Published by Hokowhitu School

Every single day here at school, we see children going out of their way to show kindness and respect - sometimes to people they don’t even know. It makes my heart beat extra fast when I see this happen. Earlier this week I was showing a new family around our school. When I walked into Waka Iti with the family, a 5-year-old came rushing up to the visitors and said ‘my friends’ and gave them a huge smile.
We then walked into the hall where TKA were enjoying their celebration day with the huge inflatables. Several children in TKA who were ready to have their turn, stopped, smiled at our visitors and invited them to have a turn ahead of them. This kind of respect from our tamariki went such a long way towards making a family who are new to the country and not yet confident speakers of English feel welcome. Tino pai to mahi to all the children who were part of these ‘random acts of kindness’. 

The Ministers have agreed that all schools will retain their existing COVID-19 settings until the end of the 2021 calendar year. This avoids schools having to make changes to the way we are currently operating on site, especially for the short period of time left in the school year. This will give everyone time to settle to the red, orange and green settings under the new Covid-19 Protection Framework (CPF) ready for 2022.

SUN PROTECTION

We strongly encourage you to be proactive about ensuring that your child comes to school sun-blocked over the summer months. We are vigilant about hat wearing (wherever this is practical and possible), and we endeavour to hold outdoor events before the hottest part of the day, however we cannot avoid the sun’s rays at all times. If your child is prone to sunburn, we would also encourage you to have sunscreen available in their bags as well. Teachers will do their best to remind children about applying prior to break times.

With events involving swimming, we also strongly encourage a rash vest/top.

We are hopeful that the pool will be ready for use by next week, so please pack togs and a towel daily - we will be trying to get as much use out of the pool as possible when the weather is suitable.
Because we have solar heating and pool covers, the water temperature can be pleasantly warm. 

SWIMMING POOL

At the most recent Board meeting, members discussed the possibility of the swimming pool being available over the holiday period for community use. Due to the uncertain stages of covid levels/traffic lights etc, the members reluctantly decided that we could not be assured of meeting all the potential COVID requirements. This means that the pool will NOT be open for community use over the holidays.

The pool will definitely be ‘in full use’ for the tamariki over the school term. Let’s bring on those summer rays!

SUNSCREEN

With the summer rays comes the need for sun protection. Staff endeavour to remind the children to apply their home supplied sunscreen at break times - please check that your child knows how to apply this effectively. 

CYCLE TRACK

While our cycle track has been in use for almost all of this year, we have been patiently waiting for some of our bikes and helmets to be delivered. It is great that they have all arrived now and we now have a set of bikes/helmets here at school.
To give each kete a fair go at using the bikes/track we have allocated each kete to a day in the week where they have priority use.

Monday - TKT Tuesday - TKA Wednesday - TKM Thursday - TKP Friday - TKW

As we do not have enough bikes for everyone, we encourage you to bring your child’s bike on this day.
As an extra precaution against head lice we encourage children to bring their own helmet, even if they are using a school bike.