Principal Possum: Leading At The Edge of Chaos

Principal Possum: Leading At The Edge of Chaos

February 22 earthquake memorial KNS assembly speech

We are here today one year on to remember an event that was significant in all of our lives and of our community - the February 22nd 2011 earthquake.

By meeting here today we are showing respect to the 185 lives that were lost in Christchurch a year ago. Secondly we are showing that as a community we are thinking about those people who were injured on this day, and of the many buildings that have been lost to us forever. And thirdly we are thinking about our own experiences and that of our Kaiapoi community, in particular the challenges we have been through and are still going through.

One year ago today we were eating our lunch when the earthquake hit. We need to remember what a tremendous job we did to keep each other safe. We all knew what to do, we got under desks, under doorways or crouched as a turtle. Once the shaking stopped we moved outside together to be in an open space and make sure everyone was accounted for. We then waited together for our parents, grandparents or friends of the family to collect us. We need to remember the great job we did to keep each other safe and I thank our staff for their superb care of our children on that day and the support you have given moving forward.

Following the February 22nd earthquake we had many families from Christchurch move into our community, some for just a few days, some for a few weeks, and some we still have in our community. As a school we showed arohanui towards these families as new children came into our school - you all did a great job welcoming these children and families to our school. The children who came to our school did so bravely and have made friends in a short period of time that will last forever.

We are going to have a minutes silence together shortly. During this time we will stand in silence as a school to show respect for those who died in last year's earthquake. At the same time we will be acknowledging the amazing work of the emergency services such as civil defence, fire service, the police and the St Johns ambulance who all set aside their personal safety to help others in need.

The silence will be broken by the national anthem which we will sing together to show how proud we are to be living in Kaiapoi, in Canterbury and how proud to be a New Zealander.

Wordle

I have just created a Wordle using some key words from Kaiapoi North School - this is lots of fun and easy to do. Use the following link to see what I have done and to try Wordles of your own!
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End of term 2

We have had a most enjoyable end to term 2. We had our "5 on the Hour" Student led conferences where parents, children and teachers got together to talk about current progress and next learning steps. We all enjoyed the activities, visiting authors and of course the book character dress up day during our Bookweek. Our Kapa Haka groups performed with skill at our assembly during Maori Language week. To finish off the term the Akoranga groups displayed and shared their learning about Moari Legends and our classes got up on stage to perform in our "So You Think You Can Jump Jam" competition. Congratulations to Rooms 3, 10, 16 and 22 who were the winners! It was great to have fun together at the end of the term - great to see lots of parents in attendance too! Wishing our KNS community a happy and safe holiday.

International Safe School accreditation

Kaiapoi North School is now accredited as an International Safe School. We are the 50th school internationally to earn this accreditation. On Wednesday 30th March we held a special assembly to celebrate together. Mrs Carolyn Coggan came from Auckland to present us with the award. Mr David Ayers, mayor of Waimakariri spoke at the assembly as did Mr Graeme Barber, principal of Woodend School who are the only other South Island School to receive the same award. We are very proud of the work we do together to strive for an environment where people feel safe emotionally and physically. Our KNS Values and Beliefs are key to our positive school culture. Let us continue to work hard to keep our school culture both positive and safe.

Year 5/6 camp to Glentui

What a great visit I had today to our Year 5/6 camps. I witnessed our children enjoying each other's company, meeting challenges head-on and working positively together. We went on a river walk to a waterfall where our feet got wet and cold but not one complaint was heard! There were even children and parents diving into the icy cold water at the bottom of the waterfall - very brave! A great job by or wonderful teachers, enthusiastic children and fantastic camp parents - well done everyone!

Cricket v Kaiapoi Borough

We hosted KBS for our Milo Cup game on Tuesday 15 February. I was very proud of our team who played positively and confidently. Although we didn't win there were some stand-out performances including Nathan Cook's hatrick and Darryel Box's team high score of 23 including five hard hit 4's. This team was made up of 8 Year 7's which means watch out Kaiapoi Borough in 2012!