Principal's News Week 6, Term 1 2022

Kia ora whanau,

Our newsblog is now coming out on a Friday from this week onwards.  We've had a great week with Rippa skills training, Walking and Wheeling, carpentry-making and (safe) conker preparation for a conker tournament.  Your child's first goal for the year came out on Educa last Friday.  Most families have now had a look at the goals and thank you for your participation.  We encourage you to make a comment on the goal or on any work your student puts up.  Educa is a three-way conversation - child - teacher - whanau.

Belonging

Our community has changed a lot in the last few years.  We have many people who are new to our community and to Oamaru.  We have many different cultures and we have children coming to St Joseph's from all over North Otago.  We really need to come together and get to know each other better.  Unfortunately, we can't do this at the moment but please know that as soon as we can we will be encouraging our community to come back on-site, to meet for a coffee in the staffroom when you're picking children up and to gather and get to know each other and plan some social and fun activities for our school community.  In the meantime I would be delighted to hear from people who have ideas about how this might happen, or from parents who feel like they would like to help to gather our people together, to help every one of us to feel connected to our St Joseph's family.

House Groups

This year we are having a particular focus on our House Groups named after our Dominican saints - Dominic Guzman (Guzman) who started the Dominican order, St Catherine of Sienna (Sienna) and St Rose of Lima (Lima).  The house captains have had meetings with me and they want to run a sports tournament each term.  This term the tournament is Rippa and the house groups will be preparing for a tournament in week 11.  We have also purchased flags, thanks to a kind benefactor, and the winning house each week will raise their flag for the week.  Children earn points for their house through good learning and behaviour.  Last week Lima won.

There will be more news about house groups as the term progresses.

Walking and Wheeling

Thank you to Miss Sollano who is organising our participation in Walking and Wheeling week.  The children enjoyed dressing up this week and showing their wheels skills during playtime.  There are more photos on our Facebook page.

Play

We have moved our carpentry bench to the senior area and the senior students are enjoying developing their making skills at lunchtime.

Principal's Award for week 5

Well done to Tendai and James who won the principal's award in week 5.  Our prayer focus last week was the story of Jesus staying behind in the Temple when he was 12 years old.  But in the end he did what his parents told him to do and he was obedient.  We were looking for children who were being wise like Jesus was wise and who know how to take good directions from adults.  It takes self-discipline to do this.  So well done to Tendai and James.

Ma te Atua e manaaki a aroha,

Lorraine