Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa, warm greetings to you all

We are really in the crunch time of the term for our students. What I mean by this, is this time of the term near the end is where most assessments of the learning occur. This is when students are able to demonstrate their learning in their subjects, and particularly for our seniors, ensure that they are gaining enough credits to support the attaining of their NCEA qualification.

Term 1 is critical in determining the success of our students for the remainder of the year. If students settle well into their learning and develop good habits of learning they are more likely to attain well in their assessments.

Particularly for NCEA most of our students will be offered at least 25 credits from all of their courses that they are studying in Term 1 alone. When they have to attain only 60 credits now at all levels, starting well and attaining all credits on offer will help students balance their workload across the year. It will also mean less of a reliance on the external examinations which can prove to be more difficult for students. Please note, we want our students to be aiming for Merit and Excellence endorsements and to do so they need at least 50 credits at Merit or above for a Merit endorsement, and 50 credits at Excellence for an Excellence endorsement.

Our students really need to ensure that they are meeting their deadlines, submitting all work needed and attending all of their lessons to ensure their academic attainment and goals can be achieved.

Here at Kamo High we do our best to ensure that we have communicated well the expectations of learning for both students and parents. We do this so that you as parents and caregivers can support your child along their learning journey and support them to be making good decisions in their learning.

All students have received a course outline which outlines the weeks when assessments are due for each course.

• These are also posted in our students' google classrooms so that parents can support students in managing their assessment schedule.

• On our website you will also find our assessment calendar. Please look under the academic tab for all information. This calendar has all information on it about when assessments are due for all senior courses.

• Parents can track students' progress for attendance and engagement on our KAMAR portal. There is a SIGNIFICANT correlation between these two factors and achievement.

We look forward to celebrating the success of our students after this first term of assessments.

Nga mihi

Whaea Natasha and the SLT