+ others who are all part of the wider team. “He waka eke noa – we’re all in this together.”

Student Leaders, 2025

On another note, it was great to see the hall jam-packed with parents and members of the wider community who came along to support our student leaders and learners of the term. It was also a highlight for the students to get the chance to showcase what they’ve learned so far in Kapa Haka.

We’d like to celebrate the following students who’ve been named as our first Student Leaders for 2025:

Tessa Savage: Even though she has only been with us for a short time, Tessa has already proven she has what it takes to be a Ngaere Leader. She is extremely determined and always strives to be the very best. Tessa is a great role model to those around her and always displays our Ngaere values. Tino pai tō mahi rangatira, Tessa!

Grace Kane: Grace is a kind, caring student. She is inclusive of everyone and always puts her best foot forward. Grace is extremely hardworking and always tries her very best, even in the most challenging situations. Ka mutu pea, kia koe a Grace!

Toby Waite: Toby shows great enthusiasm towards everything he does. He is always looking for ways to help others out. Toby accepts challenges and is creative when finding solutions — just what we need for a Ngaere School leader. Kei runga noa atu koe, a Toby!

Connor O’Brien: Connor has a very kind, caring nature. He always displays the Ngaere values. He consistently looks out for those around him and is willing to help out wherever he can. Kei te tino pai rawa atu koe, a Connor!

We look forward to working with you all to see what you can achieve throughout the year.

Winter Sports

Our winter sporting codes are now in full swing at various times throughout the week. I’m aiming to get along to a game or two as the season progresses.

We’d love to celebrate and promote our students’ achievements and extracurricular activities, so if you are able to send through any results and/or pictures captured, that’d be greatly appreciated!

Have a great weekend, and as always — just reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

Ngā manaakitanga

Shane Burgess – Tumuaki/Principal

principal@ngaere.school.nz

022 451 5809

Statement from the Ministry of Education regarding “Reporting to Parents”

“As part of our focus on lifting student achievement we have introduced new, knowledge–rich and internationally–comparable curriculum this year for Maths in Years 0–8 and English in Years 0–6.. This means we are currently changing from the old to the new curriculum. We want to acknowledge that schools and kura will only have been using the new curriculum from the start of 2025, which includes new teaching and assessment methods and content. Because of this you could see a change in your child’s progress or achievement compared to previous years which may be the result of changes in the curriculum expectations for your child’s year level.

Announcement of webspace for parents and whānau:

The Minister of Education launched a new and informative webspace for parents and whānau today, designed to help you support children’s learning at home and strengthen the relationship between families, schools and kura.

What is the new webspace and what does it include?

The Parent Portal is an online platform that provides parents and whānau with easy-to-use resources and tools to support their child’s education at home. It allows you to work in partnership with their school or kura and to keep informed about what their child is learning

The Parent Portal can be accessed HERE 

The Improving Attendance project and why it matters

 Researchers at the Education Review Office (ERO) are doing some research about school attendance. They want to hear your thoughts about what makes a difference. Please help by clicking on this survey link

Enviro Team Update…..

Over Term 1, the Enviro team has been hard at work, continuing the amazing efforts of previous years to keep our school looking great and staying sustainable. 

Some of our key activities last term have included:

• Recycling and Waste Management: We ensure that rubbish and recycling are collected and properly disposed of, keeping our school environment clean and tidy. We are in the process of upgrading our Recycling bins, so they look pretty cool in our classrooms. Our Recycling Station is being used for paper & cardboard, and we are still thinking hard about how we are going to set this up permanently.

• Gardening: Our gardens are thriving! We’re growing seedlings to use within the school or sell, helping to support our projects. We are doing some science experiments with the vegetable gardens over the winter to make sure we can grow great produce.  Our tomatoes went crazy in our propagation house!

• Chook Care: We look after our chooks by feeding them, cleaning their area, and ensuring they are healthy and happy. We love to use their eggs for baking!

• Worm Farm Maintenance: We take care of our worm farm by feeding the worms regularly, which helps us maintain rich compost for the garden. Some worm pee will be available to purchase soon.

• Frank the Food Cart: Our food cart, “Frank,” is stocked with fresh produce and plants for sale. The items on the cart change regularly, so be sure to check it out. Your donations are greatly appreciated, as they help us continue our sustainability initiatives.

• School Gala Day: We helped prepare and tidy areas for our Gala Day, which was a great success! It was cool to have a produce, baking, plant, and book stand to raise funds for our school. Thank you to everyone who donated items or helped out.

There are always so many things to care for around our school, and we are proud to do a great job. Thank you for your support! 

William Pike Passion Projects

Tessa

This week I started my second 1000 piece puzzle. This puzzle is a bit different to the last one I did because the last one was a Wasgij mystery, so I could use the box to guide me. This one is a Wasgij destiny, which means we have to puzzle the future so I have to look at the picture on the box and think what the future is going to be. While I have been separating the edge pieces out, I have had a visitor. The cat, George, loves boxes and really wanted to help me by sitting in the box. I have had a really good start on my new puzzle, and I’m really enjoying the challenge of having no guidance.  

Isabella

For my passion project I chose to do French Knitting. Firstly I decided to actually learn how to do it properly and then I got started practicing and  attempted to make a coaster I started by testing how long the I cord ( The rope ). It took a few try’s but eventually I got it to the right size. I watched a video on how to knot a coaster and found a video that showed me exactly what to do and I copied it step by step until I had a coaster. I grabbed out my needle and began to sew the leftover yarn into the middle of the coster. After a lot of mistakes and progress I finished with a coaster (I made this coaster for my Grandma).

Toby

My auntie and uncle from Australia got me this thing for my birthday that I’ve never heard of. It was Pickleball. I decided that I am going to spend 10 hours of my passion project to try and learn new skills and get better at playing the game Pickleball.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Connor

On Sunday the 4th of May I went and did pest tunneling at Lake Rotokare. We met up at the Rotokare education centre at 8:45AM to find out what to do and how to do it. We were given peanut butter, rabbit meat, a map, instructions, ink cards and a walkie talkie. We set off to our designated area of the bush surrounding the lake. We walked around our area of the lake up and down tracking lines and placing ink cards inside the tracking tunnels. Each tracking tunnel had a number written on the top which I copied onto the tracking card with the date of when it was placed. I then put a bit of peanut butter on the ink side of the card and on every odd numbered tunnel I also put a piece of rabbit meat on the ink. Once I had put the card and bait inside the tunnel, I then stapled each end of the card down so that birds and Pukekos could not take the bait and card. I had to walk up and down the different tracking lines, looking for the tracking tunnels until all the tunnels on that line had been fully set up with an ink card and bait. Once all tunnels were set up on a tracking, I could then move onto the next tracking line. At the end once I had completed all the tracking tunnels, I walked back to the education centre to drop off the remaining supplies.

A huge thank you to Uhlenberg Haulage who have sponsored the lime for the school pump track.  

Once again a huge thank you to Lloyd Gernhoefer Agricultural Contracting and Finer Spraying Services for sponsoring our Maize Paddock!

Key Term Dates

Wednesday 21st May: Board of Trustees Meeting – 6pm – all welcome

Tuesday 22nd May: Biodiversity Day for Year 6 Enviro Group

Monday 2nd June: Kings Birthday  – School Closed

Friday 6th June: School Assembly – Junior Hub/Room 3

Tuesday 10th June: Year 0-2 Play Day @Midhirst School

Monday 16th June: Jones Cup (Year 5-8)

Friday 20th June: Matariki Public Holiday  – School closed

Monday 23rd June: Kāhui Ako Maths Curriculum Teacher Only Day  – School closed

24th – 27th June: Life Education at school

Friday 27th June: School Assembly – Middle Hub (Room 4/5) – 2:15pm

Friday 27th June:  End of Term 2

Monday 14th July:  Beginning of Term 3

Community Notices….

Rotokare Education Newsletter Term 2 (please see attached below)

02/05/2025

Kia ora koutou e te whānau,

Ngā mihi nui ō te rā me te wiki katoa

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break with your whānau. It’s been a wet and windy start to the term but no doubt our farmers will be happy.

We have all the winter sport codes about to kick off, so I’m looking forward to catching up with some of you on the sidelines throughout the season. A big thank you to those parents who’ve put their hands up to coach/manage teams. It allows us to ensure sporting opportunities are alive and well at Ngaere School.

Fundraising

Another huge shout out to Kylie & Fabian Rupapera for their organisation with the Ngaere Kids Trail Ride. Also a huge thank you to the PTA and parent helpers who also supported this event.  This was an awesome day with a round 75 kids getting amongst it. This event raised around $2000 towards supporting in reducing the costs of the end of year Senior Camps.

The T-Shirt Fundraiser currently being run has also taken off with great momentum. By Tuesday morning, we’d already had three students fully cover the costs of their camps! Thanks to Kylie Keller for spearheading this one. We’re blessed to have such amazing parent support. A small request from Karen. If possible, can sponsors please pay parents the money originally with one final lump sum payment made into the Student Council Account upon completion of the fundraiser on 13th June. This just makes managing money much cleaner on our end. Thanks!

Kapahaka/The Arts

We started Kapahaka and Music lessons again this week. It’s great that we’re able to offer these programmes to help enrich our school curriculum. Students in Room 4/5/6 & 7 are getting involved in Kapahaka and are starting to sound amazing! We’re looking forward to getting out and performing in local cultural events as the year progresses. Karl Anderson and Fiona Martin are offering music tuition in guitar, drums, ukulele and piano. If you’re keen for your child to get involved, please make contact via the office in the first instance.

Property

We have a few property projects underway at the moment. The Board is working to get Phase 1 of the Hall Redevelopment underway. We’re just getting this scoped out and priced up at the moment looking at how we can make better use of this area. The long term goal is to have a multi-purpose space with a slightly larger indoor footprint –  allowing for community based events to be run/held. The other property project moving along slowly in the background is a refresh of the main block outside of Room 1/2/3  – alongside a refurbishment of the staffroom. 

Mid-Year Reporting

All students will receive a mid-year progress report aligned with the refreshed English and Maths curriculum towards the end of term. I’m still working with the staff and waiting for a little more guidance from the Ministry of Education. This will look different from previous years and will be sent out via HERO. Further information will come out shortly.

HERO parent contact:

Just a friendly reminder that parent contact via HERO is the preferred method as it centralises everything for all of us. The link HERE  helps you navigate the app from the parent lense. Reach out if you need any help with this.

Have a great weekend and reach out or pop in at any point 

Ngā manaakitanga

Shane Burgess – Tumuaki/Principal

principal@ngaere.school.nz

022 451 5809

We would like to acknowledgee those members of the community are that have contributed to our school through the Fern Fuel For Schools Programme, they are listed as follows:

Rotorangi Farms 2021 Ltd, Kacey Trust, Willowbrook Partnership, Rupapera Family Trust, Te Rahui Trust, G & J Hunger Contracting Limited, Cooper Family Trust No1, The Hyjinks Trust, Wayne Francis & Brenda Louise O’Neill as Trustees, Dusty’s Hill Co Ltd, Hu Farms Limited,Fergie Partners, Benjamin Berger Partnership, G & T Curran Limited, Holeshot Farms Limited, GA & BJ Burke Partnership, Nikorima Trust, Macbe Partnership, Te Koa Dairy Farms Limited, MYKA Farms & Styger Rotokare Trust.

THANK YOU

Key Term Dates

Monday 2nd May: PTA AGM – 7pm Staffroom – Everyone Welcome!

Friday 9th May: School Leaders Assembly – 2:15pm 

Friday 9th May:  Scholastic BookClub Issue 3 Due

Tuesday 22nd May: Biodiversity Day for Year 6 Enviro Group

Monday 2nd June: Kings Birthday  – School Closed

Friday 6th June: School Assembly – Junior Hub/Room 3

Tuesday 10th June: Year 0-2 Play Day @Midhirst School

Monday 16th June: Jones Cup (Year 5-8)

Friday 20th June: Matariki Public Holiday  – School closed

Monday 23rd June: Kāhui Ako Maths Curriculum Teacher Only Day  – School closed

24th – 27th June: Life Education at school

Friday 27th June: School Assembly – Middle Hub (Room 4/5) – 2:15pm

Friday 27th June:  End of Term 2

Monday 14th July:  Beginning of Term 3

1/5/2025

The PTA contribute to a lot of the ‘extra’s’ that all our Ngaere Tamariki benefit from. 

Highlights from the March meeting – just to name a few:

• Agreed to fund a student/youth mentor for 2025 to support some of our students struggling with learning disabilities, grief, and trauma.  
• Agreed to fund a “Writers Toolbox” pilot for Term 2 which the teachers believe will boost our students’ writing skills.
• Agreed to donate a nominal amount to each of the teachers to help cover the little extras they buy for their classroom like baking ingredients or stickers (our wonderful teachers usually pay for this out of their own pocket).
• Agreed to fund $1500 for subsidising core winter sports fees.  Fees seem to be rising each year and we feel that it is important to reduce the barriers to participation.  The money will be allocated across all school winter sports teams/players and subsidised from your invoice.
• Organisation for the junior athletics lunch sale.
• Improving the maintenance of the pump track.

Upcoming agenda topics:

• Funding of school camps.
• Pet Day planning
• Fundraising calendar

Our current bank balance is $21,000. 

What ideas do you have to utilise existing funds or growing what we have?

It’s not just another boring committee! 

Reasons for you to be a part of the PTA:

• Get to know other parents,
• Opportunity to find out how the school runs and what is going on,
• Give back to your community,
• Help shape the experiences your kid(s) get whilst at school.
• Not just a group of gossiping mums!  The current committee is friendly, effective but low-key.  We are keen to see new faces, skills and ideas.
• Meetings are approximately 1.5hrs.  Usually 7pm in the staff room, every 6 weeks or so.
• You won’t get lumped with a scary job and casual meeting attendance is no problem.

10/04/2025

 Leader’s Assembly postponed until the end of Week 2 Term 2 – Friday 9th May

Kia ora koutou e te whānau,

Wow – it’s hard to believe that we are a quarter of the way through the year! What a busy term it’s been. Some real highlights amongst the busyness:

• 95% turn-out to home/school partnership hui
• Room 6/7 overnight camp to Te Wera
• Turnbull Cup (Swimming) – Winners!
• Rural Schools Swimming – Relay Champs!
• Extremely successful ‘School Gala’
• All teachers upskilling/training in Structured Literacy

Term 2 promises to be another fun-filled, action packed term as we head into the cooler temperatures and our winter sporting codes.

School Attendance:

This is currently a national focus: How our school stacks up:

90% – Regular Attendance = 123 students = 85% of our total number of students

80-89% – Irregular Attendance = 14 students = 9.6% of our total number of students

Less than 80% – Moderate/Chronic Attendance = 5 students – 4.4% of our total number of students

On the whole this shows that we’re currently tracking at the Ministry of Education’s goal to have 80% of students attending school 90% or more of the time. Tino pai rawa!

The weather has definitely taken a turn of late and with a drop in temperature and increased rainfall. Some nasty bugs are starting to circulate, so please keep us in the loop if your children are away sick, we’ll ensure we accurately code attendance.

HERO parent contact:

It’s been great to see most parents have on boarded and embraced the change to HERO as our primary source of communication. For those still needing a hand with navigating the app, I did put a short tutorial together outlining how it works from the parent view. The link is HERE should you wish to have a nosey. Apologies for the poor sound quality.

PTA (Parent Teacher Association)

We have our AGM coming up on Monday 5th May. This will take place at 7pm in the school staffroom. Over the break, we’ll be popping out a “PTA promo” providing all with a bit more information around how the PTA operates, what they’ve achieved in recent times as well as mapping out the plan of attack for supporting the school over 2025/26.

Please save this date and come along for a listen. It’s a chance to help shape the learning experiences your child/ren may have whilst attending Ngaere School.

Sponsoring/Advertising:

As mentioned, we have moved away from Skool Loop as a form of communictaion so there is an opportunity for any local business that may be interested in advertising through our community newsletters and information sent out via HERO. If this sounds like you, please  click on this LINK for further information

I hope you all have a great Easter break over the next couple of weeks and enjoy some time together with your families.

As always, please reach out and connect with any concerns/questions etc

Ngā manaakitanga

Shane Burgess – Tumuaki/Principal

principal@ngaere.school.nz

022 451 5809

REMINDER:  THERE A STILL A FEW OUTSTANDING POOL KEYS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN RETURNED YET.   AS THE LOCK HAS BEEN CHANGED THESE KEYS WILL NOT LONGER WORK AND ARE REQUIRED TO BE DROPPED BACK AT SCHOOL ASAP.  THANK YOU.

Year 5-8 Camp Fundraiser 

Ngaere Kids Trail Ride – a fun-filled community event that promotes trail riding and adventure based learning.

All proceeds are going directly to Ngaere School to reduce the costs of our Year 5-8 students end of year camps.

There is also an awesome raffle up for grabs – see flyer attached. Contact Kylie on the Trail page link below if you wish to purchase some.

Thanks for supporting what will undoubtedly be a fantastic event!

If you have any questions, please directly message Kylie Rupapera on the Ngaere Kids Trail Page HERE

Monday 28th April: Beginning of Term 2

Monday 5th May: PTA AGM – 7pm – School Staffoom

Monday 2nd June: Kings Birthday – School Closed

Friday 20th June: Matariki Paublic Holiday – School Closed

Monday 23rd June: Kāhui Ako Teachers Only Day – School Closed

COMMUNITY NOTICES

THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING MAJOR SPONSORS FOR THEIR SUPPORT TOWARDS THE SCHOOL PADDOCK

28/03/2025

Kia ora koutou,

Twice a term, we will be looking forward to updating you with all the positive actions that are we are introducing in our school to make it a safe and happy place to be; with children who are confident in their emotions and relationships.

This year, we are continuing to have the “Manaakitanga – Caring for others” Assembly every Monday morning. Taken by Mr Burgess and myself, it allows us to set a positive tone for the week and learn about strategies the children can use in the playground to manage relationships and conflict. This term we have been learning about “Super Hero” breathing (a good way to cool down) and using our WITS – Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out or Seek help.

All staff are meeting on a Monday morning tea to discuss positive strategies to support behaviour in our school and developing a stronger understanding of our behavioural pathways. This week’s focus were developing cohesive strategies for building relationships in the playground, dealing with minor behaviours both in the classroom and playground.

All of our classrooms have introduced the POM POM in a jar reward system for respectful behaviour in the classroom. It was so popular, we expanded it to the playground. Children who play positively and respectfully are given a blue ticket. The children then exchange a blue ticket for a pom-pom.  When the pom-pom jar is full, the class decides on a celebration they would like to have.

As a school, we are always looking for ways to improve outcomes for children’s learning. Every morning the children race out for 15 minutes of fitness which gets their blood flowing and gets their minds ready for learning. During that time, teachers and learning support are using  the opportunity  to take individual children or small groups for quiet uninterrupted extra learning time.

We are extremely lucky at Ngaere School to have such a supportive board and PTA, who recognise the needs of our children and fund Learning Support Staff across the school. All of our new initiatives have been introduced to recognise a growing need in the school for a stronger Social and Emotional curriculum. 

The PTA and Board have just approved funds to engage a youth mentor to work within our school. This will begin next term and is going to be an awesome service in providing timely pastoral support for a range of students.

Next time I will be bringing news about “The Zones of Regulation” and how we are  teaching the children to handle big emotions.

Ngā m

Penny Andrews –  Deputy Principal

penny@ngaere.school.nz

Year 5-8 Camp Fundraiser 

The amazing Rupapera Whānau are running a Ngaere Kids Trail Ride as part of a       fun-filled community event that promotes trail riding and adventure based learning.

They are kindly donating all proceeds directly to Ngaere School. The money raised will be used to reduce the costs of our Year 5-8 students end of year camps.

To help make this a successful, smoothly run event, there is a need for a few more hands on the day. If you’re in a position to help out, please click on the link HERE indicating when in the day you’re able to lend a hand.

There is also an awesome raffle up for grabs – see flyer attached. If you wish to purchase a ticket – please click on the link HERE outlining how many tickets you’d like to purchase. 

Payment can then be made into the

Ngaere School Student Council Account: 15-3951-0377712-00

using your name and “trail ride” as a reference

Thanks for supporting what will undoubtedly be a fantastic event!

If you have any questions, please directly message Kylie Rupapera on the Ngaere Kids Trail Page HERE

• Group lessons are $100 per student per term.
• Individual lessons are $250 per student per term.

Another huge Thank you to the following sponsors of the Ngaere School Gala, your support is very much appreciated:

Adan Larsen Builders, Baldock Earthmoving, Eltham Fire Brigade, Fonterra-Corrinna Pollock, Gernhoefer Contracting, ITM Stratford, Joblin Motorsport, Kara Prankerd, Matt McDonald Real Estate, Renee Beck, Silverfern Farms, Smaxtec, The Family Butchery & Uhlenberg Haulage.

Friday 04th April – Scholastic Bookclub Orders Due Back

Tuesday 8th April: Rural Cluster Athletics – Year 1- 4 (info to come)

Friday 11th April – School Assembly 2:15-3pm School Leaders

Friday 11th April: End of Term 1

Saturday 12th April:  Ngaere Kids Trail Ride – 240 Hu Road, Rawhitiroa

Monday 28th April: Beginning of Term 2

Monday 2nd June: Kings Birthday – School Closed

Friday 20th June: Matariki Paublic Holiday – School Closed

Monday 23rd June: Kāhui Ako Teachers Only Day – School Closed

We are currently running an easter colouring competition.

There are 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd prizes. Competition closes 16^th April at 5pm

The Picture is available below to download or you can get a copy 

from the school office. 

COMMUNITY NOTICES

JUNIOR HOCKEY UMPIRING COURSES

Our Umpires committee are running two (free) Junior Umpire courses pre-season and a Community Badge Theory. Can you please spread the word among your players. For the ones interested, the registration link for this is at the bottom of the email.

1. New & Returning Umpires

This course is for youth wanting to become umpires, with little or no experience and for youth who have had at least 1 season of umpiring experience and would like to refresh their umpiring knowledge.

Date: Sunday 4^th May 4 – 5 pm

Location: TET Bar & Stadium Meeting Room 

1. Community Badge Theory

For umpires ready to sit their Community Badge Practical.

Date: Tuesday 8^th April 7 – 8 pm

Location: Foulkes Pavilion Niger Terrace at NPBHS

 Please register via: https://www.playhq.com/hockey-new-zealand/register/33940a

THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING MAJOR SPONSORS FOR THEIR SUPPORT TOWARDS THE SCHOOL PADDOCK