Thursday 13 September 2018

1. Principal's News Week 8 - Term 3 2018

Maori Language Week
Thank you JH2 for sharing Ti Rakau with us and to Mrs Klenner for teaching them:

Social Justice Week

This week is Social Justice week and the focus for the week is disability and inclusion.  The children have been considering what this means and how disability affects people's lives in New Zealand.  Thank you to the year 8s who led us with a social justice liturgy in kotuitui on Wednesday.




Singing Cup
  • Add the date to your diary:
  • Friday 28th September from 9.15 am to about 11.00 am - Solo and duet competition.
  • 2.00 pm - Presentation of trophies to winners
  • House Choirs - Yr 4-8
  • Presentation of trophies to winners
  • Staff Choir

Staff choir has been practising
Nathan Wallis
Don't miss out on this.  He is absolutely brilliant about child development, tickets will sell quickly.  There is more information in the news section below.
Celebration Assembly
There will be no celebration assembly this week due to our senior leadership team being away doing leadership training with the Dunedin and Southland Catholic Principals.  We have our wonderful and trusted relievers in the school all of whom do a lot of work for us but if you have any need to speak to your child's teacher on Friday and they're not there - please email.  ICAS spelling and science certificates will be given out next week.

Church Strand
Our new teaching strand for religious education is the Church strand.  You can find more information on the key ideas we teach for this at the Church for Parents page on our RE blog.  It's great to know parents are referring to this blog now and again and we had 140 hits on it last month.   Some of the classes have been sending their children's RE workbooks home and it's been lovely to see the affirmative comments written by the parents.   That is a big deal for your child.  Thank you.

Special Character Review
Next week we are having our Special Character review.  We welcome our reviewers: Philomena O'Connell-Cooper (ex principal of St Joseph's Takapuna) and Jo McKay (principal of Holy Family school in Wanaka).  

Decile Review
If you haven't returned your forms you will have heard from Anne Rzepecky our office manager.  Please don't shoot the messenger - these forms and the process of doing them come from the Ministry of Education, not from St Joseph's - we are just collecting them.  They are numbered only so we know which ones to follow up and remind.  The Ministry will have no idea who they refer to.  We're not reading them and we won't keep the list.  After the Ministry has collated them the forms will be destroyed.

Please return these forms - the Ministry needs them to determine how much funding the school is eligible to have.

Home and School - International Food Fair
In my ideal world, education would actually be funded and fully covered by the government.  It's supposed to be but in reality it's not so we have to raise our own money.  The Home and School has asked for every family to give a $10 contribution.  This will buy the food for the International Food Fair which is then prepared and sold by our stallholders.  Your $10 could easily turn into $100 which all goes towards your child's education.  Our Home and School team give a lot of their personal time and energy to these projects which benefit everyone's children.  It would be great to see every family provide the $10 contribution.  So far, not everyone has contributed and we don't have enough yet to buy the food.

Early Words
Earlier in the year some of our staff attending training in "Early Words." Thank you to Mrs McRae who has put meticulous attention into setting up the program, training the senior reading buddies and making all the resources to go with the program.  This should give our new entrants a head start in their first six months of school.

  

God Bless and Aroha
Lorraine Frances-Rees

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