Newsletter Week 9 Term 2 2022

Principal's Message

Nau mai, haere mai,

We really loved our Matariki celebrations at school and feel very blessed to celebrate an offical holiday for this important event. I hope you had some lovely time to share with your families.

The winter bugs and chills have really stepped up and we have had about 50 children away yesterday. Thank you for being so vigilant and keeping sick children at home until they feel better. I know it is pretty tough and we hope everyone that is unwell makes a really quick recovery.

It has been a special time today celebrating the blessing of our prayer garden. Thank you to everyone that came along to share this moment with us. It was just wonderful to see the Sisters and have that time together with our school.

Tomorrow we have 54 year 6-8 students taking part in the Tough Guy/Gal Challenge. The course is steep and slushy and we know they will have a great time! We look forward to seeing the photos of the smiles and the mud. On Thursday our Jumping June Event will take place. There has been such an awesome improvement in skipping ability and we are very proud to see everyone give it a go. A special thank you for your donations to the Heart Foundation.

We have our Parish-School Mass this Sunday 3 July at 9 am. We would love to have all of our students and families attend to show our support. Children, please wear school uniform to church. There is a cuppa afterwards, so stay and have a chat!

A big welcome to Jayden Mourits who started in Akonga Hub a few weeks ago. It has been such a pleasure to meet Jayden as I taught his mum Mel when I was a beginning teacher (a few years ago!) in fact Mel is the only child I taught for three years. I was very lucky! Jayden is also lucky as he has big cousins at St Joes that love to support and play with him.

I hope you have a wonderful week. Take care and God Bless.

Andrea Colebourn

Principal

Life Education

This week we have the Life Education Bus in school working with our children on health topics. Each class has two visits. You may have seen the big bus in our carpark! Your child will bring home some information about what they have been learning, and no doubt they will talk about Harold the giraffee!

Matariki Celebrations

It was so special to be able to share kai and breakfast with one another. A special thank you to the staff who organised this awesome opportunity.

Mānawa maiea te Mātahi o te tau — Celebrate the rising of the new year

Mānawa maiea te ariki o te rangi — Celebrate the rising of the lord of the heavens

Mānawa maiea te putanga o Matariki — Celebrate the rising of Matariki

Winter Tournament

On Tuesday our year 6, 7 and 8 students competed at Winter Tournament against other Catholic Schools in the Waikato. It was a great day and a chance to have some fun, as well as being able to get to know others in our region.

There were 39 teams from 8 schools competing in rugby, hockey and soccer held at St Johns College and Netball at Sacred Heart. One of our hockey teams made it through to the finals, but after 5 minutes of extra time the ref announced it a draw. A very exciting game with Emma Butler and Ryan Mourits receiving Most Valuable Player awards. A special thank you to the helpers on the day. We are so grateful!

JUMPING JUNE This Thursday

Thursday sees all the practice and hard work in action as we complete our whole school Jumping June.

We are as a whole school are having a Jumping June fitness session to celebrate the success of raising our fitness first thing at 9:00am on Thursday the 30th. The children will skip along to some of their favourite hits with their friends.

We can't thank everyone enough for all the amazing support, with our school total currently at $3368.00. Happy Jumping Everyone!

Blessing of Our Prayer Garden

Today was a special day with the blessing of our prayer garden. Sister Barbara, Sister Margaret and Sister Anne-Marie from the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions helped to bless this special place. It was wonderful to see Peter Flynn, Joan Pigou, Rene Cooper and Barbara Marneth-Rust who were special guests today too. A special thank you to the Catholic Women's League who contributed to our beautiful cross seat, and to the PFC for funding the garden space.

Our garden is dedicated to the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions who were the women who began our school. On behalf of our school, a cross was designed to honour our sisters for the past and to acknowledge our tamariki, who are our future.

2022 Board of Trustee Election Time

Nomination round

Our school will be undertaking a parent election for 4 School Board vacancies. This process will start with the issuing of nomination papers to our caregiver community by

Friday 15th July 2022.

We have employed CES to undertake the election process on our behalf. This year with legislative change, our nomination form and full instruction on how to place your nomination into our own School’s Election website will be emailed to you if we have your email address in our database, or you will receive it by post if we don’t have your email in our database.

Nomination papers will also be available at the school office. The school will send those on to CES for processing upon receipt from candidates.

Nominations close on Wednesday 3rd August at 12 noon

Election day is Wednesday 7th September

We look forward to your participation in this process.

Wayne Jamieson

Returning Officer - CES

Reflection

As we hit the middle of the year, the weather is colder, the days seem darker and constant busyness is all around us. It is really hard sometimes to be mindful of others, especially when our lives are busy too. Here is a prayer for you..

Lord,

In quiet times, we see your face and we feel your holy presence In busy and hectic times, we tend to run aimlessly away from your help. In our most fatigued and stressful times, we need you most. Send us your calming Spirit. Lighten our hearts, Lord.

Amene