Tena koutou katoa
Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is here. This week is Māori Language Week and this year's theme is Kia Kaha Te Reo Māori – making the language stronger. Māori Language Week is an annual event that exists to celebrate the culture and language of the Māori people.
This week is a busy week:
- Students are involved in Aquabot training after school in the school pool,
- 'Food for Thought' programme is being run across the Totara team. We have two nutritionists from Auckland working with students
- STEAM afternoon today for students and after school for staff, parents and students,
- Barbie Disco on Thursday night
- Our Gymnastic team is competing in the local competition and
- On Friday a group of Kakano children are being baptised at the Parish Mass.
We have a planned Pasifika fono during the Barbie Disco. This will be held in Room 14. The meeting will be to discuss our strategic plan and get some feedback on the aspirations you have for your child. Next week, we are keen to hold a Whanau Roopu meeting to also gather some feedback. This will be held in the Staffroom on Wednesday the 20th of September at 6 pm. Please feel welcome to come to one of these meetings. We will also be holding other meetings early next term.
This week your child will bring home a form regarding class placements for 2024. These forms need to be returned to the school office by the last day of the term. If you have a preschooler aged 4 years, and you intend to enrol him/her at St Mary’s, please fill in an enrolment form which you can pick up from the office. Places are filling quickly in our new entrant classes so if you would like a space for your child then you do need to enrol now.
Students are to start Term 4 in full summer uniform. Our Uniform Shop is open Mondays (8.30-9.00 am), Wednesdays (2.30-3.00 pm) & Fridays (8.30-9.00 am) during term time. The girls’ summer dresses are currently only available from our school uniform shop.
Summer uniform is:
Boys - Grey drill shorts and a royal blue short or long sleeved polo shirt.
Girls - Blue checked dress or culottes
All students need a royal blue sunhat.
Feilding Red woollen school jersey.
Black sandals for footwear (no socks to be worn with sandals).
We also sell school uniforms via our school website. You can order and pay online and pick up your uniform from the school reception after you have been notified by email that the uniform is ready to pick up. Hopefully, this will be easier for those parents who find it difficult to get to our uniform shop.
The pick-up of children in the Church Carpark has become a Health and Safety issue with the congestion of cars on Seddon St. Before Covid it wasn’t an issue because parents parked their cars and came into school to get their children. It has become the norm for cars to swoop around the car park and stop to pick up their child. From next term we ask that you park your cars in the car park and come into the school grounds to pick up your child. It was great pre-covid to have parents gathering around classrooms after school to collect their children.
Please keep in your prayers Iquita and her brother and sister Charis and Avaani as they grieve for their mother, Melissa Drysdale, who passed away a few days ago.
Have a great week.
Ngā mihi
David Macmillan
TERM CALENDAR
Tuesday 19th September to Friday 22nd September MAD School Art Exhibition - Art Village
Tuesday 19th September Totara Team Exhibition
Thursday 21st September Mini Munchy Makers final cooking competition
Friday 22nd September Final Day of Term 3
