A warm welcome to our 2 new support staff members, Mrs Jennifer Bates and Miss Emma Thomas. Jen and Emma will be supporting learners in classrooms and also assisting in the school office. We are confident you will both enjoy being part of team Hokowhitu.

Welcome to the third term of 2019. Staff have been busy over recent weeks preparing exciting programmes and activities to ensure that this term is also action packed and fun. Our schoolwide inquiry focus is Nga Toi (celebrating ‘The Arts’). Highlights of this term will be the Cluster Arts Festival, drama lessons for all children, A Visual Arts showcase, Book Week (including a dress as your favourite book character day, and a book and bake sale), the TKW ball – just for starters!

Our hugest congratulations to Mrs Flaus and Miss Tayler who each trained a jump jam team for the regional competition held last weekend. Both teams performed outstandingly well, with the ‘All Stars’ team finishing a very creditable 4th place in their division, and the ‘Strictly’ team taking out 1st place in their Year 4 – 8 division!

Congratulations to each and every one of the team members, you should feel very proud of your achievements. The trophy sits proudly in the cabinet outside the staffroom and the many, many certificates of merit and excellence will be displayed in the hall.

Winter bugs are affecting lots of people at the moment, and we are no exception here at school. If your child is unwell/not attending school for any reason PLEASE be proactive and let us know before we have to spend time trying to contact you.
An absence can be phoned in at any time (the answerphone is on when the office is unattended), it can be emailed into the office, you can report an absence on the school app, you can text an absence to 027 3579021. In an emergency situation we don’t expect you to remember to do this but it should be the norm for regular illness etc. This is one contact for you – as opposed to Amanda making over 30 calls in the morning to people who have unexplained absences.

If you do not specify the number of days your child is going to be away, please make contact daily so we know that our tamariki are safe.

Thank you in anticipation of an improvement in this – we want to work together effectively, and sincerely thank the many of you who go out of your way to keep us well informed!