Term 2 has been another busy one in the International Department.

Welcome to Taichi Yamada, who has joined us for two terms. A warm welcome goes out to you and we hope you are settling in well from Japan.

We farewelled Frederik Busch, Lucrezia Angelucci and Yugo Fukata at the end of Term 2. These students challenged themselves with new subjects and we saw them grow in confidence and attitudes to all things. During their stay, Lucrezia volunteered at the Food Forest and Frederik joined the local golf club. They have left Kaiapoi with achievements gained and many experiences enjoyed.

In Term 3 we are looking forward to welcoming 8 new students, who are coming from Germany, Italy, Japan and France. Although they are here for different periods of time, they will all get to experience the New Zealand lifestyle enjoying the scenery, mountains, outdoor activities, culture, food and friendly relaxed kiwi living.

It has been a busy term, both in and outside the classroom, for our students.

We have two students participating in the Wednesday inter-school competitions. Urara Ishikawa plays in the Girls' Badminton team and Taichi Yamada is a member of the Boys' Football team. Both students also travelled to Westport for the annual Buller High School Exchange.

Bianca Suffert played in a North Canterbury under 18 team at the first Oceania Fistball Championships in Rangiora. Bianca is an under 18 fistball representative at home in Brazil.

Congratulations to Lasse Wilde and Marcel Molga for challenging themselves in CACTUS, a boot camp-style programme. Hope you are getting used to those early morning starts and have made great friends!

Taichi and Marie Busch gained many positive outdoors experiences during their Outdoor Education camp at the Boyle River OE Centre in the Lewis Pass. Marie enjoyed exploring the West Coast with her host family in the school holidays.

Urara, Marcel and Kotomi Tanaka played in the band for the hugely successful “Guys and Dolls” school production.

Mizuki Isaji, a Black Belt holder, has continued her Karate lessons. She spent some of her holidays down in Dunedin with her host family.

During Easter break, a group of eager girls travelled to Hanmer Springs with Sarah Sweet and enjoyed wandering around the village and relaxing in the thermal pools.

At the end of the term we took five international students up to Mt Hutt, Mizuki, Urara, Marie, Bianca and Taichi, and what a super day we had!  Despite the lack of snow for this time of year, they made the most of the opportunity and carved it out on the slopes. Bianca walked away with 'Most Improved' as it was her first time skiing and she did extremely well! Everyone took their own time and approach to the mountain as we had such a varying level of abilities. The sun shone down on us for the whole day and temperature rose to a nice 12 degrees. It was a long day... a few aches and pains by the end, but highly enjoyed by all and we are all looking to round two in August! 

A highlight of the term would have to be the Crusaders/Rebels Super Rugby game. Everyone really got into the atmosphere. They were treated to a try-fest of rugby and were thrilled to be able to go down on the field amongst the Crusaders players at the end of the game.

Homestay Families, we need YOU!

Would you like to become involved with our International students and enjoy a different culture?

All our International students ‘live in’ with local families and enjoy the opportunity to embrace ‘kiwi’ living.

If you believe you could commit to spending some time with a student, take them on outings, care for them and enhance their experience of being with us, then you are who we want.

Homestay payments contribute to the cost of living and activities you would be doing with your student.

Hosting can be short term of between 2 - 8wks, mainly our groups, or long term 10 weeks – 52 weeks, full-time students

Please ring or email our International office and we will post or email an application pack out to you. Phone 375 5239 or email s.sweet@kaiapoi.school.nz