Kōkopu Newsletter

Welcome Back to School!

I hope you had a wonderful summer break and are ready for an exciting new school year. It has been a delight seeing all our students back and sharing their holiday highlights. It sounds like there was a lot of beach trips and time with family.

Welcome to our new students. Nala Pickering R6, Cassius Grimshaw-Jones R5 and our Room 1 new entrants Roxy-Lee Donker, Olivia Laurenson, Oakley Lee, Amelia-Rose Martin, Chloe Noakes, Elsie Rose and Jayden Tauri.

It has also been positive to see how quickly the students have settled back into their schoolwork. I am particularly impressed with how our students are already showing the school values of; Respect for Ourselves, Respect for Others and Respect for our environment.

This term we have lots of amazing events and learning ahead of us. At Kokopu School we try to have a varied and broad curriculum that allows our students to be successful while enjoying their learning. To start the term, we have a focus on positive classroom environments, goal setting, student wellbeing and setting ourselves up for a great year. Later in the term, we will be doing a whole school study on pests and the environment.

Caught Being Good – Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L)
As part of our continued focus on PB4L, we have a new digital Caught Being Good digital system this year. You will notice the big TV in the staffroom window showing who has got a Caught Being Good. Staff can now give these out on their phones. At Friday sharing assembly the display will do a prize draw and two students picked will get a prize.

Attendance
We have had very positive attendance traditionally and we want to continue to positively encourage this. Part of our strategic plan for this year is maximising learning through maximum attendance - every day counts. If we can raise attendance across the school by 5% then that is 5% more learning time.
In line with this, the TV display also has our new House Attendance Challenge on it too. Each week the attendance for each house will be updated. At the end of the year points will go towards the house shield. The students are very excited about this already.
Todays attendance percentages can be seen below and in the screenshot.
Kereru 100%, Kea 100%, Morepork 100%, Pukeko 95%, Tui 82%.

Office Visitor App

You will notice in the office that there is also a new visitor sign in app. This is part of our emergency management and used to track contractors and visitors who are coming on site for meetings. Parents don’t need to use this on a day to day basis.

Property

We have had a delay on the swimming pool changing sheds project. The weather has put the project behind along with some other delays in materials.
This means we will not have any swimming until later in the term, including our swimming sports.
The Zone swimming sports will go ahead but we will do this at Maungatapere School. This will be an optional event for students to enter.

Other property updates

The sand pit shade sails poles have gone in, and hopefully the sails will be up shortly. Thank you to the PTA for funding this project.
We repainted the last two classrooms to the new colours and done some touch ups around the school. A big thank you to Tim Knight who has done a great job painting the school over the last few years.
The new bird and school values murals have gone up. They look great and break up the blue wall on the back of Room 1 nicely. The students will complete the second half of this over the coming term.
There is a new post and rail fence going up on the field. This replaces the old and very sad farm fence and helps stop balls rolling down the bank.
The school has had a full wash down and gutter clean.

Nga mihi

Yaron Overeem
Principal

After School Care.

After school care will start today. Karen Omilig will be supervising while Loida is away for a few weeks.

Classes for 2026

2026 Classrooms

This year’s classroom organisation is:

· Room 1 – Jo Woods -Year 0 & 1

· Room 2 – Anna Boaz – Year 2 & 3

· Room 5 – Gemma Turketo – Year 3 & 4

· Room 3 – Tama Weavers – Year 5 & 6

· Room 4 – Jenn Hibbert – Year 5 & 6

· Room 6 – Paul Ruddell – Year 7 & 8

Room 6 Year 7 & 8 Technology

Room 6 will travel by bus into Manaia View School on Mondays for Technology lessons. You should have filled in and returned the forms last year for Manaia View School.

If you require forms, please ask you child to see their Tech teacher at Manaia.

Please ensure all Year 7 & 8 students are here by 9am to catch the bus.

Guitar Lessons

Lyn Moase will be taking guitar and ukelele lessons again this year starting on Wednesday 11th February. Please phone Lyn on 0212979437 if you would like to book your child/children in for lessons.

Dates to Note

Term 1 2026

Tue 03/02 - First day of term

Fri 06/02 - Waitangi Day

Mon 09/02 - Room 6 Tech at Manaia View School and every Monday for Term 1 and 2

Wed 11/02 - Kapa Haka

Tue 17/02 - Room 6 Parent Puberty Meeting via Zoom

Mon 23/02 - Board of Trustees Meeting 5.30pm

Tue 24/02 - Community BBQ

Tue 03/03 - Zone Swimming Sports

Tue 10/03 to Fri 13/03 - Room 3 and 4 Camp Tangihua

Mon 16/03 - Board of Trustees Meeting 5.30pm

Tue 17/03 to Fri 20/03 - Room 6 Camp Tangihua

Tue 17/03 to Thu 19/03 - Room 5 Camp Tangihua

Tue 24/03 - Bike Day

Tue 24/03 - Year 7 & 8 Epro 8 4pm

Wed 25/03 - Triathlon

Thu 26/03 - Year 5 & 6 Epro 8 9.30am

Thu 02/04 - Last day of Term 1

Fri 03/04 - Good Friday Easter

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

Hats

All children are required to wear hats while outdoors this term as part of our sun safe policy 🌞

Please name all hats, shoes and any other clothing so our lost property bin stays empty for a while.

Kokopu School PTA

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.

Qustodio – Parent Internet Monitoring App

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

School Policies and Procedures Schooldocs

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.

Yummy Stickers

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!

Lunch Online is now Ezlunch

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 below to order from Pizza Fusion onTuesday, West End Sushi on Thursday and Titoki Store on Friday.