Tēna Koutou Katoa,

We hope you and your family/whanau all had a wonderful Waitangi weekend. We had a fabulous first week back at school. The teachers/kaiako were excited to meet their new classroom and the children/tamariki were excited to be back at school. Our school pool was well used with the warmer weather.

This week we will continue to develop classroom expectations and routines. Our children have been reflecting on the Gospel teachings of Jesus, learning about Catherine McAuley and our Mercy values which underpin all that we do, think and say at our school/kura.

Today we have Kirsty working with teachers/kaiako working with teachers on their maths programme. We will be looking closer into the Aotearoa Histories curriculum which links well with learning more about Waitangi weekend.

We welcome Maxwell and Chikamso and their family/whanau to Our Lady of Lourdes school - abundant blessings to you all.

SCHOOL EVENTS TO MARK IN YOUR CALENDAR**

You are all invited - on Sunday February 12th we have our Feast Day, Our Lady of Lourdes mass. This is a lovely time when the parish and school come together. Following the 9.30am mass the school pool (bring your togs) and the school will be open for the next hour. We ask that everyone brings a plate for a shared morning tea for this special day.

THURSDAY 16th FEBRUARY - GOAL SETTING EVENING: 3.15-7.15pm

We would love the opportunity to work alongside you as we set our Term 1 goals with you and your child. These will be 10 minute catch ups with you and your child's teacher which you can book online at the end of today. We are working with our SchoolApps to do this - details to follow.

MAJOR FUNDRAISING EFFORT FOR TERM ONE

Some of you may be aware that our much loved senior playground/fort is in need of a major rebuild. We are working with the Board and the Diocese to see what we can do. We are looking at a Cookie Time fundraiser in the first four weeks of this term with a Pie Drive in the second half. We will keep you in the loop as we move forward with this. We appreciate all your support in all that we are striving to do to improve our school.

Abundant blessings to you all for the term ahead. It's going to be a fabulous one.

The OLOL Team

All classrooms have now started swimming each day and uniform items can get mixed up with other children's when they are getting changed into togs each day.

Also items need to be named to be able to returned to the right person if they end up in the lost property box.

Thank you for your understanding and helping us with this.

• Primary school aged children, meet on Monday nights from 6pm - 7:30pm
• Intermediate aged children meet on Wednesday nights from 6pm - 7:30pm
• Cost is $85 p/term with the first four weeks free as a trial period
• The events are held at the Te Awe Awe Scout Hall (on google maps) located behind Girls High School on Huia Street.
• Activities consist of: At the start of the night we play some fun games, sometimes things like seaweed or other times puzzle solving games. We then do some adventure things like build a fort or tower, or build our own raft and paddle it on the lagoon. We do activities which are sometimes scary for us individually, but once we have done them, we feel like we are a stronger version of ourselves. We learn leadership skills through running our own activities for the other youth. We earn badges as rewards for accomplishing challenges and tasks which we proudly display on our Scout shirts. We enjoy camping, cooking food and singing around a campfire.

TERM 1 DATES 2023 - Tuesday January 31st - Thursday 6 April (Easter)

Term 1 -School office open from 9am - noon January 25, 26, 27 and 30th

Sunday February 12th - Our Feast Day school mass @ 9.30am, open fun morning

Thursday 17 February - HERO Goal Setting afternoon from 3.15-7.15pm - a link will be sent home within a week - please book online

Wednesday February 22 - Ash Wednesday

Thursday 23rd February - Year 1 & 2 Tabloids hosted by St Josephs Feilding,

Thursday 2nd March - Year 5 & 6 Tabloids hosted by OLOL

Monday 6th March - Food for Thought programme begins

Wednesday 8th March - Year 3 & 4 Tabloids hosted by St James

Monday March 20th - St John lessons for Room 6 and 8

Thursday April 6th - Holy Thursday

OTHER COMBINED CATHOLIC SCHOOLS DATES

• Year 5/6 RIPPA RUGBY and NETBALL Tournament @ St Mary's Wednesday, August 16th. (postponement day - August 23rd)

SCRIPTURE READING COMPETITION

June 6th @ 6pm at St Mary’s Yr 5/6

TERM DATES 2023

Term 1 - January 31st - 6th April

Term 2 - April 24th (Teacher Only day), 25th ANZAC day - Term 2 begins-April 26th-June 30th

Term 3 - 17 July - 22 September

Term 4 - 9 October - December 14 (to be confirmed)

If you wish to register your child for this event please register under the 'OLOL School' team you will save a little on postage costs for your entry pack.

We will not be organising this as a school team rather it will be up to parents to organise transportation and supervision. We'll let you know more once children have enrolled.