School Terms – 2025
TERM 1 – Wednesday 29th January to Friday 11th April
TERM 2 – Monday, April 28th to Friday 27th June
TERM 3 – Monday, July 14th to Friday 19th September
TERM 4 – Monday 6th October to Friday 12th December
Public Holidays
Waitangi Day – Thursday 6th February
King’s Birthday – Monday 2nd June
Matariki – Friday 20th June
Labour Day – Monday 27th October
Marlborough Anniversary – Monday 3rd November
School Times
Students are welcome at school from 8:30 a.m. when staff will be on the premises. The school grounds should be cleared by 3.15 p.m. unless a sports practice is in progress or prior arrangements have been made.
Office hours are between 8.30 am and 3.00 pm on Mondays to Fridays during the school term.
- 8.30 am – Office opens, bus arrives
- 9.00 am – Classes commence
- 10.30 am – Morning interval
- 10.50 am – Morning classes resume
- 12.30 pm – Lunchtime begins
- 1.20 pm – Afternoon classes resume
- 2.50 pm – End of the school day
- 3.00 pm – School bus leaves
Attendance
Students are required to attend school on all days that the school is open. It is very important that students arrive on time for school with enough time to prepare for the day. In the event of your child not coming to school for any reason please ring the school or use the Hero App to let us know by 9 am. For student safety, we take a check morning and afternoon and we will contact you if your child is absent without prior notification.
Should your child be required to leave school during the day, please sign your child in and out of the office.
School Uniform
As part of our enrolment policy at Kaikōura Primary our Board of Trustees adopted our uniform as a compulsory requirement of attendance to foster pride and school identity. Uniform items are listed below.
- Short sleeved easy dry KPS logo polo shirt
- Navy polar fleece
- Navy shorts/pants/skirt/skort
- Navy bucket hat
- Navy thermal and navy tights may be worn.
- Shoes – must be practical for school.
Uniform is available from the school office. We only keep limited amounts of uniform so you may need to order ahead of time.
Newsletters
This is emailed to parents every week. This is the main form of communication between the school and home. A hard copy of the newsletter is available from the school office.
Swimming
Our school pool is currently under reconstruction. We are hopeful to open our pool again in term 1, 2025.
Scholastic Book Fair/Duffy Books in Homes
We are very lucky to be part of the Duffy Books in Homes Programme whose philosophy behind the programme is simple – to break the cycle of ‘booklessness’. “Kids who can’t read become adults who can’t communicate and that’s a serious disadvantage in a world that operates on the written word”.
Each child receives books of their choosing throughout the year. These books are given out at Duffy Role Model assemblies. Role models from all over NZ come to our school to inspire our tamariki and their love of reading. We have a performance from the Duffy Theatre once a year and you are very welcome to join us at either of these events.
Each year our school holds a themed Scholastic Book Fair and Scholastic orders are also available online each term. The school receives points which are accumulated and used to buy more resources for the school – a very easy way to fundraise.
Transport
We rely on parents and staff members to provide most of the transport to various extra functions and activities that we consider important for the education of the children in the school. Please make yourself available for this activity when you can.
Bus Service
A Ministry of Education funded school bus service operates in the district to bring children to and from school. To be entitled to school transport a pupil must live more than 3.2km from their nearest school. Please enquire at our school office for eligibility.
If a bus pupil is not going home on the bus, they must advise the school office by 2.30pm.
Assemblies
Children look forward to sharing their success with whanau on Fridays at 9 am. Each class takes responsibility for the running of assemblies and classes participate with items such as singing, kapa haka, drama, and sharing of their classroom accomplishments. We recognise success in sports and social and academic achievements.
School Fees
We do not ask for school fees. From 2020 our Board of Trustees has opted into the new MOE School Donation Scheme. For more information go to www.education.govt.nz and search MOE Donations Scheme.