1. Principal's News Term 1 Week 10 2019

Enrolments for 2019-2020
We will be doing enrolments on 14-15th May for children turning five in 2019 and 2020.  If your child is turning five in 2019 or 2020 please contact me to organise a time.  I am happy to have a conversation with any of your family or friends to determine whether they would be eligible for a place at St Joseph's.

Holy Week
This year Holy Week falls in the school holidays and we are celebrating it through the week this week.  We started today with junior hub one leading us in mass with Palm Sunday.  This is remembering Jesus's triumphant arrival in Jerusalem where he was hailed by the crowds as the King.  Four days later He celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples where he instituted Eucharist and also washed the feet of his disciples showing that he was their servant as well as their king.  We remember this on Friday at 10am in the hall led by Mrs Winders and year 4/5.

Hana helps Taylor read her mihi

We end the week with stations of the cross led by the Year 8s.  The children will follow the stations and so this year we are doing it in two parts.  The juniors will do the stations first at 2pm followed by the seniors at 2.30pm.  Parents, family and friends are encouraged to join us for the 2.30pm celebration after which we will leave quietly.  There will be no celebration assembly this week.

Mufti for Caritas
This Friday is a mufti day.  Please bring a gold coin for Caritas.  Our children have been learning about the plight of children in South Sudan which is the Caritas focus for Lent this year and funds raised will go to this.

Creative Play
With the holidays coming up we hope all children have opportunities for creative play.  Here are some examples from school this week:

"Mines" in the sandpit

"A shop" in the sandpit

"Another shop" in the sandpit

And Creative Learning

Stirling and Jac making a worm farm

Ruma Kiwi discussion group

Reading
It's great to see so many children enjoying our school library.  Our year 8s are making good use of it during the lunchtimes as part of their leadership work using it as a library and encouraging a love of reading in their fellow students, and for chess club.

Please try and find time over the holidays to investigate our public library and encourage your children of all ages to continue reading through the holidays.

Music
A big shout out to our budding musicians.  We have had a group of drummers and ukelele players who have exemplified learning this term.  They have had some basic tuition and ongoing support and then have put in a lot more time themselves, practising and teaching each other.  Thank you to Hana Davies who is leading our ukelele group and has provided a lot of support and guidance for our young musicians.

Enviroschools
On Monday the staff investigated our school grounds.  We acknowledged what is good, what is not so good and brainstormed some dreams about what we would like to happen.  The children and parents will also be involved in the same process next term.  Our focus this year and beyond is on authentic learning.  That means we are using real contexts such as projects about our environment to teach our essential learning across the curriculum - literacy (reading and writing), maths, science, social studies, health and physical education, the arts, technology and of course Religious Education.


On behalf of the staff of St Joseph's I wish all families a safe and happy holiday.  Enjoy some well-earned rest and we look forward to another exciting term of learning next term.

God bless and aroha
Lorraine Frances-Rees