Kia ora e te whānau

A very warm welcome to the 2024 school year at Kaurilands. It is fantastic to see all our children back looking relaxed and refreshed and so many parents happy to have them back! A particular welcome to our new tamariki and whānau who have joined us this year. We are looking forward to getting to know you all. Thanks to all those who came to our pōwhiri on the 7th February led by Matua Warahi and Whaea Linda Paki, our kaumatua.

Over the summer break many projects were completed around our school. Rooms 14-25 have now all been refurbished with new Autex, carpet tiles, painting and acoustics where needed. The classrooms look fantastic and our teachers were very excited to move in. Outside Room 20 we have a new deck area which looks great. Te Whānau Āwhina want to finish this area off with some work in the monkey bar area as their first project for the year.

Some remediation work was undertaken to the area outside Room 10 to smooth the surface under the school sign and tidy up a few rough edges. The swimming pool has been painted and we have a new cover. The hall floor has had a major makeover and looks absolutely incredible! Wow! Go and have a look if you haven't seen it. The Library upgrade which was completed last year is looking beautiful. We are extremely lucky to have all these fantastic resources and have them so well maintained by our team.

2024 is off to an exciting start with the Year 5 and 6 camps running this week at Camp Adair in Hunua and Finlay Park at Lake Karapiro. Huge thanks to the organisers - Alana McKenzie and Erin Namajuska who have gone above and beyond in preparing the best possible camps for our tamariki. These camps would not be possible without the support of the Year 5 and 6 teachers and a huge number of whānau who have attended. In the next newsletter we will hear all about these adventures. For those of you who are new to our school, the newsletter comes out fortnightly on each even week starting from today! In each newsletter we mostly feature what our classes are doing - trips, camps, projects they have undertaken, fantastic work and so on. We do also include a limited number of advertisements which are relevant to our children. If your children have fantastic achievements out of school, we love to share these with our community so feel free to send them with a little blurb to secretary@kaurilands.school.nz and Trudi will pop them in.

Today, we have also included a message from Jaimee Kirby-Brown, the Presiding Member of the Board of Trustees, and a message from Sarah v'ant Hof, the leader of Te Whānau Āwhina, our fundraising and community event group. Kaurilands is a wonderfully supported school with -I'm not joking - the best whānau ever! If you ever want to help us in a particular way please contact me joa@kaurilands.school.nz or alternatively if you want to meet with me for any reason send me an email or contact the office to make an appointment.

Arohanui

Jo

Our full staff for 2024 is as follows:

Jo Augustine (Principal)

Erin Namajuska (Associate Principal)

Tracy Sutherland (Associate Principal)

Alana McKenzie (Associate Principal)

Year 1

Lauren Cookson - Rm 14

Kara Wilkins - Rm 15

Paula Dron - Rm 16

Hayley Jesperson (Team Leader) - Rm 17

Kimberly Newmarch - Rm 19

Kim Morgan - Rm 20

Year 2

Kristin Lee (Team Leader) - Rm 21

Stacey Anyan - Rm 22

Melissa Williams - Rm 23

Jaimee-Leigh Cope - Rm 24

Kirsten Pickett - Rm 25

Year 3

Robyn Applegate - Rm 9a

Maxime van Luijken - Rm 9b

Lillian Bombay - Rm 10

Jaime Lyon and Lani Maoate - Rm 12

Amelia Le Cheminant (Team Leader) - Rm 13

Year 4

Frances O’Hanlon - Rm 5

Kirsten Fraser - Rm 6

Steve King - Rm 7

Kim Williams (Team Leader) - Rm 8a

Georgia Thompson - Rm 8b

Year 5

Jennifer Koelet - Rm 3a

Riley Flynn - Rm 4a

Mike Fenner (Team Leader) - Rm 4b

Tracey Henderson - Ahi Kaa

Year 6

Gracie-Eve Derbyshire - Rm 1a

Nichola Leslie (Team Leader) - Rm 1b

Stephen Gillard - Rm 2a

Frances McBeath - Rm 2b

Clare O’Gorman - Rm 3b 

Other Teaching Staff

Leanne Gibbons (PE and Sport Co-ordinator)

Rebecca Pirret (Learning Support Coordinator)

Kylie Parkinson (Drama)

Grant O’Connor (Bilingual Programme)

Vicki Palmer

Jennie Chatfield

Jo Senio

Glenys Ferguson

Hannah Pragert

Emma Tamura

Ashley Goodspeed 

Support Staff

Trudi Biggs (Secretary)

Rachel Tims (Reception and Enrolments)

Jackie Amor (Business Manager)

Anita Maxwell (Administrator)

Catalina Camargo (Sickbay)

Laura Turner (Library)

Grace McDonald (Library)

Sandra Fletcher (Caretaker)

Wayne Lasenby (Handyman)

Teacher Aides

Karen Topps

Toni Holdaway

Alyce Fulop

Clare Taylor

Pia Giacon

Lee-Anne Edwards-Sutton

Jean Webb

Natalie Dalzell

Rachael Van Den Berg

Photos of our new staff members can be viewed below.