1. Principal's News Week 8 Term 4 2019

Draft Charter Goals

Having consulted with the community, cultural groups, staff, and taken student input our Board has come up with three over-arching charter goals for the next three years.  These are very broad goals which we will unpack and put detail into each year.  I am very open to your feedback on these goals and you can have a word with me when you see me around the school or email me at principal@stjoseph.school.nz.

Pet Day

Pet Day is next Wednesday 11th December.  A hard copy letter is coming home today, please check children's bags.

Multicultural Day

Thank you to our wonderful community for sharing workshops and preparing food and performances for our annual multicultural day last week.  Thank you to Mrs Plieger who once again organised the day for us and all the wonderful children who participated so enthusiastically.  There are a lot more photos on our school notice page and our school Facebook page.

Learning Around the School

In our environmental focus, Ruma Tui have been learning about extracting minerals from the earth and how hard it is to put the land back to rights after it has been excavated.  The point was made clear by "mining" chocolate chips out of cookies and trying to put the cookies back together again.

Jack is using his imagination in JH1

David and his class have taken a step into action after their science learning on energy and they have made solar ovens - which work!

Aroha and God Bless
Lorraine Frances-Rees

2..Special Character Week 8 Term 4 2019

                                   Kiaora, Greetings & Malo e Lelei

Special Character Focus
We began the season of Advent last Sunday! We light the first candle on our advent wreaths at Mass and in our homes and workplaces. On most wreaths, this candle is purple, which symbolizes prayer, penance and sacrifice. 
Advent is a period of waiting, like Lent. We are called to obtain the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to pray and fast, as we await the arrival of our savior. We work to greet Him with a soul free from the stain of mortal sin, and with joyous feasting.

This week is the second week of Advent- Peace.  Mrs Brookes has updated our foyer display with the messages about Advent. Advent is a time of waiting and getting ready for Christmas. It is a time when we prepare our hearts to celebrate Jesus coming into our lives, our families and our world. 
Let us begin our period of preparation now. 

 An Advent Blessing
1st Week of Advent – Hope
Faith Facts

On the first Sunday of Advent, the first purple candle (symbolising hope) on the advent wreath is lit. This candle is typically called the "Prophecy Candle" in remembrance of the prophets, primarily Isaiah, who foretold the birth of Christ.

Pope Francis Prayer - That every country determines to take the necessary measures to make the future of the very young, especially those who suffer, a priority. Let’s pray this week in the first week of Advent for those children who have nothing and suffer in slavery. Yes there are an estimated 152 million children in forced labour throughout the world today. Millions of those children are slaves.

O God, when we hear of children and adults being deceived and taken to unknown places for purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labour, and organ ‘harvesting’, our hearts are saddened and our spirits angry that their dignity and rights are ignored through threats, lies, and force. We cry out against the evil practice of this modern slavery and pray for it to end. Give us wisdom and courage to reach out and stand up for those whose bodies, hearts and spirits who have been so wounded, so that together we may make real your promises to fill these sisters and brothers with a love that is tender and good. Give them hope. Send the exploiters away empty-handed to be converted from this wickedness and help us all to claim the freedom that is your gift to your children. Amen

Lautado Si
Ways to 'green our Christmas: Buying gifts.

Pope Francis: "Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending"

Keeping Christmas simple, affordable and sustainable.
Ideas:

• A Caritas gift: (as a little extra, or for those who have everything ($10 to $1000) caritasgifts.org.nz/)
• For a couple, give one gift
• A family, Secret Santa
• Family photo montage-mounted in second-hand picture frame
• A family-buy a second-hand basket for a hamper of home-made produce-shortbread, mince pies, truffles, sweets, jam, chutney etc, with Christmassy labels
• Re-gifting: a present you do not need
• Compile a book of your favourite recipes (for flatting children?);
• Pre-loved products
• Gift a plant or a garden voucher
• Garden cuttings planted up with a Christmas label- (children's holidays activity?)
• Herbal teas with a recycled teapot
• Handmade vouchers promising gardening, housework, shopping, meals etc (great for children to give).
• 
  
• Together in God's Spirit we make the difference.

Spiritual Reading
'Without prayer we have neither light nor strength to advance in the way which leads to God'
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

Thank you very much/ Malo 'Aupito
God Bless
Tua Misiloi Co DRS

3. School Notices - Week 8, Term 4 2019

QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

Altar Servers
Saturday 7th November - Lachlan Criddle, Mariah Cunningham and Jayla Strong
Sunday 8th November - Indeg & Nye Jones-Hogan

Birthday Greetings to
No birthdays for this week

Buses
We are waiting on confirmation from Ritchies in regards to the bus timetable over the next two weeks and we will notify all bus families when we find out.

Coming Up
Thursday 13th - will be our last school parish Mass at 9.15 am for the year
Friday 14th - Yr 7 & 8 Social
Monday 16th - Christmas Mufti Day
Tuesday 17th - Water Fight - bring togs and towel and water guns

Cricket Draw - Friday 6th December (final game before Christmas)
Please note all games are starting early at 4.00 pm this week and not 4.30 pm and all games are played in town as there is prize giving at the completion of the last game.  This will be held at the end of the gym at St Kevin's at approximately 6.30 to 6.45 pm.
There will be a free sausage sizzle and a drink for the children.  They need people to help with the BBQ and if you can help, please let Justin Fowler know on jfowler@stkevins.school.nz

Intermediate A - St Joseph's Volts v Albion at SKC 1
Primary - St Joseph's Sparks v Albion at SKC Artificial 2

Cricket Skills Session Day
North Otago Cricket are coming to school next Tuesday to take all the children for cricket skills and games.  We would like the junior school children to wear their pe gear to school and the senior school to bring their pe gear and get changed into when it is their classroom session. Lunch will be at 12.00 pm that day.

Found
A small wallet/purse has been handed into our school office, please come and collect it if you think it is yours.

Hungry Horse Cafe
We still need volunteers for our February race meetings as this is right at the beginning of the school year.  We would like to know that we will have enough people for these meetings as this is a great fundraiser for us and 3 hours once a year is not too much to ask given all the money raised goes back to all the children at our wonderful school. If everybody did one shift in the year, each family would only need to do it once.

So far this year we have raised over $9,000.00 with this fundraiser alone.  This has been achieved with a small group of a dedicated committee and parents and we would like to widen this to include our whole school community. The dates are:

February Saturday 15th - 11.30 am to 1.00 pm, 2.00 to 5.00 pm and 5.00 to 7.30 pm
February Sunday 23rd - 9.30 am to 11.00 am, 12.00 pm to 3.00 pm and 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm
February Tuesday 25th - 11.30 am to 1.00 pm, 1.30 pm to 4.30 pm and 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm

Please contact me on 027 432 4056 if you can help.  Thanks Rebecca Heffernan

Junior Disco
A reminder about the junior disco happening tomorrow night for Yrs 1-6 from 6.00 to 7.30 pm.  This will be held in our school hall.  Theme is red, green and white or Christmas and costs $3.00 per person.

Library Books
All library books need to be returned to the box outside the office.

Lost Property
Please come and collect the remaining lost property as it will not be there at the end of the year. Some people are even missing school shoes!!

Multicultural Day
Our school has a dozen different ethnicities in our school and it was lovely to see everyone dress up in their ethnic costumes last week to show our diversity in our school community.



Reminders
Friday 6 - celebration assembly at 2.30 pm
              - cricket finishes
Tuesday 10 - touch rugby finishes
                   - Board of Trustee meeting
Wednesday 11 - Pet Day
Friday 13 - Yr 7 & 8 formal

School Accounts
Your school statement will be sent to you by the end of this week.

School Road Patrol
Yesterday all the children who have been a school road patroller this year were treated to a tour of the police station, a swim at the pool with the inflatables and a subway lunch as a thank you for giving up their time to do road patrol after school. Thank you to Constable Carrie Hamilton who organised the thank you and to our parents (Sarah Clapperton, Kelly Strachan and Channel Williams) who looked after the children.

Swimming Lesson Dates for 2020
We are waiting on notification from the Waitaki Aquatic Centre in regards to our swimming lessons in term 1. We will let you know as soon as we find out what our dates are for next year.

Welcome
We warmly welcome Evan Soane who started school this week to our new entrants class.

Community Notices 

• Waitaki District Libraries - Summer reading for kids.  Win prizes and get an invite to the wrap-up party.  Pick up a card from December 16th and return to your library by January 24.
• Baroque Christmas - Christmas carols and motets by J.S. Bach, Praetorius, Monteverdi and  Vivaldi.  Held on Saturday 21st December at 1.00 pm at the Oamaru Basilica.  Tickets costs $20.00
• Noel Leemings Sale - 1-day.co.nz Friends & Family offer has landed. This deal kicks off this Friday and is valid for 24 hours only, so make sure you make the most of this offer and get your Christmas shopping done!  The Deal: 10% off Sitewide + free freight* (excluding bulky items).  Valid from: Friday 6th December from 12.01am till 11.59pm Friday 6th of December.  T&C’s: Offer can’t be used in conjunction with any other coupon and can be used 5 times per person. Voucher expires midnight Friday 6th December 2019 and can’t be redeemed on 1-day Bottle. Free Freight excludes bulky products. Products on shown on flyer are example products only.  Attached to the email is the flyer.

4. Diary Dates - Week 8, Term 4 2019

* Means new entry or date

DECEMBER Friday 6 Tuesday 10 Wednesday 11 Thursday 12 Friday 13 Wednesday 18 Thursday 19 FEBRUARY 2020 Monday 3 Thursday 6 APRIL Thursday 9 Friday 10 Saturday 11 Sunday 12 Monday 13 Monday 27 Tuesday 28 JULY Friday 3 Monday 20 SEPTEMBER Friday 25 OCTOBER Monday 12

Junior school disco from 6.00 to 7.30 pm Celebration assembly at 2.30 pm * Cricket finishes today * Board of Trustee meeting at 6.00 pm Touch Rugby finishes today Pet Day today from 9.00 to 10.30 am * Parish School Mass at 9.15 am * Yr 7 & 8 formal   Celebration assembly at 2.30 pm * End of Year Mass at 6.00 pm End of Year assembly at 11.45 pm * School finishes for the year at 12.30 pm Start date for term 1 – confirmed Waitangi Day – school closed Holy Thursday – last day of school  for term 1 Good Friday Holy Saturday Easter Sunday Easter Monday ANZAC Day observed – school closed Term 2 starts Last day of school for term 2 School starts for term 3 Last day of school for term 3 School starts for term 4

3. School Notices - Week 7, Term 4 2019

QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

Altar Servers
Saturday 30th November - Cooper Jones, Paddy & Joseph Spillane
Sunday 1st December - Alexie Phillips and Hana Davies

Birthday Greetings to
Cassidy Rawson, Annalise Kilgour and Libby Seddon

Commitment to Sport
This is a reminder to all families about commiting to a sport that your child has signed up for.  Over the past two weeks, there has been a number of children not turning up to play touch rugby which is leaving their teams short of players and not having the courtesy to notify the coaches. There is only two weeks of touch rugby left and it would be great if we could field full teams. The coaches give up their time to look after the teams especially at this busy time of year and it is not fair on them.

Cricket Draw - Friday 29th November
Intermediate A - St Joseph's Volts v Valley Gold at Weston Park 1
Primary - St Joseph's Sparks v Kurow 2 at SKC Artificial 2

Junior Disco
A reminder that the junior disco is next Friday December 6th at 6.00 pm for years 1-6.  Christmas or the colours red, green, white theme and $3.00 entry fee.

Multicultural Day
Our 2019 Multicultural day is fast approaching.  We would be delighted if you would come and
share this day, or part of this day, with us.  Children are to come dressed in mufti which may be a
national costume or could be a costume that reflects their ethnic background in some way.

The programme is as follows:

Every family is asked to bring a shared lunch and we rely on each family to contribute to the shared lunch.

Please drop your shared lunch on the tables in the hall when you come to school.  Please

do not bring any food that contains nuts because we have children with nut allergies.

Reminders
Friday 29 - all library books due back
                 - multicultural day
Saturday 30 - Home and School Fundraiser at the race course
Monday 2 - last technology session for Yrs 7 & 8
Wednesday 4 - School patrol award for Yr 8 students

Yr 6 Education Outside the Classroom
Last week our Yr 6 children experienced education outside the classroom where they tried lots of activities organised by Mrs Asi.  A big thank you to our wonderful parents helpers who helped out during the week with different activities.  Lachlan  Criddle has written about his experience.

EOTC WEEK By Lachie Criddle

Whoosh! The arrow flew right past my scrunched up face *hoo I breathed heavily as I slowly
opened my eyes, it felt as if everyone and everything was in slow motion… I did it… Bullseye I
thought. *Beep *beep *beep. “Morning Lachie!” my mum shouted from her room.

My name is Lachie and last week I did EOTC week (Education Outside The Classroom) and
I’m gonna tell you how it went.

Wednesday

Finally today is the day EOTC week starts. Now all the adventures, all the laughs, all of this starts now… I opened the classroom door to breathe the fresh air of a new adventure. 

“Hurry up Lachie” yelled mum from the car. “Ok I'm coming mum,” I replied. 

On Wednesday we had 3 tasks to complete

1. A treasure hunt 

We had an item to hide. We wrote clues for the other team to lead them to the hidden object. It was
fun running around looking for clues.

2. Make a bridge 

The longest and strongest will win (how strong they were was determined by how many books it
could hold). We so won… we held 1 book… um… it was still fun. 

3. A Quiz

We… uh we missed it we were too busy doing masterchef.

Our Team name was called  TREE...Why… just because …. tree. We made apple pie and custard
with ice cream, some spicy spaghetti and meatballs with a smoothie and chips… IT WAS
DELICIOUS. 

Overall Wednesday was really fun but now it’s the moment you've all been waiting for Thursday.

Thursday

We did archery first with Mr Mawson and Mr Gower from SKC. This was probably my favourite
thing over all. This was my first time doing archery so I was a newbie. After being taught what to
do I grabbed a pink bow and pink and white arrows. I was ready. I loved the split second I
launched the arrow, it felt as if everything was in slow motion. After a while on my second last fire
I did it! I got the arrow in the yellow, I wish it was a bullseye now but back then all I cared about
was my first yellow!

Next up was Rock climbing I LOVED this one. Rob was our rock climbing teacher. After he
thoroughly explained how to put the belt on I… still couldn't do it. After a few tries he asked,
“What's your name?” I replied “Lachie.” Then he nicknamed me “Lost Lachie.” He called me that for
the rest of the day. When we got back to school it was about lunch time. We had 1 more mystery to
solve.The Amazing Race we all were not told what it was, so it was a secret. We had to run around
Outside the school looking for clues and writing messages. We didn't win but it was SO much fun.

Friday

On Friday we went sailing and kayaking. I was already a Pro at kayaking so I gave sailing a try and
I… I messed up A LOT, whether it was not pulling the right rope or facing the other direction I didn't
do it right at all. But it was fun hearing everyone else shouting out “AAAAAA!” It made me feel like
I wasn't the only one doing it wrong.

We hurried back to school feeling tired and sleepy. We played some Team Building Games and
had lots of fun.

It was a great way to end the week.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end, you're awesome!

Community Notices 

• Oamaru Tap Dancing Assn - End of Year Concert held on Sunday 1st December at Oamaru North School at 2.00 pm.  Gold coin donation and afternoon tea provided.

1. Principal's News Week 7 Term 4 2019

Board Chair
Our new board chair is Rory McGeown.  Congratulations Rory and we look forward to you leading the governance part of our school.

Year 6 EOTC Week
Once again tbe year 6s had a wonderful time on their EOTC week and had a variety of experiences, culminating in kayaking and sailing on the last day.

Filipino Pagsasama
We had a great turnout to our Filipino Pagsasama last week with about 60 people attending and the children giving polished and confident performances.  Many thanks to Marisol Rollan who runs our Filipino class, the parents who provided costumes and the children who worked so hard to prepare.  The Mums' performance was awesome!

Multicultural Day
Our annual multicultural day is tomorrow and we are looking forward to engaging in workshops with representatives of some of our numerous cultures.  Everyone should bring some food to share for lunch please.  Our day will culminate with performances celebrating some of our school cultures.  Please join us for the afternoon or during the morning.  THERE WILL BE NO CELEBRATION ASSEMBLY.

Pet Day
Pet Day run by our student council is on Wednesday 11 December.  Our student councillors will be sending home a letter this week - please look out for it.

Christmas Mufti and Water Fight
All children are invited to wear Christmas themed mufti on Monday 16 December.  There will be a school water fight on Tuesday 17th December in the afternoon.  Children should bring togs and a towel and water pistols if they have them.  Please NO water balloons.

End of Year Breakup
Christmas nativity performance and prize-giving will happen in our End of Year Mass at 6.00 pm on Wednesday 18 December and our Head boy and girl will give their speeches in our final assembly Thursday 19 December at 11.45 am.

God Bless and Aroha
Lorraine Frances-Rees