A NOTE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

I had the immense privilege of being away with the hockey team last week at South Island tournament (and yes I know I’m biased!) but it made me really think about how much we at times underestimate our students. Not only did this group play tough, they pretty much made friends with 90% of the other teams – to the point where they were coming to watch our games and cheer for them – and won the overall award for the best and fairest team from the umpires. Although I’m super competitive and love winning – this award says more about what a Kaikoura kid is. They are invariably quite humble and down to earth with a great sense of humour and the ability to grit things out. I never once heard the team getting down about how they were going even in the really tight games and they were certainly there for each other when they had a tight loss. This translates right across our school -our young people are amazingly resilient, hardworking (maybe not always academically!) and true to themselves. I think this is a huge strength and it is often acknowledged by Universities that country kids are far more well-rounded than city kids. It’s often because they have to do it all – hold down a part-time job, play sport and travel for it, focus on school and be involved with whanau. I believe our students are better for having such a wide-ranging lifestyle and it is part of the picture we are trying to build in having a graduate profile for KHS leavers – what are the core things we believe a young person should leave school with – beyond the academic tools. We will be asking for some feedback on these ideas later in the year. On more day-to-day matters – Senior course books are coming out and with the changes to NCEA Level 1 I really encourage you to talk to your young people about options and choices for 2024. The Middle schoolbooks will be out next term with a few changes around how many courses students select in order to allow more Literacy and Numeracy time – keep an eye out in week 2 of next term!

WHAT’S COMING UP?

FRIENDLY REMINDERS

Prize Giving is approaching so if your child was the recipient of atrophy/taonga last year, we kindly ask that they are now returned to us so that we may prepare them for the 2023 recipient.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING?

EXAMS?
Check the library webpage for links to past exams and study tips.

Sports Congratulations
Congratulations to TORBIN CLEMENTS for being selected into the U16 Invitational Team for the 2023 season!

Special Netball Awards
Junior Umpire of the Year – Annalise Harris
Junior Netballer of the Year – Harper Boyce
Netballer of the Year, KNC Cup – Zoe Boyce

Special Rugby Awards
JAB Player of the Year – Zach Sutherland

Youth Awards
It was fantastic to see so many young people acknowledged for their hard work around the community across so many different areas.

Hockey SISS
Our school hockey team went to Oamaru for the South Island Secondary Schools Mixed Hockey tournament last week. It was a full-on week and after the success in Marlborough, the team had goals to win some games after finishing 15th last year. They had a
phenomenal tournament given they don’t get to train on a proper turf and many of these schools we were playing have easy access to one and ended up 8th. The last two games were absolute nail-biters and showcased just how tough our little team is. Overall
they were awarded the best and fairest team which is a credit to how they conduct themselves.

Kaikōura Mountains to Sea Marathon
We would love your support for our 21 OCTOBER 2023 biggest whole-school fundraiser. We are on the hunt for marshalls, photographers and BBQ runners to help the day run smoothly & safely for our participants. Contact Michael Lawrie for details.

SCHOOL DATA

After sharing some data with the Board of Trustees, as a group we think we should be putting this data out to the community. We collect a lot of academic data and tend to analyse it twice a year. In this Pānui we have some Middle school maths data from the start of the year. The pale grey boxes are the National average and the dark boxes are our students. As you can see we will be putting a lot of effort into the Year 9 cohort as at present the level of Nuneracy is lower than expected which may have an impact on their ability to gain the Level 1 Numeracy credits. The other two graphics show our Year 7 and Year 8 literacy data for the bulk of the cohort from the start of the year. We do have some students lower than these levels and a specific program is in place for them. On the whole, these results for Year 8 are very pleasing and for Year 7 shows where a bit more work is required. You can help your young person with both literacy and numeracy by involving them in everyday things – like writing a grocery list, working out how much you need for dinner or something, writing a thank you note, working out how much 20L of petrol will be. All these little things help them practice using words and numbers so it becomes more and more familiar to them.

GENERAL NOTICES