Tēnā koutou katoa, Malo e lelei, Welcome.

Welcome back to Term 2. There has been a very positive start to the term with our students settling back into routines and embracing all opportunities to learn and participate in extracurricular activities.

We welcome two new staff this term. Our Science and Biology teacher, Mahala Meredith, has gone on maternity leave for the rest of 2018 and Mrs Cathy Kent has been appointed until the end of the year. We also welcome back to the Science Faculty Mrs Amanda Besley, who will be teaching Year 7 and 8 Science. Mrs Steph Duncan has also taken up a fixed term position in our English Faculty along with her relief teaching and we welcome her back onto our staff.

Ms Kathryn O’Sullivan was successful in gaining a position at Otumoetai College which left vacancies for a PE/ Health Teacher, a Year 9 Dean and a Teacher in Charge of Netball. Emma Peek has joined our team as the new PE and Health Teacher.  Geri Allen has become our new Year 9 Dean and Mike Meade is now the Teacher in Charge of Netball. We are grateful to have such fabulous teachers replacing Kathryn.

PPTA Paid Union Meeting - Thursday 31 May 2018

As part of the PPTA Secondary Teachers’ Collective Agreement, (for teachers throughout New Zealand), teachers are entitled to paid union meetings during school hours.

There will be a Paid Union Meeting on Thursday May 31 that PPTA members are required to attend. As a result of this, students will be released from the College at 11.45 a.m. There will be supervision for those students who are not able to be picked up. The timetable for Thursday May 31 will be:

Period 1: 9.10 - 9.55 a.m.

Period 2: 9.55 - 10.40 a.m.

Interval: 10.40 - 11.00 a.m.

Period 3: 11.00 - 11.45 a.m. Lessons finish.

Supervision by non-union members:

11.45 a.m.  All students to the Hall

11.45 a.m.  Supervision session one staffed by non-union members

Lunch 1.00 - 2.05 p.m.

2.05 - 3.05 p.m.  Supervision session two staffed by non-union members. 

Parent Teacher Interviews

Please make a note that parent teacher interviews will be held on Thursday June 14, with Year 7 and 8 interviews being from 2.00 - 6.00 p.m and Years 9 to 13 from 4.00 - 6.00 p.m. More details will be shared closer to the date.

Uniform Review

There has been a lot of community feedback and suggestions about our uniform through the Community Suggestion Box. Thank you for all your ideas. The uniform needs to change to address several issues:

• Cost. The tartan material, grey polo top and shorts fabric are extremely expensive and we are looking at more cost effective options.

• Practicality. The skirt option can place limitations on participation for some girls and thus we want to offer a shorts and/or pants option.

• Inclusivity. We wish to offer a gender neutral uniform for our students as well as including a tupenu option for our Pasifika students.

• Extras. We would like to explore having a school cap and/or beanie for all students as well as possibly a blazer for senior students.

In addition our uniform provider contract is coming to an end, thus providing an opportunity for a review.

Our Uniform Committee has considered all the feedback and put together several possible options. Please complete the survey below to provide feedback on which option you most prefer. https://goo.gl/forms/EfdP21ZdQ0AZTzCW2

Please direct any queries or questions to our Senior Leader, Mr Simon Finnimore at sfinnimore@katikaticollege.school.nz

Our Annual Goal

Following the review of our Junior and NCEA data, the Board of Trustees has set an annual goal that focuses on increasing engagement and thus achievement for our boys:

‘Our Learning Community will work collectively to engage boys in their learning by offering authentic & contextually relevant learning opportunities, so they can achieve their personal best, (particularly our Māori and Pasifika boys).'

Faculties and teachers will align their professional goals and inquiries to this annual goal and we will be exploring ways in which we can enhance and improve our curriculum and assessment practices so we can provide students with more personalised learning that is more authentic and contextually relevant. There will be a number of community consultation evenings in Term 3 to share our ideas for 2019.

Celebrating Success

Over the last two months there have been many reasons to celebrate with students achieving some amazing things. Our Diva's and Divo's evening on April 10 and our Music Festival on May 18 were both great evenings which showcased the vocal and musical talent at our  College. Special thanks to Mrs Fleming for all her work supporting students to prepare for these events.

Aesha Modi (12JHN) has won a place in Enterprise in Action. This gives her an all expenses paid trip to Wellington from Thursday June 28 to Sunday July 1. Students from throughout the country will take part in two business challenges during this time with a number of prizes available. We wish you all the best with this Aesha.

Our Pasifika group joined with Te Puke High School to perform at Pasifika By Nature in Hamilton on Saturday May 5. They gave a wonderful performance and were awarded the best Māori Performance Prize. Thanks to all those who supported our students to achieve such a positive outcome. A number of our Pasifika students also travelled to Rotorua on May 15 to participate in the Waiariki/BOP Secondary School Pasifika Speech Competition. Some of our students were competing for the first time, however that did not prevent them from excelling and Katikati College received prizes as follows:

Samoan category: 2nd Place - Julia Foisaga

Tongan category: 1st Place - Tapukitea (Atu ) Lolohea, 2nd Place equal - Owen Vi and Tesimoni (Moni) Uilou

Congratulations to all involved and special thanks to Mrs Pekipaki and Mrs Willacy for all they do to support our Pasifika students.

Thank you to Mrs Finnimore for organising the 2018 Junior Speeches. They were were a real treat, with many confident and talented speakers. 

Year 9 Speech Winners: 1st Ariana Bluegum - "The unique individuality of students", 2nd Lola Meeking-Coad - "Gender discrimination", 3rd Josh Main - "Fragile Bush", Highly Commended: Skyla Hunter, Abhi Modi, Valarie Costa and Te Ata-a-Rua Hansen-Cribb. 

Year 10 Speech Winners: 1st Connor Wilmhurst, 2nd Grace Fotheringhame, 3rd Caelan Cameron, Highly Commended: Caitlin Addison, Sofia House, Rory Robertson, Highly Commended and Adjudicator's Special Mention: Ashlee Tyrrell.

Lastly, a big thank you to everyone for supporting the end of term fundraiser ‘Shave for a Cure’ led by Cam and Hamish. It was a wonderful community event for a very important cause. We collectively raised more than $10,500, a massive effort!

Congratulations also to all those staff and students nominated for Manaakitanga Awards. This is a great way for us to positively acknowledge the behaviour we want to see around our school, so keep making these nominations. It is great to hear of the wonderful things staff and students are doing to support each other and make our College a better place.

Maintaining High Expectations

As we continue to have high expectations of student behaviour and engagement it is important to remind ourselves of the need for staff, parents/whānau and our whole community to be on the same page. Sometimes we can unintentionally undermine each other by making small exceptions to the rules. We are making an effort to apply all the rules and expectations consistently and transparently for all students. Making an exception can be perceived as ‘playing favourites’ or some students' being ‘above the law’. This results in the student whom the exception is made for being empowered and entitled to do things differently. The students observing the injustice are left feeling undermined and undervalued. This can lead to a sense of unfairness within the system and consequently results in the ‘bystander losing faith in the process or system’.

This means that we are addressing any non-regulation uniform, lateness to class, truancy or inappropriate behaviour across the board. Remember students can go to the Uniform Bank and see Paula for jerseys, jackets, shorts, skirts, socks and shoes. There are plenty, they are washed every day and there is no excuse not to be in correct uniform.

Thank you all for working with and supporting our staff on this, no matter what your personal beliefs are about education and the rules. Consistency and unity are what we need to demonstrate to our students we are all on the same page and we have high expectations of them.

How you can support your child to be successful at school:

Learning Queries

When you would like to make a query about your student's learning, the best place to start is with the subject teacher. Issues with teaching and learning are best addressed closest to the classroom. If your learning query is not addressed satisfactorily then you can either contact the student's Year Level Dean or the Head of Faculty and work with them to resolve any issues that exist.

When issues are not able to be addressed and resolved by the Year Level Dean, it will be passed on to the person in Senior Leadership who is responsible for that year level. If for any reason you child prefers to speak to a male or female member of staff then please clearly articulate this to our Deans and they will make an alternative arrangement.

Attached at the end of this article is a chart which lists the Deans and SLT members for each year level.

Attendance

Regular attendance at school and achievement are very closely linked. When a student misses classes they get behind in their learning. When the student returns to school they can feel lost because the rest of the class has moved on. This influences their confidence and can make a student feel 'dumb' or unwelcome. They can then decide it is better to miss class again, rather than feel this way. Unfortunately the more class time they miss the more their self confidence and self esteem are affected as well as their learning and achievement. This often leads to blaming the teacher or the school for not ‘teaching’ them or not being a good teacher.

If a student is absent it is their responsibility to catch up. The teacher will help as best they can, however this can often result in impacting on the rest of the class' learning. By encouraging your child to have a good attendance record and not enabling absenteeism, you are supporting them to be successful and allowing our teachers to make the best use of their time teaching the whole class and not helping individual students to catch up.

Our form teachers and Deans work tirelessly to ensure our students' attendance supports positive achievement. We also have a fabulous Attendance Advisor, Sue Bryson, who follows up on poor attendance and truancy. If one of our teachers, Deans, or Sue contacts you, please be as helpful as possible and support them to do their job. We are all trying to offer the best possible opportunities for your child to be successful.

Applying for leave

If you wish to take your child out of school for more than two days, for example on a family trip overseas, you are required to formally request this by emailing the Principal at principal@katikaticollege.school.nz. It is also important to understand that it is then the student’s responsibility to contact their teacher and ask for work to do while they are away. It is not an expectation of our teachers to work with students to catch up on work lost when they have been removed from school for a period of time. Catching up is the student's responsibility.

Thursday morning start

Students do not have to be at school until 9.10am on Thursday mornings. However, once they arrive onto the school grounds they are not permitted to leave. I have sent a letter out to our business community to request we all work cohesively to ensure we remove any possible temptation for students to go into town. This means they will not be served by businesses after 8.30 in the morning or before 3.05 in the afternoon. 

It is important for parents and whānau to be assured there has been no loss to learning time with the changes. We have shifted Assembly and Extended Form Time from Wednesday to Thursday, so we can ensure more continuity for planning and learning purposes and we have extended staff professional learning time from 8.10 - 8.50 in 2017, to 8.10 - 9.10 in 2018. This will be reviewed at the end of the year.

The Thursday day structure in 2018 is:

• 8:10 - 9:10am Staff Professional Learning and Development and student activities

• 9:10 - 9:50am Assembly or Extended Form Time

• 9:50 - 10:50am Period 2

• Then continue the day as normal.

We are continually adding to the list of activities that students can do on Thursday morning. This information is available through the student notices, as well as students individually being aware of their commitment. Activities include but are not limited to sports practices, Duke of Edinburgh, Christian Club, Kapa haka, Pasifika practice, music practices and academic tutoring.

m-Ako - Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

We still have a number of year 10 - 13 students who do not have a device consistently available to support their learning. Please can you make sure your child has a device and that they bring it to school. Our First Deputy Principal, Louise Buckley has been gathering information on students who do not yet have a suitable device available. Please contact her directly if you have any issues or concerns regarding m-Ako at lbuckley@katikaticollege.school.nz

Community Suggestion Box

A reminder that there is a Community Suggestion Box available on our website for our school community to have their say and communicate their ideas and feedback to the College. These comments will be addressed each month through the Principal’s Comment of each newsletter.

Community comments and feedback recently received includes lots of suggestions about the school uniform, requests for information such as term dates and stationery lists to be made available on the website, queries about Thursday morning activities and security of devices.

As a result we have confirmed the end of year dates and the 2019 Term 1 dates. These are now available on the website and we are exploring ways to communicate more readily with our parents/whānau.

One query was related to security of devices. Safe storage and charging lockers are available for student use. These are located in the Action Centre foyer and can be used by students who bring a padlock to secure the locker while it is being used.