Newsletter 10 May Term 2 - 2022

Welcome, nau mai, afio mai, namaste, konnichiwa, nĭ hăo, talofa, komosta, vanakkam, auybowan,

Dear Whānau & Parishioners,

We have had a busy and positive start to the new school term. Friday’s Pōwhiri was a very special welcome to new colleagues, students and families who have joined St Brendan’s since Term 3 last year. We were delighted to be able to gather as a full school. Last week our Navigators welcomed Mr Wayne Guppy, our Upper Hutt Mayor and our Adventurers had a visit from Helen Griffiths, a local author.

This week is full of much significance! This week we celebrate Rotuman Language Week. This year’s theme for Gasav Ne Fäeag Rotuạm Ta - Rotuman Language Week is Vetḁkia ‘os Fäega ma Ag fak hanua - Sustaining our Language and Culture. We have a Rotuman family at our school and all classes are enjoying learning facts and new language skills. It is also New Zealand Sign Language Week. This year’s theme is NZSL is Essential. The meaning behind this theme is multifaceted. As you are aware, the word “essential” is well used these days and we are drawing on this to put a spotlight on essential workers who are Deaf. As well as the fact that NZSL is essential for Deaf people in education, health, workplaces and to be able to participate equally in society.

And, it is Road Safety Week, the theme is Road Safety Heroes, celebrating the heroic work of road safety professionals, and explaining how we can all play a part in making journeys safer for everyone. Everyone can be a road safety hero. Road Safety Week 2022 celebrates the professionals who are working to make roads safer for everyone - from designing safer roads to caring for people after a crash. It also enables everyone who uses roads to understand how they can take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Maureen Evason’s family at this time. Maureen was a teacher at St Brendan’s who had a very positive and significant impact on our school. We prayed for Maureen and her family at staff prayers last week. At Friday’s Pōwhiri I spoke about standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us and the whole school and our visitors took a moment to remember in prayer the loss of a past colleague.

Staffing Update Last week we welcomed Lauren Staats to our St Brendan’s learning support team. On Wednesday we will be welcoming Frances Reilly for her first visit to St Brendan’s, she will be joining our Adventurer teaching team in Room 9 in a couple of weeks. Frances is a very experienced teacher who comes to us from Rewa Rewa School. We welcome you to join us on Friday when we will be farewelling Eliana Van Velzen at assembly, 12pm.

I write to inform you of another change that will have an impact on us at the end of week 8 this term when we will farewell Stella Hiotakis. Stella has made a career changing decision to leave primary teaching and move into Early Childhood Education. Our appointments process is underway and I will keep you informed.

I know you will join me in expressing gratitude to Eliana and Stella for their contributions to our school community. We wish them all the very best and God’s blessings on their new adventures.

Are you ready to log into Hero this term?

During this term we will share learning posts with you three times. We hope you were able to log into Hero last term? Learning posts combined with curriculum information and goal-setting will form part of our 2022 Reporting to Families. Please email your child/ren’s class teacher if you have not been able to access your Hero account yet and they will be able to help.

Happenings around the school . . .

Building work continues in our Administration block. Our amazing Administration team is operating out of Room 3, and I have moved to the Potu a Tamaiti Room where other members of our team are also working/meeting. A new container has been placed at the back of the courts to provide a permanent storage solution for our school. We are grateful to the McLean family for their very generous donation. The reversible basketball/netball hoops have been installed. We are grateful to the Van der Westhuizen family for their very generous donation preparing the courts for the installation. Our exterior lighting has been upgraded which improves school security. The sensory playground at the back of the hall remains a work in progress, we would be keen to hear from anyone who has time to support us to continue the painting.

Welcome

On behalf of our whole school community we extend a warm welcome to Ivy, Ethan, Athirad and their families. Ivy, Ethan and Athirad recently joined Room 2.

We NEED your help, please!

Now that we are at Orange there are several areas in which we need community help:

Kapa Haka Tutor

Both Matua Whaitiri and Matua Joel have moved on to different adventures. We are still looking for someone to support Kapa Haka at St Brendan’s. If you, or someone you know is willing and available, this is a paid position, please email Vanessa, v.smith-graham@stbrendans.school.nz

Road Patrol

Sutherland Avenue and Palmer Crescent are increasingly busy in the mornings and afternoons. Already in the first week of the term we have had several near misses. If you, a family member or friend has time to be added to our roster please email Sara, s.williams@stbrendans.school.nz

Art

We continue to work on our sensory playground at the back of the hall. If you, a family member or friend has time to help students complete this project, please email, office@stbrendans.school.nz

Gardening

St Brendan’s is an Enviro school and we are very proud of the progress we have made in the last few years, many initiatives have been introduced. If you, a family member or friend has time to help students to maintain our gardens, please email Chris Pullan, c.pullan@stbrendans.school.nz

Thank you for your ongoing support - we are grateful for the loving generosity of our community. We look forward to reconnecting with you and hope you can join us after school on Monday as we celebrate St Brendan's Feast Day.

God Bless,

Veronica Sawers,

Principal

Uniform Reminders - Winter Uniform Terms 2 and 3

Families must ensure these uniform guidelines are observed:

• All students must be in full school uniform every day.
• Plain black school shoes are required for winter (no canvas or ballet shoes).
• Year 7-8 students are required to wear covered shoes for health and safety at Technicraft.
• Hair longer than the shoulders must be tied back. Permitted hair accessories must be plain navy, black, or bottle green hair ties, clips, or headbands. No fashion accessories are to be worn (e.g. oversized bows).
• Coloured hair and extreme hairstyles are not permitted.
• Only plain, small stud earrings may be worn with our school uniform.
• Necklaces of religious or cultural significance such as crosses, bone carvings, or greenstones may only be worn under uniform clothing, and must be removed for PE.
• Make-up and nail polish is not permitted.

School staff will make contact with families if the uniform is not being worn appropriately.

• The McLean family for their generous donation of a container for school storage.

• Mat Chard and Ollie McClure from McClure Construction for installing our new basketball hoops.

• The Van der Westhuizen family for their donation of skills and resources preparing our courts for the installation of new goals.

Paschal Candle

The meanings of the certain things that I drew:

The theme of the earth is, in my eyes, both a sign of unity and world peace which relates to the current state of the world with war in Ukraine and many others.

The Easter lily ties in with the earth as the Easter lilies are a sign of peace. The Easter lily is related to purity, rebirth and new beginnings this is why the Easter lily is related to the resurrection of Jesus and therefore I decided to add it onto my design.

Conor, Room4.

You will have had the opportunity to admire all of this year’s designs as they are currently on display at both churches in our Parish, Our Lady of Grace and St Francis Xavier.

Kia ora koutou

It has been a successful first week back for term 2 with the children excited to be back in the school routine with their friends, ready to commence their learning.

The Board is pleased that at level Orange we are now able to recommence community activities. On Friday we held a Pōwhiri to welcome new students, it was a lovely event and the first time in a very long time that the whole school has been able to gather together.

Now that we can gather we are looking forward to more events in the near future with the upcoming School Colour Fun Run a particular point of excitement for the children.

As a Board we are looking forward to continuing to reconnect with our community over coming months.

Ryan McLean on behalf of the Board

ST BRENDAN'S DAY

ADVENTURER'S AUTHOR VISIT

Last Friday the Adventurers had a virtual zoom with New Zealand Author Helen Griffiths. She shared her journey of becoming an author, inspired us to explore different vocabulary and find the message behind a text.

She read to us her wonderful book, "Treasure Beyond Measure", which we are all focusing on in our Literacy programme to extend our vocabulary knowledge and enrich our own writing.

ST BRENDAN’S SCHOOL COLOUR FUN RUN

MONDAY, 30TH MAY

On Monday your child would have brought home a booklet and a parent letter was emailed to give you all the information about our St Brendan’s Colour Fun Run.

Please ensure you have registered your child/children to help us raise money for our 2022 Year 7-8, Navigator camp.

Go to schoolfunrun.co.nz, create a student profile page and share your online fundraising link via SMS, Email and Social Media. If you didn’t receive the above information or are having trouble registering your child please contact your child's teacher.

On the event day, students will need to wear to school clothes they are happy to get coloured.

If your child does not want to be coloured they can still be involved in the fun run and the other planned activities on the day. The colour used is allergy and environmentally friendly. Students will be involved in P.E./Health rotations from 1pm. The Colour Run will be organised in Year level groups.

A timetable of times for the colour run will be shared closer to the event.

This is going to be a fun school wide event! We welcome you to come and join us at school from 1pm to support and be part of the fun!

YUMMY APPLE STICKERS

It's Yummy Apple Sticker time!

Please start collecting Yummy Apple stickers that are on individual apples or on packs of apples.

We will be collecting these all throughout terms 2 and 3. The stickers will go towards new equipment to be used at morning tea and lunch break times. Please save these, add them to the collection sheets (links below) and send them to your child's teacher.

Thank you

Heather Campbell

Yummy Sticker Collection Sheet

Yummy New Variety Sticker Collection Sheet

Yummy Cut-out Label Collection Sheet

MOVIN'MARCH 2022

We are very pleased to announce that Lana, Room 5, is a lucky winner in the WOW Passport challenge for Movin’March 2022.

Congratulations Lana, on winning a $400 MYRIDE voucher courtesy of MYRIDE Lower Hutt and Greater Wellington Regional Council!

ENVIRO SUNFLOWER SEEDS AND CERINTHE PLANTS FOR THE UKRAINE FUND

A huge thank you to all who supported the St Brendan’s School Sunflower seeds sale. We have raised $300.00 from selling the seeds and punnets of Cerinthe (Honeywort) plants. The proceeds will be donated to Caritas for use in supporting the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. If you missed out and would like to purchase a packet of Sunflower seeds for a gold coin or a bundle of Cerinthe plants for $5.00 please send the money in a named envelope to Room 7. The sale will end this Friday.

ENVIRO NEWS

St Brendan’s is an Enviro School which is a journey of learning for the whole school community. We are looking forward to getting back into projects that were started before COVID and starting some new projects for our students. We have a butterfly enclosure which is in need of some tender care to become secure for the next generation of Monarch butterflies and some planting and gardening to support the butterflies when they come back for the summer. We have a number of garden beds that need planting and caring for and a number of eager keen students who want to get their hands dirty and learn about gardening.

If you have an interest in any of these projects or have some child friendly enviro ideas and would like to support our school community we would be most appreciative. We will be running an Enviro group on a Friday afternoon from 1:10 to 2:45 pm each week. During the wet months we have some seed harvesting and seed banking to do and other mini enviro projects. If you would like to be part of this group, please feel free to speak to or email Chris Pullan, Room 7 c.pullan@st.brendans.school.nz or Heather Campbell, Room 2 h.campbell@st.brendans.school.nz

PB4L - POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR FOR LEARNING

NAVIGATOR'S NOTICEBOARD

We are finalising plans for our PTF Winter Pizza Lunches for term 2 and hope to share with you more information and the order form as soon as details are confirmed.

Casual Coffee Catch-up at Fig Tree Cafe on Thursday, 12th May at 9am - a chance to catch up with friends old and new, everyone is welcome! Come along and join us after school drop off.

FLU SEASON

Influenza (flu) season is nearly upon us, so it’s time to get prepared as flu can spread quickly in an education centre. After two years with very low flu levels due to COVID-19 and all the public health measures in place, natural immunity is lower, so it’s really important to get a jab this year.

· Regional Public Health recommend flu vaccination for children to stop them getting sick and reduce flu spreading in the community. More information at www.fightflu.co.nz

· Find out more by viewing this video from the Ministry of Health https://youtu.be/ZAGU1Pcewco

DESIGN A METLINK BUS COMPETITION

It's been a long time coming but electronic ticketing will soon be available right cross Metlink's rail network.

Metlink is delighted that all train passengers will be able to pay their fares with Snapper, a contactless convenience long enjoyed on our buses.

To celebrate, they invite rangatahi to enter the 'Design a Metlink Bus' competition. Show everyone what you love about the Wellington region

• This competition is open to all tamariki aged 4 to 18.

• The designs of six winners will feature on buses across the region.

• Entries close at 5pm on 19 May.

For more information and to enter please go to Design a Metlink Bus Competition.

HUTT KAITOKE AERIAL POSSUM CONTROL PROGRAMME UPDATE

Please follow the links below for important information regarding the upcoming Hutt Kaitoke Aerial 1080 Operation within the Kaitoke Regional Park and Hutt Water Collection Area.

Hutt Kaitoki Aerial Possum Control Notification

HWCA Possum Control Fact Sheet

1080 and Dogs Fact Sheet