Dear Families,

Welcome to our first newsletter of Term 2 2023. I trust members of our community had a rejuvenating two weeks holiday over Easter. It is great to see our young learners back at school, energised and ready to learn. 

As the weather is becoming cooler it is good to see children have transitioned into full winter uniform. Thank you for your efforts at supporting your children to wear their uniform correctly and with pride.

Parish Connect Our 175th Jubilee Committee continues its work in preparing a series of celebratory events around the weekend of August 11th this year, where both school and Parish combined will celebrate such a significant milestone. More news on this to come. For now, please save the dates between Friday 11th and Tuesday 15th of August.

This Sunday’s 5.30pm Mass is accompanied by the newly formed Parish Children’s Choir. We are very much looking forward to their gift of song as part of the celebration of Mass. If you are interested in finding out more about how to join, please be in touch with our Parish office for more information.
Click here for this Sunday’s readings.

Term 2 Connected Curriculum Focus Term 2 and the beginning part of Term 3 sets us off on a mission to learn more about our local history and in particular our school and parish history through the concept of Stories. The students will explore the stories of the people, places and groups of importance to our local area, school and parish. This term sees each team introduce the progress outcomes of the New Zealand Aotearoa Histories curriculum by inquiring into the early Maori as indigenous settlers and their use of the land and resources in our local area and upon settlement. The students will progress their knowledge of the local stories by inquiring into the Fencibles as early European settlers and the ways they worked with Maori to make Howick their home.  The students will explore the stories linked to our school via the work of the Mission and Mercy sisters, along with our House Patrons, and make connections between these charisms and our school gospel values. By the end of the concept students will be able to share the stories that are particular to either our House Patrons, our school history or the history of Howick and its connection to our school, depending on their year level. This learning culminates with our 175th Jubilee celebrations that will be held in August. It is envisaged that the students will have opportunities to share their learning done through the Stories concept, with our school community, during our jubilee celebrations.
If anyone has any stories or artifacts about our local history we would love to hear from you as we are looking for local experts willing to share their knowledge with our students.
This learning will lead to our Term 3 and 4 concept of Empower where students investigate their own story and family history based on the model of our Term 2 and 3 learning – this promises to be a concept where students are on a Mission to Stand Tall and Be Proud of who they are with Jesus as their guide.

School Attendance We hear in the media and from the government that attendance at school is a challenge for many. Our nationwide statistics tell us that just over half of New Zealand School students regularly attend school (50.6% in Term 4 of 2022). Attendance matters. Time away from school for unjustified reasons (sickness is justified!) causes interruptions to learning that impacts not only academic progress, but also impacts friendships and social development. Our community is to be congratulated that to date, our attendance rate this year sits at 90.6%. With regular attendance, the whole child is supported in their development; spirituality, learning, social connections and wellbeing is positively impacted. Thank you for your support in getting your children to school on time and ready to learn – together, with home and school working in partnership, our children have the best opportunity to live, learn and serve with Jesus as our guide.

2023 Gala – On Monday evening we had a great turn out to our Gala Meet and Greet event. It is just so heartening to see our community becoming more and more connected after Covid has robbed us of these vital connections over the past three years. We are very much looking forward to an amazing community event in October with thanks to all who have already put their names forward to help. At the end of last term we emailed out a letter for you to give to your wider networks to seek donations as we start our preparation journey towards the Gala. Thank you to those families who have circulated this amongst friends, families and local businesses and for the donations that have already started to come in. It is not too late! Please forward the letter to your friends. family and business networks and let’s work together to make a great day for our community.

A Collective Statement from Principals You may have seen in the media that primary and area school principals who are NZEI TE Riu Roa members have voted to stop working with the Ministry of Education and to limit our work hours. We have taken this action as we believe it is necessary to highlight the significant issues that we need to address in the current round of negotiations. We are committed to continuing to lead our schools and to ensure that they are safe, healthy places where students are learning during this time. Our day-to-day work to do this will continue, but we will no longer be working with the Ministry on their education system work or to introduce or implement new initiatives. As principals we make a significant contribution of time and expertise to this work. There is little additional resource or staffing to support this which has a negative impact on us. We will continue to meet with our boards. We will not be available for work or to be contacted before 8am and after 5pm on weekdays. This includes sending or receiving digital communications. We will also not be available at all on Saturday, Sunday or public holidays. We hope to receive an acceptable offer in negotiations and will end the work ban when that happens.

A Thank you from St Vincent de Paul Howick Branch
Please convey the heartfelt thanks of our SDVP conference to the school community for the massive amount of items that came in during Lent.
We also enjoyed seeing and chatting with the students who came in with the goods.
We are so very grateful for the support of the school community.
Regards
Libby

Looking Back Our Knitting Club began at lunchtime on Wednesday and will continue each Wednesday as interested adults and children alike knit to create blankets to support Middlemore Hospital, part of our Christian Witness Outreach Programme this year. If you are not able to make it in to school to join us, feel free to knit up a storm at home and send your peggy squares into school. More details in our Director of Religious Studies Section of this newsletter.
Our staff began learning about the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum that is currently in development at our Teacher Only Day last Monday and are continuing ongoing professional development in the delivery of a structured approach to literacy with the team from Massey Univeristy as this term progresses.
Today our senior students went on a trip to the Muesum to support their connected curriculum journey discovering the stories of our city. You will read more about this in our next newsletter.

Looking Ahead In the next two weeks there are some exciting opportunities for our young learners including a girls football field day, the Science Roadshow visiting school, our Student Council will attend the National Young Leaders day as well as continuing our regular Kapa Haka, rugby, basketball, chess coaching, netball and numerous other opportunities available to our students. On Monday May 15 all Mums, Grandmothers and ‘mum-like’ people special to our community are invited to join us for our Mothers Day Assembly at 8.45 followed by morning tea in the staffroom. Monday 15th also sees the beginning of Road Safety Week where our Year 1 to 4 students will have road safety lessons as well as bike and scooter safety lessons. We have students attending the writers festival that week as well as HPPA Rugby on the Friday. Pink Shirt Day is also on Friday 19th May where children are invited to wear pink in solidarity against bullying.

Wishing you all a happy and safe fortnight ahead before our next newsletter is published.

Ngā mihi nui and cǐ zhì jìng lǐ,

Louise Campbell
Principal

Father O’Hara had informed the Mission Sisters that the people in Howick knew of their coming and everything would be in order. But it was not so. Arriving at their cottage they followed Mother M St Pacome through a winding path, on either side of which were pretty flower gardens, up to the door, they tried the door . It was locked and finding one window unfastened Sister M St Norbert got through and unlocked the door. THE HOUSE WAS EMPTY!!!

Easter is the greatest feast of our faith.  We are an Easter people, a people marked by joyfulness – smiling, cheerful, optimistic, upbeat, happy, agreeable, and positive! While Easter happens on one Sunday of the year, we are called to be Easter people all of the time. For Catholic Christians, every day is Easter!  Every day is a day to be joyful!  Jesus said, “People will know that you are my disciples by your love” (Jn 13:35).  This Easter season, we hope people recognise us as Jesus people through our joy and love for each other.  

With this in mind, our school outreach focus for the term is to be on a Mission to support children who are admitted to Middlemore Hospital. Too many children are being admitted to Kidz First Hospital with respiratory illnesses because they live in cold damp houses. Every year our school promotes the Jammies in June collections. This year the Liturgy Team will be leading the Jarmy Army. They will be encouraging students to do jobs at home to raise money for the Jammies in June collections. Along with this a knitting club will meet every Wednesday in the Information Centre. Staff members, parents, parishioners and students, in fact the whole school community,  are encouraged to knit small squares that will be put together to make blankets for children at Middlemore Hospital. People who can knit or want to learn how to knit are welcome to join us from 12:40  to 1:10 each Wednesday. If you can’t make it, maybe you can help by knitting some squares and sending them in or help with sewing up the blankets. It involves using number 8 / 4mm knitting needles and some left over double knit wool. More information will come home with your child.  Supporting Middlemore in this way is an easy way to be a Christian Witness and do as Jesus asks us to, to care for those in need.

During Terms 2 and 3 classes will celebrate Mass with their buddies at 11:15am on Wednesday morning in the school Chapel space. Everyone is welcome to attend  any of these Masses. Notices will go home to advise when your child’s class will be directly involved. We thank Fr John and Fr Terry for making the time in their busy schedules to celebrate Eucharist with us here at school. 

Kia hari koa, ka uru tera wairua ki tena ki tena
Be cheerful and happy, generating life in those around you

Prayer Intention : God of mercy and love, we pray that we we may all hear your call to mission this Easter season and seek a deeper relationship with your Son, Jesus.

PARENTS COMMITTEE MEETING

Monday 15 May

7.00 pm in the staffroom

All Welcome

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE DUES

Term 2 statements have been emailed out.  Due date for Term 2 payments is 10 June

If you would like to discuss a payment plan, please do contact Sue Yandell in strictest confidence:  [email protected]

Congratulations Emma !

During the term break,

Saturday 8 April, Emma entered Kiwi Classic Dance Championships held in Auckland at the Grand Millennium Hotel. It involved competing

in dances from Ballroom, Latin American, New Vogue, Jazz, Salsa and Modern Jive Dancing. She and her partner won 3 medals and she won 5 individual medals. Amazing effort, we hope to see Emma one day on “Dancing with the Stars”!!!

Congratulations Luke !
Congratulations to Luke Maqbool from Room 18 who recently took part in the Halberg games 2023.
This is a three day event that encourages students with disabilities to take part in a variety of sports.Luke tried his best in swimming, long jump, cricket, and wheelchair basketball. Overall, he had a great time trying new sports and learning new skills.
Luke also made a new friend, Jonti, from Invercargill. Luke was so happy to make a friend that has the same condition as him.

Well done Luke – we are proud of you for giving new challenges a go.

Reading Support Programme 2023

We are intending to run this successful reading programme again this year.  The programme entails working with up to three students across an hour supporting their reading and comprehension ideally for two sessions a week.  The programme will begin on Monday 22nd May.   A meeting for any new tutors will be held on Monday 16 May at 2.00pm in our school staffroom.   If you would like to volunteer again or wish to train as a new volunteer, please contact the school office on 538 0195 or email [email protected] to leave details.

Date to diary for next term

Book week

‘I’ve got a story to tell’

Term 2 Week 10

Fun activities, competitions, Scholastic Book Fair, author visits, Playhouse Theatre and our wonderful costume parade!

More details to follow in the next few weeks.