Newsletter Term 1 Week 1

NEWSLETTER

TERM 1 WEEK 1 2025

Our Kids Online

Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to 2025! We have another busy year lined up for our tamariki and whānau. It feels good to be back and ready to rock into the school year. 

MY RESPONSIBILITY – TĀKU TAKOHANGA

This is a focus for both staff and students for 2025. We are speaking with our tamariki every morning during our Principal Pride Time to remind them about this. If we all take on what is our responsibility we can lessen work for others. Taking responsibility is a lifelong skill. An example is we are responsible for supplying stationary you are responsible for providing a Bulls School bucket hat which are available for $20 at the school office. We have sold so many we have put in another order and so far we have around 90% of our students in the correct hats, our goal is 100%. Tāku takohanga!

MATHS: This is a priority our kura this year. The resources arrived at school last week. We have Numicon being rolled out for Year 0-3’s and Maths No Problem for Year 4-8. This Fridays teacher only day will allow our kaiako to look closer at the resources and connect their planning to the scope and sequence being provided. We won’t be ‘starting all over again’ but utilising the efficiency of working together to adapt our planning for the best outcome for our tamariki.  It’s an exciting but busy time.  

LITERACY: Structured Literacy continues to be a part of our literacy programme. But we must also encourage a love of reading.  This is a partnership between home and school. To improve literacy skills, children need to be regularly reading.  At home, reading to your children and reading with your children is also essential. 

CARPARK: Last week we had an unfortunate and potentially dangerous incident as a car left the car park.  I have been in contact with the council and Phillip Gifford has emailed to say he will meet with me. We are interested in solutions that help us keep our whānau safe. We also need to all think about what we can be doing to reduce the build-up in the car park. At our upcoming Meet & Greet we will have a suggestions box set up to see what ideas you might have. 

STAFF 2025: We had some last-minute shuffles and changes. We welcome Tom Abraham and Bek Worner as well as Tereihi Cookson to Bulls School. All three were welcomed at our Pōwhiri along with the new students and whānau above. We farewelled Vanessa McDowell during the holidays and wish her all the best in her new role at Rangitīkei College. 

CAMP: This is coming up fast and attendance slips were due back today. Students have had a reminder every day about their responsibility to get these back. We still have a small number of slips outstanding and this has a huge impact on our planning and budgeting. Our accommodation is expecting us to provide final numbers so this is a great example of Tāku Takohanga. The camp meeting will happen near the end of our meet and greet afternoon so you will get more information then. Please consider speaking to me about setting up a payment plan to cover the cost of camp.  We appreciate that this is a considerable amount of money.  

MEET & GREET: See the poster below. This is an informal opportunity for you to meet with your child’s teacher.  Your children have been asked to introduce you to their kaiako and provide 1 fun fact about you.  You might want to discuss with them which fun fact you want them to share. 😉

ONLINE SAFETY: This is a priority for our region. We know that there are concerns around our tamariki and online safety. Above there is a poster for an upcoming information event about online safety for our children. I really encourage our whānau to get behind this. Seats will be limited due to the seating capacity of Te Matapihi.   The reviews from other schools have been overwhelmingly appreciative of the message that Rob shares and the way he shares it.  Diary this now, I will send out emails with a google response form closer to the date:

THURSDAY 27TH MARCH 7PM-9PM @ TE MATAPIHI in BULLS.

Kia ora rā, Kim Gordon.

Technology classes at Rangitikei College for our year 7 & 8 students starts on Tuesday 11th of February.

Please remember to wear covered shoes.

Scooters & Bikes at School

We are happy that our children use these methods to get to school. Once they reach the school grounds we expect them to push their wheels to the bike stands in order to avoid accidents and mishaps. If your child is unable to adhere to these guidelines we may have to ask them to discontinue bringing their bikes or scooters to school. Students must place their wheels in the stands as soon as they arrive. We discourage ‘other’ types of wheels as this can create unnecessary issues. Our bike track is for everyones enjoyment. Helmets must be worn at all times.

Uniform Code

All students wear the Bulls School polo shirt, polar fleece, a sport & Cultural top, and the logoed red bucket hat available from Academy Apparel in Palmerston North. Their ‘bottom’ is non-regulation other than a colour restriction to plain black (no writing, logos, stripes or other colours). Shoes need to be suitable for school wear.

Please name ALL clothing and shoes.

In Terms 1 and 4 of each year, red Bulls School bucket hats must be worn when outdoors.

If hair is long, we request it is tied back for safety, hygiene and practical purposes.

Hair styles and colours should be as natural as possible and avoid extreme ‘trends’

which may be seen as threatening.

Jewellery should be kept to a minimum and not pose any health or safety dangers.

SUBSCRIBE TO APP GROUPS 

Di has refreshed this and named each group with 2024 so you know it’s relevant and up to date. You will all need to join the groups specific to your tamariki.

This has important notices for either the whole school or specific groups eg: Bus Students, Sports, Cultural, Hubs, etc that you can join according to what your child’s involved in.

Many notices or reminders go out via the APP so it is an important tool for parents to be aware of what is due eg: permission slips and dates for events offsite, transport required etc. This is also an efficient way to provide absence notices.

In many cases, parental permission may be given via the app as well.