Kia Ora, Ni Hao Malo e lelei and Bula Vinaka Whānau,

Welcome to our third newsletter of Term 4. As we are now a month away from the end of our academic year, our staff are working through the reporting process as well as preparing for end of year events. 

Parish Connect We look forward to celebrating Mass together at our Family Mass this Sunday 19th November at 5.30pm. We look forward to seeing our school families there.
We ask for your continued prayers for our students who are going through the parish based baptism preparation programme over the next couple of weekends, as well as ongoing prayers for the formation of our students who are training to be alter servers in our parish at the moment.

Please follow this link to this Sunday’s readings.

Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum Thank you to our community for your support as our teachers and academic support staff engaged in professional development on Monday of this week at our MOE directed Teacher Only Day. Our staff furthered their knowledge and understanding of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum which is being incrementally introduced to us by the Ministry of Education and will continue to be so over the next few years.
Each refreshed curriculum area is organised beneath the ‘Understand, Know, Do’ progression-based framework. You will notice our latest strategic goals are also organised beneath these three key headings to align our strategic thinking with to the refreshed curriculum.
The move from our current curriculum where we work and report to families within levels of learning (Level 1, Year 1 and 2; Level 2, Year 3 and 4; Level 3, Year 5 and 6) to a newly organised curriculum, working within phases of learning (Phase 1, Years 1 to 3, and Phase 2, Years 4 to 6) will have implications for the way we organise, plan and execute the curriculum as a school and the way we report to parents over time.
More information will be available to families as we learn more about the elements of the curriculum refresh and more curriculum areas are released between now and 2027.

Interschool Athletics Yesterday our school athletics team participated in the HPPA Interschool Zone Athletics Competition. Our students displayed their usual high standards of behaviour and respect throughout the day, doing us all proud, and competed strongly in their age divisions. Congratulations to the team with many top three placements, and especially to Isobella Evans, Tamia Tavita-Falesiu, Amaya Wickramasinghe, Matthew Bastian, Marcus Yeh and Jacob Koloamatangi for their top placements across multiple disciplines. See later in this newsletter for further details.
Huge thanks to Mrs Karen Noble-Campbell for organising and taking the team along, and to Mrs Ailsa Thorpe for her help on the day as well as Mr Dave Grant for his support in helping to run an event on the day.

Looking Ahead With just four weeks to go until the end of the academic year, Teachers are very much in ‘end of year’ mode, assessing and preparing end of year reports for our students. We are also undergoing a review of the delivery of our curriculum this year with a view to planning ahead to next year, as well as beginning the process of organising classes and teachers for 2024. If you are planning on moving out of the area necessitating a move in schools over the holidays, it would be helpful to let us know now as we engage in this planning process. Thank you in advance for your support in this.

Wishing you all of God’s blessings for a safe and happy fortnight ahead. We look forward to sharing more news and school happenings in our next newsletter in two weeks’ time.

Ngā mihi nui, Tōfa soifua, ‘Alu ā, cǐ zhì jìng lǐ and Vinaka vaka levu,

Louise Campbell
Principal

In 2000 Kevin Saunders retired and later in the year Ken McKay was appointed as Principal. By the end of 2000 another classroom, which is now our school Chapel space, was added and again, in 2001 two more classrooms were added. In 2003 four classrooms which we know as the year 2 block, were added. Within fourteen years the school roll had trebled from 200 students in 1996 to 600 students by the end of 2010.  In this time the school and parish worked together to fund and build a school hall which was opened early in 2003. A great asset for our parish school community, which is well utilised still today. 

During the month of November, our school Memorial book will be included in school and class liturgies at appropriate times to honour the memory of our loved ones. If you would like to have the name of someone special to you recorded in our school memorial book, please complete the form on our school website. It is part of our faith tradition to pray for those who have died.  ‘Eternal rest grant unto them o Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace,’ is a simple  prayer for those who have died to teach your children.

The Liturgy Team continues to promote our school outreach focus to raise funds for Khazimula Children’s home in Howick, South Africa. So far we have raised $603 for the water tank we want to buy for Khazimula Children’s home. The Liturgy Team asked the school at a recent assembly to think about…
    … How many times do you turn on the tap?
    … How many different ways you use water?
    … How often do you waste water?
    … Have you ever thought about what life would be like with little to no water?
    ….How difficult would that be?
They reminded us that water is a necessity in life. How it is precious and that we are lucky in New Zealand to have fresh clean water available to us all the time. Christ’s message to: ‘Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself’ is a reminder to us all of our role as Christian Witnesses. Next week all classes will be involved in a Caritas challenge to open our eyes to the challenges people without easy access to fresh clean water face.

Congratulations to our senior students who have recently been trained as Altar Servers in our parish. Many thanks to Bryan Mills and the team who lead the training programme. It is wonderful to see our students stand tall and be proud as active members of our parish community in this way.

A group of our students are currently preparing to receive the Sacrament of Baptism on the first Sunday of Advent at the 9am Mass. Mark this date in your diary and make a point of being at the Mass to celebrate with them, welcoming them into our parish family. We are thankful to the members of our parish community who are supporting them in their spiritual journey.  Please keep them all in your prayers. 

Me mahi tahi te rangimarie me te aroha
Try to meet all with peace and love

Prayer Intention: We pray for peace in our hearts, in our minds, in our community and in our world.

The Auckland Catholic Diocese have recently advised us of an increase to the compulsory Attendance and Special Character dues for 2024.   These have increased in total by $38 per child per year.

Keeping in mind the increasing costs of living we are all experiencing, your Board will pass on only a portion of this increase, when setting the 2024 fees.

A full letter of explanation will come home in February 2024, however we wish to advise the fees for 2024 will be increasing by $20 to $1,048 per child per year (i.e. $262 per term).

As usual, financial assistance is available if required, by contacting us in confidence.

HPPA Interschool Athletics

Congratulations to our HPPA Interschool Athletics Team who competed on Thursday this week. They all represented Star of the Sea with pride and were a pleasure to be with all day.

Thank you to the parents who came and supported us.

Special thanks to Mr Dave Grant who supported us with managing the softball throw. Thanks to Mrs Ailsa Thorpe for managing the team on the day.

All of our students gave their best and we are incredibly proud of each and every one of them.

Results from the day:

Marcus Yeh – 3rd 70m & 100m 11 year old boys
Jacob Koloamatangi – 3rd 70m & 100m 8 year old boys
Matthew Bastian – 1st 800m 10 and over, 2nd 70m & 100m 11 year old boys
Isobella Evans – 2nd 70m 10 year old girls, 1st 100m 10 year old girls, 2nd 800m 10 and over girls, 1st 10 year old girls high jump
Tamia Tavita-Falesiu – 1st 70m 10 year old girls, 2nd 100m 10 year old girls
Amaya Wickramasinghe – 1st 70m 11 year old girls, 2nd 100m 11 year old girls, 2nd Long Jump 11 year old girls
Stella Wakefield – 3rd 10 year old girls high jump
Isabella Dellabarca – 3rd 10 year old girls softball throw
Jett McGrail – 3rd 10 year old boys high jump
Mason Tsao – 3rd 9 year old boys softball throw
Isaiah Arthur – 2nd 100m 9 year old boys
Mya Hillerby – 3rd 70m 9 year old girls
Rach Chun – 2nd 100m 9 year old girls
Under 9 year old girls relay – Rach Chun, Kara Chaytor, Holly Li and Amelia Davies – 3rd place
Over 10 year old girls relay – Danielle Smeath, Tamia Tavita-Falesiu, Stella Wakefield and Amaya Wickramasinghe – 2nd place

Congratulations to all!

Summer Reading

It’s that time of year again – so many children have been asking about this popular event which we run every year! 

We want to encourage summer reading to maintain academic achievement over the long holiday break but also to promote reading for pleasure, for enjoyment, relaxation, delight and discovery!

Our collection is fantastic! We have a large range of graphic novels, popular adventure and fantasy series, amazing picture books, so many fantastic NZ writers and the latest popular books which are new out in bookstores – that’s right, books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid No Brainer, Bad Guys Look Who’s Talking, David Walliams – The Blunders and 169 Storey Treehouse.

Sign up notices to borrow library books over the holidays will be issued next week then in the last week of term children will be able to come and select their books.

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The school holidays are nearly upon us – keep the kids entertained by taking them to an action- packed game of basketball.
The BNZ Breakers have 8 Auckland games remaining this season and every single game promises plenty of fun, giveaways, and entertainment for the whole family. Choose the dates that suit you and get behind the BNZ Breakers. Tickets are on sale at www.ticketmaster.co.nz

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Parish Assistant Vacancy

The Parish of St Luke’s in Flat Bush is on the hunt for a Parish Assistant to join the team.

As one of the largest growing parishes in Auckland, we wish to employ a person for up to 25 hours a week as the parish assistant.

This role is to assist the Parish Priest to ensure that the pastoral and administrative needs of the parish are met. The role provides pastoral assistance and is responsible for assisting with Sunday Masses.  The applicant would assist with office administration, adult faith formation, co-ordinate music ministry and have a good grasp of social media. Applicants should be active Catholics and able to partake in the full sacramental life of the church.  Good communication, strong planning and organization skills are essential. Applicants must have the right to work in NZ and have a NZ drivers licence.

For more information, please contact the Parish Priest, Fr Craig Dunford by email [email protected]