'Put your whole confidence in God' - Catherine McAuley
Dear whānau,
This week we had Rose from Active Southland in teaching our tamariki how to play Tapa Ae, a traditional Māori game that requires lots of team work, communication and problem solving. This has been fantastic timing as we also started a new whānau rotation for our inquiry topic 'Tūrangawaewae - the place where we stand' on Wednesday. Miss Bond is going to carry on with a Tapa Ae tournament seeing as the kids were ki tonu i te ngakau nui (full of enthusiasm).
From our school vision 'At St Mary’s we believe in the concept of tuakana-teina: big people looking after little people.' Whānau groups are made up of kids from new entrant up to year 6. Each group moves through different sessions taken by each of the teachers in the school this time with a focus on Tūrangawaewae. Teachers have planned various fun and engaging activities for PE, science, dance, visual arts, music, social studies, technology and digital technology.
A reminder that this Sunday (29th May) we have our first whole school Mass to celebrate the children receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. We have one of these per term and this one is extra special because we will be joined by Bishop Michael Dooley. Children are asked to come in their school uniform and meet their teacher in the school quad at 9.45am, we will then head over to the church as a school. Remember, the church is the reason our school exists and therefore, your presence would be very much valued. We look forward to seeing you there.
God bless,
Mallory
Acting Principal
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Celebrating Mrs Hickey
On Friday we had a celebration for Eileen to acknowledge her invaluable service to the parish and our school over many-a-year.
In the tablet Eileen was described as the housekeeper for the priests, manager of the parish office, liaison with our school and our families. She also carried out a whole range of other less visible tasks. The less visible tasks like preparing the church for Masses, funerals, weddings and baptisms are the reason why we found it so hard to find photos of Mrs Hickey, she’s always calmly and faithfully working behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly, it doesn’t just happen magically.
The comments our kids made in their cards for Mrs Hickey were things like ‘she always smiles at me when I walk into the church, she opens the doors for us to leave Mass, she makes sure the church is always warm and ready for our Monday prayers and assembly, she comes to our special school events’ and we all know how straight up kids are, they’re not silly, they know who the special people are!
10 years ago Mrs Hickey was awarded the Benemerenti Medal which is a special medal awarded by the Pope to people who go above and beyond to serve the Catholic Church and as far as our parish goes, we all know, you don’t get much better than her.
Now that Eileen (well at the end of the month) has a bit more time on her hands, we’re looking forward to sharing more cups of tea and yarns with her over morning tea at school. Eileen, thank you for everything you have done for our parish and our school over the years. While you’ve done your best to work behind the scenes, your dedication and hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed. God bless.
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| Each team breaks themselves up into the 3 sections of the court. They are on both defense and attack. The ki (ball) is thrown in at the side of the middle third from the marama (moon). You are allowed to run with the ball. | Lots of fun was had playing Tapa Ae The goal of Tapa Ae is to knock all 3 balls off the cones of your opposition. Each team has a kaitiaki (guardian) whose job it is to protect their teams ki (ball) on the cones. | It's a face paced game. You can throw in variations to make it harder or easier e.g. have two kaitiaki protecting the cones or have two balls in play at the same time. |
Lots of fun was had playing Tapa Ae
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John Parson - Cybersafety
