Nau mai, haere mai.
As of June 1st, we officially hit the winter season, and along with this, we hit the crunch time of the year for students. Assessments are in full swing, and students should begin thinking about course options for 2027 as subject selections are just around the corner. A big thank you to all our parents and caregivers who attended our parent interviews last Friday.
With the arrival of winter, we also have the arrival of the winter flu season. Please make sure you ring in any student absences and keep students home if they are sick. With winter, we also see the need to be warm, and our uniform offers a range of options to do this.
1) Hoodies, sweatshirts and coloured tops under shirts and blouses: Students are to keep them out of sight within the school boundaries. This means they should not be visible in any form, whether tucked into jackets or blazers, tied around waists, draped over shoulders or bags, or worn. If any of these uniform items are seen on students in our school grounds, they will be confiscated. In the first instance, students can retrieve them at the end of the day. Should there be a repeat occurrence, the item will be available for collection by a parent or caregiver. Students may wear a plain white thermal underneath shirts/blouses (no signage).
2) School long pants: The only pants able to be worn are the KHS uniform pants available from The U Shop Rangiora.
3) School scarves and hats are able to be worn outside on our grounds. Senior students can wear their existing plain black or navy scarf, as school scarves have only been available for the last two years. The school scarf is available at The U Shop, while our hats/beanies are available at the canteen.
4) School kilts: These are only available from The U Shop. The kilt has been carefully designed to meet our school’s uniform expectations while providing students with a durable and stylish option for cooler weather. One important detail to note is the kilt’s length – it is specifically tailored to sit approximately 25cm above the ground. Students whose kilts sit lower than this will be required to raise them to this length. We will not be measuring the 25cm – it will need to be visually obvious for the school to require the kilt length to be raised.
Our production of “Into the Woods” is well and truly underway, and tickets are on sale at the link below. This is a huge undertaking, and it’s great to see so many local businesses getting in behind it through sponsorship. This promises to be a great show and will more than likely sell out, so get in while tickets are available.
https://events.humanitix.com/into-the-woods-khs
Last Saturday, we had two performances at Rock Quest. Liam Keating was outstanding in his solo performance, and our band of Flik 220, consisting of Tualagi Iona, Austin Wood, Leon Mathew and Jake Modderman made it through to the regional finals.
When dropping students off at school, we ask that parents and caregivers please do this outside the gates. We are seeing increased traffic coming into the school to drop students off, and this is causing issues for our buses and also the areas where students walk to exit the school.
Last Monday, the school was placed under lockdown. Lockdowns are used across the country for a number of reasons, and each week we see several occurrences across schools in the country. Each year, we practise our lockdown procedures, as is our requirement from the Ministry of Education. Monday’s situation was a little more challenging, due to its unfolding during our break time. This meant students were moved into the nearest building rather than being in their normal allocated class.
The media often pick up on school lockdowns, and the word ‘lockdown’ appears to often be associated with the most extreme of reasons. In this case, there were several media outlets reporting things that simply couldn’t have been further from what was actually going on. If we do enter lockdown, we ask that parents and caregivers let us go through our process. Please do not communicate with students via cellphone, or ring the school. You will be emailed information as it comes to hand, and updates will be put on the Home page of the school website. Please do not come onto our site, as have lockdown procedures we need to work through. In many cases, we simply cannot divulge information due to the Privacy Act, but our focus will always be on keeping our tamariki safe and following our systems.
Our CACTUS programme is now past its mid-way point for Term 2. It has been great to see the students developing in terms of their leadership, fitness and motivation. We have seen a trip up Rapaki carrying car tyres, where our local police cooked a well-received breakfast at the bottom. We have also hosted Rangiora High School’s first-ever CACTUS group for a morning of competition.
Have a lovely long weekend and stay warm!
Ngā mihi
Scott Liddell, Deputy Principal
