We are now well into the new school year and just when we were ramping up the events we had a rude interruption from COVID-19 alert Level 2. Thank you for your cooperation in signing in when you visit our school grounds - remember there are 3 ways - school app, Covid app, paper register.

It was great to see so many parents and caregivers attending the Meet the Teacher evening in week 1. This is an important opportunity to hear about the focus of learning programmes and routines. We appreciate the learning partnerships we have with parents and caregivers. Look out for more opportunities to connect with our staff at upcoming parent information sharing sessions.

Well done to our Year 5-8 students who competed across our 4 different grades at our KNS Swimming Sports last week. We thank Mrs Megan Gilmore, Miss Celeste Lamond for leading this day, and all our staff for ensuring all children could participate and compete at their level of ability. We now have 15 swimmers off to the Zone swimming sports in March.

We take great pride in performing at Kaiapoi community events. It was wonderful to watch our Year 5-8 Kapa Haka representatives perform with pride at the Kaiapoi Waitangi Day celebrations. Thank you to parents and caregivers for supporting our group and to Mrs Osgood and our new tutors Norm and Maaka for providing this opportunity for our children.

Our KNS Children's Day House Tabloid Sports were a big hit with all members of our school community. There is a separate article about this event by our Deputy Principal Felicity Fahey. Thank you Mrs Steph Hunter for your work in organising this, and to our staff and parents in attendance for joining in our activities.

Other opportunities are underway already including our Year 7/8 cricket teams (boys team and a girl’s team) Our boys team narrowly lost their first game against Ashgrove last week. Ashgrove batted first scoring 112 with Riley Blackler and Tim Gilmore taking 2 wickets each. KNS then made 94 runs with Will Friedaeur 29 and Riley Knight 10 scoring well. 

Our girls team had their first game yesterday against Ashgrove and played well for a big win 119 to 57. Our top scorers were Bridie Herriot with 20 not out, and Ambah Robinson 16 not out including a big 6! Jae-Lee Staap and Bridie got 2 wickets each and our fielding included 2 run outs. The girls are now into the second round against Cheviot Area School.

Keep looking out for our updates on the Covid-19 Alert Levels and what that means for KNS. A reminder that if we were to move into Alert Level 3 school is open, but only for children who cannot be looked after safely at home. Lets all keep working together as a community and as a country to keep the levels at 1 and 2! Our camps next week are currently still going ahead at Alert Level 2 - we will keep you updated as more information comes to hand closer to the time. 

• Hinau camps to Glentui - Monday 22nd - Friday 26th February
• Totora camps to Waipara - Monday 22nd February - Friday 26th February

Nga mihi,

Jason Miles, principal