Kōkopu Newsletter

Kia ora whānau,

Welcome to this week’s newsletter. I hope you all managed to stay dry and enjoy some quality time together over the recent King's Birthday long weekend. It is hard to believe we are already through the middle of Term 2!

Celebrating Our Brilliant Learners

We are incredibly proud of the learning and growth happening across Kōkopu School right now. When I walk around the classrooms during learning time, there is a wonderful buzz in the air. Seeing so many of our students working hard, focused, and enjoying helping each other really demonstrates our school value of Respecting Ourselves and Respecting Others.

Several times over the last couple of weeks, students have proudly come into the office to share their wonderful work with me. Writing is always a popular one that our students love to share, but I’ve also been treated to some fantastic reading, vibrant art, and some highly creative Lego designs. It is the absolute highlight of my day to see their faces light up when they share what they have achieved.

Strategic Goals & Insights from the NZ Rural Principals Conference

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the NZ Rural Principals Conference in Auckland. It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with colleagues and reflect on our own journey. During many conversations, there was a strong, common theme around the unique benefits of rural schooling. Reflecting on my own experience in both rural and urban settings, I am reminded of how lucky we are. Our rural kids are full of life, have a natural can-do attitude, and simply love being outside, creating, building, and making.

We heard an incredibly inspiring keynote address by Jake Bailey on overcoming adversity, which challenged us as educators to keep encouraging and building our students’ resilience and their ability to work through challenges independently.

In talking with other schools I am proud of the deliberate choices we have made as a school around curriculum change, structured learning programs, and truly knowing what is best for our unique learners. These choices have set Kōkopu School up for ongoing success.

None of this happens by accident. Much of this success comes down to our hardworking teaching and support staff who go above and beyond every day, and a supportive community that gets right in behind the school to make it the great place it is.

Property Updates

You may have noticed a bit of action in the pool area recently! We are well on the way to completing the extensive deck and accessibility ramp, which will make access to our brand-new changing shed easy for everyone.

Once the deck is finished, the builders will move on to the interior fit-out, which will include ample cubby holes and hooks for our students' clothing. This week should also see the installation of the pool pump and filters so we can get the pool fully up and running.

To celebrate this awesome asset, we are planning an optional mid-winter swim and Milo day so that our students can properly christen the new building. Keep an eye out for more details on that soon!

Thank you all for your continued support, partnership, and positive energy. Have a wonderful week ahead!

Arohanui,

Yaron Overeem

Principal

Kōkopu School

Well done everyone on our fantastic attendance! The government target is to have 80% of students at school 90% of the time. We are currently sitting at 92% of students here 90% of the time—even with the usual winter bugs going around. Keep up the great work, everyone!

We will be having school photos taken by PhotoLife this year. They will be taken on Monday 29th June. A flyer will be sent home today to explain how to order your child's photo online. You can also order sibling photos which must be submitted before photo day. Send your order form back to school before photo day please.

🌿Bring Your Best Stick! Fri 5th June

Get creative and bring along your most amazing stick creation for our Stick Day competition!
Prize Categories -

Junior, Senior and Staff/Parent

Wizard Walking Stick - The best wizard-inspired walking stick. 🧙🏻‍♂️

Decorated Stick - A stick decorated in an interesting way.🎇

Examples include:

Made to look like a person, Accessorised, Cultural designs, Painted creations

Wand Stick - Harry Potter-style wands, fairy wands, or magical creations.👨🏻‍🎓

Weapon Stick - A stick designed to look like a sword, staff, or other fantasy-
style weapon.🥷

Rules

No store-bought sticks

Must be natural, real stick

Label your stick clearly with your name

Be creative and have fun!

Now that we have completed the majority of our property projects, our gardens need a bit of tender loving care. If you, or a group, are keen to come in on a regular basis and do some gardening, improving what we have, please call in and see Yaron, our principal.

We have jars of Tahi Bee Honey for sale for $8.00 for 400 grams.

This honey is produced by our school bees that our bee task force have been looking after for the last few terms. The bees have been taken away for winter and should return again in spring when a new task force can take over their care.

If you would like to buy some honey, pop into the school office with $8.00.

Thank you.

It is time to think about getting your calf, lamb, goat or chicken for Ag Day, which will be held on Saturday 17th October. All animals must be born after the 1st July. Information on raising an animal is on the school website https://sites.google.com/kokopu.school.nz/agday/

We have sourced chicks for those children who want to raise them. They will be a day or two old when you get them in the first week of term 3.

All order must be in by Tuesday 16th June.

Please click the link below to make your order.

https://forms.gle/Jj9GW7kzefpeUehe6

Please come into the school to collect your children at the end of the day.

We have noticed children running out into the carpark to their parents cars and this is a cause for concern. No children should be in the carpark unsupervised.

Here are the gymnastics results from a couple of weeks ago. Well done to all the children who showed off their fabulouse gymnastics skills.

Term 2 2026

Mon 20/4 Start of Term 2

Wed 22/4 Kapa Haka starts and every Wednesday this term

Mon 15/6 BOT Meeting

Tue 23/6 Country Study Meal (Australia)

Tue 30/6 Matariki Planting Day

Thu 02/7 House Day Winter Sports

Fri 03/7 End of Term 2

Term 3 2026

Wed 12/08 Taniwha Cross Country Challenge

Thu 20/08 Kokopu School Cross Country

2026 Term Dates

• Term 1: Tuesday 3 February – Thursday, 2 April
• Term 2: Monday, 20 April – Friday, 3 July
• Term 3: Monday, 20 July – Friday, 25 September
• Term 4: Monday, 12 October – Tuesday, 15 December

Don't forget Lunch Orders are available at school

• Pizza Fusion - Tuesday
• West End Sushi - Thursday
• Titoki Store - Friday

Order for the whole term. Order the night before - or even by 9am on the day. Perfect for busy households and bare pantries. Scan the QR code above to order:

Lyn Moase takes guitar and ukelele lessons on Wednesdays. Please phone Lyn on 0212979437 if you would like to book your child/children in for lessons.

We would love to welcome new members to our PTA. Any help with events on the food stalls would be appreciated. i.e. Swimming Sports, Triathlon etc. If you are interested in joining us or helping out please contact Amy Pugh phone 0211729388.

As a parent at Kokopu School you have access to our free Qustodio – Parent Internet Monitoring App and online safety advice. The Qustodio Parent App is a comprehensive parental control and digital wellbeing app designed to help you manage and supervise your child’s online activities. With over 6 million parents and 24,000 schools worldwide using Qustodio, it stands out as one of the most trusted and best-rated apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

· You can learn more about how to set it up here: kokopu.onlinesafetyhub.nz/parent/topics/Qustodio

· Make your free account here: https://www.qustodio.com/en/30-days-school-special/?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=OSHub&utm_campaign=kokopu-nz

If parents/caregivers want to visit the website https://kokopu.schooldocs.co.nz/1893.htm to look over our school policies and procedures, please see the following instructions: Enter the username (kokopu) and password (0179). Follow the link to the relevant policy as listed.

Don't forget we are collecting Yummy Stickers. So please collect the Yummy cut-out labels from bags (each cut-out label is worth 10 stickers) and individual Yummy apple stickers. Yummy apples are available from New World, PAK’nSAVE and participating Four Square stores. The more you collect, the more sports gear you get so get going and start collecting your Yummy cut-out labels and stickers now!

Email: office@kokopu.school.nz
Website: www.kokopu.school.nz
Location: 921 Kokopu Road, Kokopu, New Zealand
Phone: 094346765
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kokopuschool