Term 4 Week 4 Newsletter #17

To Love/AROHA	To Learn/ĀKO	To Lead/ĀRAHI

St Joseph’s Catholic School

“Excellent Education befitting our Catholic Character”

94 Seddon St Pukekohe 2120

Term 4 Week 4 2 November 2023 Newsletter #17

Principal’s Message

Tena Koutou Katoa Talofa Lava Kamusta Malo e lelei Mauri Malo ni Faka talofa atu Namaste Greetings to all

It is hard to believe it is Week 4 already. Time is flying by.

As we prepare to decapitate at the end of this year and re-emerge as a Year 1-6 primary school in 2024, I’m sure you will understand that our internal school organisation is being altered. This is a timely opportunity to align our school with the Refreshed NZ Curriculum. Education is moving away from the 2-year level bands to a 3-year band for Years 1-3 and Years 4-6 which are being called Phases. As we reset for 2024, St Joseph’s School will have two distinct areas of the school: Years 0-3 and Years 4-6. We plan for our youngest students to be in five classroom spaces in Rooms 3-7 with the space to open an additional room partway through the 2024 year. Our Year 4-6 students will be in our Euphrasie Building with Year 4 and our youngest Year 5 students downstairs and Year 6 and our older Year 5 students upstairs. Although on two levels, the Year 4-6 roopu will function as one team. We will continue to name our roopu Aroha (Years 0/1), Ako (Years 2-3) and Arahi (Years 4-6). Aroha is always a little special with our youngest children settling into school life and we want to continue to nurture that.

Once again we have Covid cases in our school which are affecting both children and staff. This term we have had several occasions when we have not been able to find relieving teachers. Fortunately having flexible learning spaces has enabled us to cope with this. If your child does get Covid, please keep them at home until they are symptom-free and have a negative test. This latest strain of the virus seems to be presenting initially as a headache.

I would like to remind you that your child should be at school by 8:30 am ready to start the school day at 8:45 am. Coming to school a little earlier helps your child to be better organised, catch up with their friends and be settled to start the school day with prayer at 8:45 pm. Regular lateness means your child misses morning prayer, an important aspect of our Catholic school’s life and why you send your child to our school, as well as missing out on morning notices and being less settled to start the day’s learning programme.

Today we have had our school athletics sports day where our Year 4-8 students competed in their House colours. It is always lovely to see our student leaders grow in their role on days like this when they are working with younger children in a tuakana/teina capacity. These are the moments we will have to redefine as a Year 1-6 school next year. Everything will be a little different but the essence of student leadership will continue to be nurtured as a strength in our school. We continue to be blessed with a supportive school community that helps make these days such a success. Special thanks to our Ako 2 teachers for organising today’s event.

It was joyous to see our students participate in and enjoy the Andrew Chinn concert yesterday and then to see our Aroha singing his songs in our All Saints Day liturgy yesterday. All Saints Day was a very special day for me as it was Principal Appreciation Day – Tumeke Tumuaki and staff and students made a fuss of me. More special was that I became a grandma for the first time. So exciting!

Wishing you and your whanau many blessings,

Special Catholic Character

Values Awards

Alfie Farrell – AROHA / LOVE – For being a kind and helpful friend to Liam who is on crutches.

Leo Rowlatt – ARAHI / LEADERSHIP – For standing up for others and including them.

Rupert Archer – ARAHI – for your willingness to take on tasks of responsibility that sit outside your learning programme. We really value you at our school.

David Harrington – ARAHI – For his outstanding leadership in school fitness. He demonstrates and leads with Mana and Aroha.

Simon Vicent – ARAHI – for the beautiful, confident and reverent way you read the Gospel during Arahi’s assembly.

All Saints Liturgy

Yesterday, 1 November, was the Feast of All Saints and today is the Feast of All Souls. Both are important Catholic Feast Days for honouring those who have died, and we continue to pray for and to those who have died throughout the month of November. Our Aroha team prepared a beautiful Liturgy for us, which opened our Assembly yesterday. To open the Liturgy they carried forward important items for the prayer focus and explained their significance. They sang two beautiful Andrew Chinn songs: Called to be Saints and We are God’s Hands, performing actions for both. The teachers and students have created their own actions for the Called to be Saints song, which Andrew Chinn has asked us to record so that he can upload to his Butterfly House website to share with other Catholic schools across Australia and New Zealand. Finally the tamariki offered prayers to saints who are dear to us: Mother Mary, St. Joseph, St. Patrick, St. Peter Chanel and St. Ignatius of Loyola. They displayed pictures of them, as per the photo below. Thank you to our Aroha team for this special liturgy.

Andrew Chinn Music Day

It was so wonderful to have Andrew Chinn back at our school after 8 years! He had been scheduled to come in 2020 and again in 2021 but couldn’t due to the Pandemic. Andrew is a talented song-writer of liturgical music for children, and we use a lot of his songs for our school prayer, liturgies and Masses. On Tuesday Andrew did workshops with teams of tamariki and then a concert after lunch. He was so engaging and entertaining in his interactions with the children. It was a very joy-filled and memorable day of worship for us all. Andrew is indeed a taonga and we hope to welcome him back again soon.

St. Pat’s Kids Choir

No Practice for Kids Choir today.

Practice will resume next week Thursday 9 November

Next Sunday singing date: Sunday 26th November, 5pm Mass

Last practice and bowling outing: Thursday 23rd November

Key Dates

Term 4 Key Dates

Please note these dates are subject to change For further dates see calendars on the Skool Loop app or at: www.stjosephs.co.nz

School Board

SchoolDocs Term 4 Policy Review

This term we are reviewing the Learning Support section: Student Achievement Information/Student Assessment and Achievement, Home Learning, and Distance Learning.

Parents can view our school policies and procedures online by visiting the schooldocs website. SchoolDocs updates, modifies, or creates policies in response to changes in legislation or Ministry guidelines, significant events, reviews/requests from schools, and regular reviewing from the SchoolDocs team. To review:

1. Visit the website https://stjosephspukekohe.schooldocs.co.nz/1893.htm

2. Enter the username (stjosephspukekohe) and password (mission).

3. Select the Parents and Whanāu section on your SchoolDocs site

If you don’t have internet access, school office staff can provide you with printed copies of the policy and a review form. These policies will be approved at our Board Meeting on Wednesday 22nd November.

If you would like to contact the Board directly at any time, please do so through our new email address schoolboard@stjosephs.co.nz

School Notices / Upcoming Events

Road Safety at School Entrance

We have noticed some parents making U turns on Seddon Street right in front of the school by the pedestrian crossing. This is a safety hazard, we ask that you make safety conscious choices when picking up and dropping off your children to school.

NEW ENROLMENTS 2024

If your child, or someone you know, is turning 5 years old next year,

we need them to enrol at St Joseph’s School now!

Knowing how many children are coming helps us to plan ahead for our staffing.

Please contact the office stjoesoffice@stjosephs.co.nz

Attendance Dues

Term 4 attendance dues are now due and should be paid by 30th November 2023.

Thank you to all those families who have made an effort to have these paid on time in these tough times.

2023 School Magazine Orders: Purchasing our annual school magazine is a lovely record of your child’s year at school, especially in their final year and the school’s centennial year. The cost of $26 will be added to your school account however the purchase is optional. If you do want to buy this year’s magazine, payment will need to be made by November 17th. The magazine is printed in December and distributed at the end of the school year.

Second Hand Uniforms

The second hand uniform shop is open on Mondays and Thursdays 2.30 – 3pm

School Uniform

We should see all of our students in their summer uniforms now. This includes a green school hat. Years 3-8 also need a P.E. uniform and a P.E. shirt and green shorts, especially when representing the school at sporting events. Students should bring their P.E. gear daily, we do not have spare P.E. gear at the office. There are some smaller P.E. tops available in the second hand uniform shop.

Students are not to cut the backs off their sandals.

School Class/Portraits Photographs

You should have received any photos you ordered by now. If you have any questions, please contact Masterpiece photography Ph: 07 823 4306.

Centenary Photos

Photos of centenary events on the Saturday night can be purchased by contacting Athol Corbett. athol.corbett@xtra.co.nz Electronic Copy $20, Hard Copy Mailed $30, Flash Drives of all images $40 NZ $50 overseas. 02-1242-0326219-01.

Centenary Magazines

Centenary Magazines are now available to order for $30, please contact the office if you would like to purchase a copy.

Centenary Shopping Tote Bags available for sale. Gold coin donation. All money raised will go towards Mission Day.

Mission Day – Friday 17 November

What you need to know

This is an annual event run by the Year 7 & 8 students to raise money to support the RNDM Mission Sisters’ missionary work. It is similar to a gala day, with a variety of stalls and raffles. Tokens will be for sale before and after school, outside the office, from Monday 13 November, for students to use on Mission Day. 1 token = $0.50

All Parents and whānau are welcome to attend as well.

This event does require help from everyone.

How you can help

We will need a couple of year 7&8 parents to help us on the day. Please let your kaitiaki teacher know if you can help on 17 November between 11:30 and 2:45.

Raffle Items – Our raffles are always a great success. This year we are seeking donations for the following raffles:

Gardening – any gardening supplies (seeds, gloves, pots, tools)

Boys & Girls – any treats that boys & girls would like (new toys, stationery, games, books, treats)

Christmas – any Christmas themed supplies. (Ornaments, foods, decorations, clothing etc)

Please do not feel you need to go out and spend heaps of money on these items. If everyone pitches in a little bit, we will be able to provide some really awesome raffles. Contributing to one raffle per family should be more than enough to create some very cool raffles.

All raffle items can be placed in the boxes provided at the school office.

Used Toy Stall – One of the very popular stalls is always the used toy stall. We are requesting donations of any used toys, puzzles, games etc. Please make sure that they have all of the parts and are in good condition. These can also be dropped off into the appropriate box at the office.

Bake Sale – There will also be a scrumptious bake sale. If you would like to donate one of your yummy slices, biscuits or cakes, please do so on the morning on Mission Day.

Celebrations

Yesterday was Principal Appreciation Day – Tumeke Tumuaki and we made sure Mrs Hall knew how loved and appreciated she is at our school with a special morning tea and acknowledgement at our school assembly. She especially loved the video of the students commenting on how she spent her days and what they appreciated about her. We love you, Mrs Hall!

Aroha News

In Aroha we have been enjoying learning how to peke (jump), maka (throw) and oma (run) in preparation for our own mini athletics day (more details to come later in term). We are also enjoying making the most of having Ako 2 & Arahi tuakana supporting us with our learning. We enjoyed having our tuakana/teina buddies to support us with learning about Carlo Acutis.

Ako 1 News

What a busy two weeks Ako 1 have had. Last week we loved visiting the church to read about the Eucharistic miracles. We then spent time teaching each other about the miracles. We have also been learning about how energy transforms by making electric playdough circuits. We have been creating our own art works inspired by local artist Helen Parsons and also learning about kiwi innovators.

Ako 2 News

Ako 2 has had a massive start to our term, with a trip to the zoo to kick off our concept of being kaitiakis of our unique, wonderful, and incredibly special country of Aotearoa! We also had our touch tournament in week 2, with great results. Congrats to our Y5&6 Boys A team placing 1st! On Tuesday, we had the awesome Andrew Chinn, as well, as a performance by Pukekohe Intermediate:Disney’s Moana Jr. We are currently in the middle of Athletics as we speak! Thank God for this wonderful weather!

Arahi News

In Arahi we have been learning about the Second Coming and the fullness of the Kingdom – Te Tino Rangatiratanga. Here are a couple of pictures to show our understanding.

Community Notices

Music Lessons

My name is Cornea De Jager and I have been teaching piano at St Joseph’s for the past six years. I am affiliated with the New Zealand Modern School of Music and next year we’ll have our 45th annual competition. Students of NZMSM have the opportunity to take practical examinations, write theory examinations and take part in our competitions. Due to the opening of St Ignatius next year, thirteen spaces will be opening up for new Piano/Keyboard students at school for 2024. Please send email to cornea.dejager@gmail.com for an enrollment form or more information.

We are seeking a caretaker on either a part or full time basis to carry out a wide variety of duties associated with the security, health and safety, maintenance and good order of the school campus. The successful person should have:

Excellent handy-man skills
Experience in a trade and working with others
Ability to prioritise, work unsupervised, meet deadlines and use initiative
Excellent communication skills
Ability to relate well with people of all ages
Demonstrated reliability and trustworthiness

All enquiries and applications should be emailed to office@ignatius.school.nz by Friday 17th November. Applications should include a short CV including the names and contact details of 2 work-related referees.

Start date will be Monday 22nd January 2024

Salary $25-30 per hour

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Call us on 09 238 7745

Email us at stjoesoffice@stjosephs.co.nz

94 Seddon St Pukekohe 2120

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Term Dates 2024