St Mary's School

Wednesday 23rd March 2022

Put your whole confidence in God - Catherine McAuley

Put your whole confidence in God - Catherine McAuley

Dear parents, children and parishioners,


Thanks for your feedback on last week's newsletter, it is great to have so much to celebrate as a community.


This week we welcome Violet Moore to school, she joins her big brothers Harry and Lachie. We wish you happy, happy school days, Violet.


Thursday evening there is a Home and School meeting via zoom. If this is something you are interested in, but has passed you by it's not too late. Drop me a line, or email handsstmarys@gmail.com for the link, or check the app under Home and School.



John Parsons continues to work with your children on cybersafety. He has been zooming in for 45 minute lessons which have our children really engaged and thinking about how their actions in real life should match actions in any virtual world. He has video clips available to us that I will begin sharing as soon as I can!


Take care everyone, Annie

Put your whole confidence in God - Catherine McAuley
Kupu o te wiki - Word of the week

Kupu o te wiki - Word of the week

To say hello most of us rely on Kia ora but throughout the day you can use different words. Casually in the morning you can say mōrena or more formally ate mārie.

As you are leaving at the end of the day you can causally say Ka kite, meaning 'see you', or pō mārie - good night.

The macron on the a and the o (ā, ō) makes the vowel sound longer.

Kupu o te wiki - Word of the week

Achievement information 2021 - writing

Talking about data doesn't make everyone excited.... but it would be remiss of me not to mention how well your children achieved last year.

For the next three weeks (until end of term 1) I will share data around the core subjects, reading, writing and maths.

Writing data - year end 2021 we had 87% of students working at or above the expected curriculum level (age related), this is a slight rise on the data in 2020 (85%).

For 2022 one of our annual targets is around writing. Overall we have great writers, and you will have seen evidence of this in this and last week's newsletter. However we have noticed that we have children who are writing 'above' the expectations for their year groups up to year 4 but once we hit curriculum level 3 (years 5 and 6) they still perform, but don't over perform. There can be a few reasons for this, and as a group of professionals we are sharing our theories with each other, putting our theories into practice and monitoring the results regularly.

I don't usually 'bang on' about the great team of teachers, teacher aides and support staff that are in this school but I count my lucky stars every night as a principal and a parent. This team has a desire for all our children to the best they can be, and they are putting in the hard work, and your children are responding.

I'll continue to share writing in the newsletter this year so you can see for yourself how we are going. Another way of knowing what is going on is to ask your kids of course. Teachers are always available for a catch up regarding progress, and early next term we will have parent/teacher meetings.

Year 2, Room Kea, have aged!

When I am one hundred years old

When I am one hundred years old

When I reach the age of a hundred I am going to drive a sheep. It will be red and it will do a double back flip.

When I reach the age of a hundred I'm going to fly a fox and will be able to do side flips.

By Henry

Year 2

When I am one hundred years old
When I am one hundred years old

When I am one hundred years old

When I reach the age of a hundred I am going to climb up flower to flower to the tree to play with the happy blue tiger.

When I reach the age of a hundred I am going to ride a green rat.

By Braylen

Year 2

When I am one hundred years old
When I am one hundred years old

When I am one hundred years old

When I reach the age of a hundred I am going to fly a flying unicorn to the zoo and I'm going to dress the lions in funny costumes.

When I reach the age of a hundred I am going to have a magic picnic on a magic boat with a talking dog.

By Florence

Year 2

When I am one hundred years old

Upcoming events


Week 8

Gospel and prayers, Room Tākahe,

Wednesday 23rd and Friday 25th - John Parsons online for internet safety, for students, all parents welcome to join in via zoom and a parents evening online - more information to come

Thursday 7pm 24th Home and School meeting - please sign up to the Home and School 2022 alerts on the school app


Week 9

Gospel and prayers, Room Piwakawaka

Revised Year 6 camp - adventure week!


Week 10

Gospel and prayers, Room Pūkeko

Monday to Wednesday Year 6 camp

Thursday 7th evening Board meeting 7pm


Week 11

Gospel and prayers, Annie

Thursday 14th - Easter Liturgy

End of term, school finishes at usual time Thursday 14th

Contact Us

Contact Us

Contact Us

14 Ardwick Street, Gore 9710, New Zealand admin@stmarys.school.nz +64 3-208 7733 stmarys.school.nz/