Kōkopu Newsletter

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori runs from Monday September 14 to Sunday September 20 2026, marking over 50 years since the historic Māori Language Petition was presented to Parliament.

For resources and more information visit https://en.tetaurawhiri.govt.nz/te-wiki-2026

Give it a go!

Our school speech competition will be held tomorrow Tuesday 15th of September. We will start at 9am with Year 4 and we should finish up around 10.40am.

Everyone is welcome to come along and listen to the 3 finalists from each year.

You should have been notified if your child made it into the finals.

Our finalists are;

Year 4 - Louie Pugh, Mila King, Ryan Noakes, Theia Waterhouse

Year 5 - Tyler Heasley, Avery Powell, Eric Burson

Year 6 - Slade Tuhiwai, Riley King, Conrad Burson

Year 7 - Vivienne McCormick, Zoe Pugh, Ana Waterhouse

Year 8 - Mason Fleming, Annabeth Riley, Lachie McMurchy, Journey Wickman

Our senior finalist will represent Kokopu School at the Mangakahia Lions Speech Contest on Wednesday 23rd September at the complex.

On Wednesday 16th we are supporting Wig Wednesday by having a Wacky Hair Day at school. So wack up your hair or grab a wig for a fun day. Please bring a donation to support child cancer or see our facebook page to donate online. Thank you.

All animals and gardens should now have been registered online for Ag Day which is to be held on Saturday 17th October. Thank you.

https://sites.google.com/kokopu.school.nz/agday

Lamb and kid day care is now open in a small pen/paddock set up near the front gate.

Please go to our Ag Day website for more support and ideas. www.kokopu.school.nz/agday

Thank you to all our wonderful helpers on Friday evening at the Mangakahia Sports Complex..... from pie maker, cooks, servers, dishwashers, order takers and clean up crew. Your help was very much appreciated. Also thanks to the families that made salads, there was a very delicious variety.
We will let you know how much profit we made when the Complex Committee works it out.

Term 3 2026

Mon 21/09 BOT Meeting

Tue 15/09 Kokopu School Speeches

Wed 16/09 Wacky Hair Day

Wed 23/09 Mangakahia Lions Speech Competition

Thu 24/09 House Day Quiz

Fri 25/09 End of term 3

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

As a reminder, students are not permitted to have cell phones or home devices at school or during school events. This includes sporting events.

If a student requires a phone for after-school activities, it must be handed in and stored in the school office upon arrival, rather than kept in their bag.

If you need to get an urgent message to your child during school hours, please call the main office directly, and our staff will ensure the message is passed along.

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

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

Thank you.

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.

Please use the designated carpark and don't use the gate at the front of the school.

Please don't send your child to school with a lunch that needs heating.

Don't forget Lunch Orders are available online

• 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:

Please have your children at school before the bell goes at 9am so they can start the day settled and organised and ready to learn.

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!

Kia ora,

My name is Kirsty Tuhiwai, and together with Maxine Page-Taare, we're getting a new Mangakahia Basketball competition up and running from Term 1, 2027 at Mangakahia Area School.

Games will be held on Mondays from 3:30pm, with grades from U8 through to U14, and we’d love if you could please share this with your school community.

The idea came from us being two mums who are sick of travelling into town every week just so our kids can be active and involved in sport. We thought, why not bring something closer to home and create another opportunity for our rural kids and whānau within our own community?

A big thank you to Mangakahia Area School for allowing us to use their hall for the competition and for being so supportive of the idea from the start.

We’re also working with Northland Basketball to help us set the competition up well. They have offered to run basketball activation days at local schools, so if your school would be keen, just let me know and I can pass your details on to their representative.

We’re definitely not basketball experts, just two determined mums! So if you have parents, staff or anyone within your school community who might be interested in helping with refereeing, coaching, organising or being involved in any way, we’d love to hear from them too.

Our Facebook page, Mangakahia Basketball, will be our main place for updates and registration information:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61593608944957

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