Newsletter Week 3 Term 3 2022

Principal's Message

Nau mai, haere mai St Joseph’s Whanau

The past week has been a good week of consolidating routines and learning in the classroom. It has been a pleasure to see children focused on their learning and giving their best efforts.

Attendance: Attendance over the year has been impacted by Covid and sickness. It is important children stay at home when they are sick, but equally important that they get back to school without delay once better.

Arrival and Pick-up after school: Just a friendly reminder that children should be arriving at school between 8:15am and 8:50am in the morning. School finishes at 2:55pm and should picked up and have left the school grounds before 3:15pm. Only children who should be on the school grounds after this time are the 'late bus' children and those at SKIDS After School Care.

CathMath: was a positive experience and learning for those who participated. See report below from the children's supervising teacher Jeff Bennet

Coming up:

Zero Waste: The team from Zero Waste will be in the school on 12th August and have sessions with all ages. Care of our environment is increasingly recognized as an important habit for children to develop and this ties in with our Wearable Art focus later in the term.

Heads Up for Parent/Caregivers - fire, earthquake, environment impact and lockdown drills:

Over the next few weeks the children will be practicing all of our emergency procedures / drills. Teachers will discuss the importance of these drills and what is required of them at the time. If your children do come home and discuss these drills with you, please reassure them all is well and it is something that all schools have to practice. From these scenarios we as a school review and fine tune our drill policy. Thank you for your support.

Star Jam on Friday 12th August: Children come dressed as a star for this fun event. Children will be performing a succession of Jump Jam dances. A gold coin donation is much appreciated and will go to the "Star Jam Charitable Trust" on their 20th anniversary of supporting children with disabilities to enjoy and experience success through dance and music.

Weekly certificates: This last week our certificates focused on Integrity. The school is certainly blessed by children who demonstrate integrity in who they are and how they relate to others.

This week the focus will be on "never see a need without doing something about it".

A prayer for the coming week:

Dear Lord,

Help us be people who see the world as you do

Help us respond to the needs around us as you would

Help us be Your living example and witness

In who we are and in all we do.

Every blessing and have a great week.

Paul Cooper

Relieving Principal

CathMath 2022

Well done to our Year 6/7/8 teams of mathematicians who recently attended the CathMath competition in Hamilton. Schools around the Waikato were represented and St Josephs did well resulting in all teams being placed in the top 8.

Thank you to our team members

Yr 8 : Team 1 : 6th Madison Nickalls, Bailee Horan, Kate Mourits

Yr 8 : Team 2 : 8th Ken Collins, Jaxon Chase, Mia Hyde

Yr 7: Team 1 : 5th Ezra Arnephy, Thomas Van Leeuwen, Sheina Bantugan

Yr 7: Team 2 : 7th Hannah Findson, Bayley Vandy, Allison Van Vliet

Yr 6: Team 1 : 2nd Harbir Singh, Braedan Horan, Maggie Teague

Yr 6: Team 2 : 5th Leo Sommerhalder, Tyler Nickalls and Cameron Devaney.

CathMath – is a Problem Solving Math's competition involving all of the Waikato Catholic schools. Schools come from all over the Waikato from Cambridge, Ngaruawahia, Huntly, Te Awamutu, Cambridge and Morrinsville, as well as all the large city schools Marian, St Pius, St Joes Fairfield and St Peter Chanel.

The competition consists of 20 questions in which the students have 45 minutes to complete them. It works out to about 2 minutes 15 seconds per question. It is a high pressure 45 minutes and the time passes very quickly for the competitors.

I am always impressed by how successful we are when you compare the number of students the bigger Hamilton schools have to choose from.

A special thanks to the parents that took the time to provide transport to this event.

Jeff Bennett

Reflection shared from Jemma Van Eijk, Director of Religious Studies

“Never see a need without doing something about it” - Mary Mackillop

These words were spoken from an inspirational woman whom we can all learn a lesson from. Mary Mackillop was Australia's first Saint and yesterday - August 8th was her Feast Day. Saint Mary Mackillop or Saint Mary of the Cross Mackillop was the co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. Together the sisters set up many schools across Australia and New Zealand. They cared for the poor, homeless and everyone who was in need. Mary Mackillop left a legacy for us all to “find happiness in making others happy”. She lead by example and followed God’s calling her whole life.

Mary Mackillop was a woman who lived by faith, she had courage, determination and unending love to give. She trusted in God’s plan for her life. We can learn a lot from Mary Mackillop as an inspirational woman and Saint. Even though sometimes our lives may be tough we have to trust that there is a reason and know that God’s plan is very different to our own. We may not understand what is happening or why but we need to know that God loves us all and he has a plan. If we pray for patience we do not just receive it, instead God gives us opportunities in our lives to show and practise patience.

This week I challenge you to be more like Mary Mackillop in what you think, say and do. If you see a need then do something, if you can do something to make someone else happy then do it. Have courage and determination in your life to achieve something this week. Pray, pray for guidance and pray for the ability to trust in Gods plan.

Have a blessed week,

Ngā mihi nui