VOGELTOWN SCHOOL TE KURA O HUATOKI

To help our cross country run smoothly, we are looking for a team of parent and whānau volunteers. Having volunteers available means our teachers can remain with their classes and support them throughout the event. At this time we only have 6 volunteers and need at least double that number.

We are looking for people who can:

• act as course marshals
• record finishing places and results
• assist with general event organisation

If you are available to lend a hand, we would greatly appreciate your support. You can let us know that you can help by following the link below and completing your details.

Volunteer here: https://forms.gle/ANQv3JCXSt8re8bt8

At Vogeltown School | Te Kura o Huatoki, our Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) play a vital role in supporting students who may need additional assistance with their learning, behaviour, wellbeing, or health needs. Working alongside teachers, whānau and external agencies, our SENCOs help identify student needs early and coordinate the support required to ensure every learner has the opportunity to succeed.

We are fortunate to have Adrienne Treadway and Laura Seed working collaboratively in this role. Their responsibilities complement one another and provide a strong, coordinated approach to learning support.

Adrienne works closely with teachers, whānau, the Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB), and other specialists to facilitate meetings, develop and implement support plans, prepare funding and specialist service applications, and lead our ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) programme.

Laura provides strategic oversight of our wider learning support systems, including coordinating our team of teacher aides and acting as the school's key liaison with the Ministry of Education.

This shared leadership model has strengthened our systems and processes, enabling us to respond more effectively to the needs of our students.

We are also supported by a dedicated team of teacher aides, who play an essential role in delivering speech and language programmes, supporting ESOL learners, assisting students with high health needs, implementing classroom support programmes, and helping our newest students make a positive transition into school.

In addition, we work closely with a range of external agencies to ensure students receive specialist support when required. These include:

• Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB)
• Early Intervention Teachers, who work alongside children, whānau and the school within the new entrant space
• Specialist teachers from Arahunga and BLENNZ, supporting students with ORS funding and vision needs
• Educational and Child Psychologists

Together, these partnerships help us create an inclusive, supportive learning environment where every child feels a sense of belonging, and is supported to achieve their personal best.

As part of Aotearoa School Library Week, we held a dress up day on Wednesday. Our tamariki (and staff!) could dress up as any book character for the day.

We had so many different characters - Mary Poppins, Harry Potter, Wally from Where's Wally, The Cat in the Hat - just to name a few - and we held a parade at the junior school so the whole school could get together to look at the dress ups.

The winner of the dress up competition was Harper Lowl from Room 14, who came dressed as Pippi Longstocking. Ka rawe, Harper!

Our Paetoki syndicate held their Build a Business Market Night on Wednesday evening. It was great to see many of our community there to support the businesses. Market Night is the pinnacle of the Build a Business topic - it's when all the hard work and preparation behind the scenes is evident in the products that our tamariki have created.

A big thank you to the Paetoki teachers for all their mahi over the past few weeks - they have been instrumental in helping our groups to bring their products to life. The groups are now going to be busy making all their products to fulfil all their orders.

Our sausage sizzle was a huge success, raising money for our Year 5/6 camp next year.

Thank you to everyone who came along to support us!

Our school cross country is taking place on Tuesday 25th August at Vogeltown Park, Carrington St. The postponement day is Thursday 27th August.

We are holding the event at Vogeltown Park to make use of a local space that works great for this event. Vogeltown Park is also ideal for our older tamariki to become familiar with the location, because the New Plymouth Cross Country championships will be held there later in the term.

It is important to us that everyone gives this event a go. Success will look different for each child - it’s not about being the fastest, but about putting in their best effort. For children who are unable to participate, they will either accompany their class to support others or, depending on their age, help out with jobs on the day.

We are hoping to start the first race (10 year old girls) sometime between 9:45am and 10:00am. We’ll share the order for the races next week but will not be putting any start times down for each race. To be sure of seeing your child, we recommend that you arrive in time for the first race of the day.

The entire school will be walking to Vogeltown Park and back to school afterwards. They must come to school wearing shoes for the walk, however they can run their race in bare feet if they wish. Children will walk to Vogeltown Park with their school bags with their lunchbox, drink bottle, and clothes to suit the weather.

We’d love to have you there supporting and encouraging our tamariki. If you are planning to join us, we do ask that all children remain within their designated seated areas. Last year, it became difficult for our teachers to safely supervise and account for all children when some were encouraged to move away to sit with parents or whānau. We really appreciate your support and cooperation with this.

If you do not want your child to walk, you can contact the school in advance to let them know that you will be responsible for getting them to and from Vogeltown Park. All children will walk back together to continue their normal school day after the last event has finished.

If you have any questions regarding this event, please talk to your child’s teacher.

Kia ora whānau,

We have two amazing fundraisers happening right now.

The first is our Spring Seed Fundraiser. Your child will have taken a form home this week with all the details. There is a great variety of seeds available and it's a great activity to do with your children.

If you missed out on an order form, please contact the school office and we will get one to you. Orders close on Monday 31 August.

Our second fundraiser is Kids Artworks. Forms went home with all children this week. You can order calendars, cards, diaries, mouse mats and sketch pads. We have samples of all of these at the senior office if you would like to have a look. Orders close on Monday 24th August.

Thank you for supporting these fundraisers!

Keep those milk bottle tops coming in! We are doing really well with our collection. Please note we cannot take any other lids - no jam jar/glass jar lids, or soft drink/juice lids. We would also appreciate all bottle tops to be clean - we cannot use them if they have not been washed, and washing them takes up a lot of time at school.

Remember the schools with the highest weight of milk tops per student will win some great prizes!

Thank you for your support!

It is important that we know if you have a child starting school sometime in the remainder of this year. This will allow us to put organisation in place for new students - especially for those beginning school, and to understand our predicted roll throughout the year.

You can do this by contacting the office to confirm that we have your child on our records, or by completing an enrolment form (which can be collected from the school or downloaded off our website).

If you know of anyone else living in zone that may be looking to enrol then please share this message with them.

TERM CALENDAR

Put all these dates in your diary or your phone! Remember we will put all updates on Facebook and Skool Loop.

TERM 3 2026

21 August: Four Year Old Friday, 10:15am - 11:15am, junior school

24 August: Cohort Entry #2 starts

25 August: VS Cross Country, Vogeltown Park

27 August: VS Cross Country (postponement date)

28 August: Daffodil Day

4 September: Four Year Old Friday, 10:15am - 11:15am, junior school

18 September: Four Year Old Friday, 10:15am - 11:15am, junior school

25 September: Last day of Term 3

TERM 4 2026

12th October: First day of Term 4

Thank you for the ongoing support of Vogeltown School, we really appreciate the efforts everyone makes to ensure our kura is such a great place to learn and work!

On behalf of the Vogeltown team, ka kite ano! Have a great weekend!

The VS team

Email: office@vogeltown.school.nz
Website: www.vogeltown.school.nz
Location: Vogeltown School Huatoki Street, Vogeltown, New Plymouth, New Zealand
Phone: (06) 753 6843

Our school policies, like many schools, are now in an online system through a portal called 'Schooldocs'. Any time you want to bring up a school policy, just log in to schooldocs and you can access the policies.

The login is: vogeltown

The password: huatoki

Website link to Schooldocs.