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

Welcome to our first newsletter of Term 3 2024. It is hard to believe we are already 8 months into the year!

Parish Connect Our Parish Retreat this week has been a huge success! Father Richard Shortall SJ, Jesuit priest and Retreat Director from the Hamilton Diocese has lead us each day through different ways of praying contemplatively. He has lead us through examples of Ignatian Imaginative Contemplation, reflection in silence, Lectio Divina, scriptural reading as meditation, guided prayerful reflections on the day and an example of Christian Mindfulness.
We were fortunate that Fr Richard also taught these prayer practices to our staff in a meeting this week which he led at school. This staff professional development opportunity, alongside other professional development in meditation and contemplative prayer practices we have undertaken this year is helping us learn how to teach these forms of contemplative prayer to our children.
Each of the examples of contemplation that Fr Richard shared with us at our parish retreat are designed to move beyond ‘saying prayers’ to a deeper more prayerful experience where we encounter God. Having had the benefit of attending these sessions, it is easy to see how contemplative prayer provides the opportunity to feel God’s presence as well as promoting wellbeing by reducing stress, increasing a sense of being truly relaxed, calm and still. This ties in beautifully with community voice around seeking to promote wellbeing and opportunities to encounter Christ with our students.
Our teachers will use our new learning in their prayer practices in class. As the rest of the year unfolds, I encourage you to talk with your children about their new learning about contemplative prayer and meditation as these practices are introduced more fully at school. Sharing the learning with your children will support their prayer life and wellbeing, and will also support yours at home.

Grandparents Day Last Friday we celebrated Grandparents day on the Feast day of Jesus’ Grandparents, Anne and Joachim. Festivities began with a beautiful liturgical celebration lead by Room 4, after which grandparents were welcomed to spend time in their grandchildren’s classrooms. This was followed by an opportunity to share lunch together. There were many special moments across this wonderful day.

Cross Country On Tuesday we held our school cross country. Despite the inclement weather the day was a great success. Our organiser, Mrs Ailsa Thorpe alongside all of our staff who helped set up and run the event can be congratulated for such a great day. Our children demonstrated their resilience and good sportsmanship as they cheered each other on and gave of their best. You know you’ve had a great day at cross country when you finish the race with muddy feet! Thanks to all of our families that were able to make it along to join in the fun.

Staffing update
We are thrilled to announce that Mrs Maria Kelly, teacher in Room 19, and her whānau welcomed their new baby Grace last Tuesday. I know you will join me in offering congratulations and blessings for Maria, Grace and the family.
At the start of the term we welcomed two new teachers to our community. Mrs Pam Robertson who is teaching for the remainder of the year in Room 21 and Mrs Kajal Mahabir who is teaching in Room 19. I know you will make them feel welcome when you see them around school.

My name is Pam Robertson.  I count it a privilege to be in this position and I’m enjoying working at Our Lady Star of the Sea. A little about myself. My husband and I have five children and ten grandchildren.  I have been teaching in Catholic schools for over twenty years and have had teaching experience in all year levels during my teaching career. I am musical and I love sailing. My husband and I have been living on and off our yacht for the past seven years, recently moving to Pine Harbour.

I’m Kajal Mahabir, the new teacher for Room 19 at Our Lady Star of the Sea. This is my first year at this wonderful school, and I’m thrilled to start this journey with my new students and colleagues. I’m a Kiwi born Fijian Indian, and I have a deep appreciation for cultural diversity and rich traditions. Outside of the classroom, I’m passionate about practicing Bollywood dance, diving into a good book, and cherishing moments with my family. I’m looking forward to sharing our classroom experiences and reflections as we progress through the year!

Looking Ahead: Next Wednesday 7th August, our Mid Year Parent, Teacher, Student Conferences will be operating from 2pm to 8pm. If you are able to pick your child up when formal lessons conclude for the day at 1.50pm, you are welcome to do so. Remaining children will be supervised in the hall. Bizzy Bodz after school care will run as usual.  We have a curriculum update and are seeking parent voice against some of our strategic initiatives in the Information Centre on the night, so please come along, find out more, have your say and, most importantly, sign your name to earn house points for your children!
Parents Committee Milo Morning Tea is on Thursday 8th August please see later in the newsletter for more details. We wish our cross country team the very best of luck as they compete at the HPPA Cross Country on Tuesday 13th August. Thursday 15th August is our school Feast Day, the Feast of the Assumption. We look forward to celebrating Mass in our school hall at 11.15am followed by the ‘world famous at OLSOS’ Star of the Sea Idol.

Wishing you all a happy, safe and blessed fortnight ahead until our next newsletter is published.

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

Louise Campbell
Principal

Feast Day

The Feast of the Assumption is two weeks away. It is our school and parish Patronal Feast. It is the day we honour Mary, the Mother of Jesus, Mother of us all, as we remember how she was assumed into heaven, body and soul. Pope John Paul II presented Mary as a model of what it means to be a faithful disciple. She heard the word of God and acted on it. We too are called to do this as followers of Jesus. Her life would not have been an easy one. Like many today she knew hardship, poverty and heartbreak. Yet she also knew love, joy and peace. Her life story is a model for us of maia, manaaki, tika, awhina, and ngawari. We will reflect on the many aspects of Mary’s life at our school Mass, Thursday 15  August, at 11:15 am in the school hall. All are invited to join us. 

Sacramental Programme

Around 36 of our young learners will receive the Sacraments of Confirmation and First Holy Communion over the weekend of the 17th/18th of August. Please keep them in your prayers. Bishop Steve Lowe will preside at both the 9am and 5:30pm Parish Masses as well as the Friday night celebration of Confirmation. 

Celebrating Grandparent’s Day on the Feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim

We had a wonderful Grandparent’s Day on the Feast Day of St. Anne and St. Joachim. The day began with a beautiful liturgy followed by time spent in the classrooms with the children, creating memories and sharing the joy of learning. Thank you to everyone who made this day so special.

Parish Retreat 

This week, our Parish Retreat was a wonderful success, bringing our community together in faith and reflection. A special thank you goes to Fr. Richard Shortall SJ for joining our staff meeting on Tuesday. The teachers appreciated the opportunity to learn about and experience various forms of contemplative prayer. They are excited to share these prayer practises with the children in the classroom, helping them develop a deeper connection with Christ.

“We are a Christ centred community
fostering belonging (whanaungatanga)
and outreach
through selfless giving (manaakitanga)
in Mary’s Way”.

At the July meeting, your Board reviewed a mid-year Executive Summary of Curriculum school data, across reading, writing and maths.   With half a year to go, 79% of the whole school is already achieving at, or in excess of their end of year curriculum level for reading; 69% is already achieving at, or in excess of their end of year curriculum level for writing; and 76% is already achieving at or in excess of their end of year curriculum level for maths.
These mid-year results show steady year on year improvement and we are so proud of the achievement of our students across all subjects.
This is credit to the hard work put in by both the school team and from our families supporting our children at home with their learning.

Your Board also continued to view recordings from Manuel Beazley’s presentation from earlier in the year, on the theme of Authentically Catholic; Authentically Maori.

In 2022, the NZEI (New Zealand Educational Institute) launched “Te Ra o Tumeke Tumuaki”, an initiative which recognises and celebrates the amazing contribution Principals (Tumuaki) make as the cornerstone of our education system.

This year, Principals Day was celebrated on Wednesday 31 July.  The Board and staff were delighted to present Louise with flowers and a morning tea to acknowledge and thank her for all the incredible work and leadership at Our Lady Star of the Sea School.

Best regards
Sharon Yeh
On behalf of your Board

News from the Parent Committee

Next week Thursday, 8 August, we are having a Milo morning tea! We encourage everyone to bring their own cup, with a lid, from home. As always we will have spare cups, if you do forget. A cup of milo is $2 and we will have cookies for $1. Payment can be made to your class teacher.
We are really excited to bring some learning into term 3’s fundraising. By now you would have received details about the Spell-a-thon. Donations can be made as a lump sum or per correct word spelt during testing.

We have started getting a committee together for the Howick Santa Parade, we would love to hear your ideas and have you on the team!

Our next meeting is on Monday 5th August at 7pm in the staff room. All are welcome. If you have any questions for the Parent Committee or would like to help out, please reach out to us at [email protected]

Spellathon

This week your child will have brought home a list of spelling words to learn as part of our Spellathon fundraiser. This fundraiser is supporting our Parents Committee and all funds raised will go towards the purchase of a new portable outdoor speaker system. 

These words need to be learnt before week 5 (19th – 23rd August) as this is when testing in classes will be done. Students are asked to collect sponsors – the donations can either be per word correct or a general donation overall. Monies will need to be collected post testing and sent into school or deposited into the Parents’ Committee bank account (12-3011-0760201-01 with spellathon as the particulars and childs name as the reference ) by the 6th of September. 

Thank you for supporting your child’s spelling ability and for raising funds at the same time.

Star of the Sea Cross Country 2024

Congratulations to the following students, who placed in the top 3 in their event:

Huge congratulations to Mya Hillerby of R22 who is extremely busy outside of school as part of the BOA Hip Hop crew. Her crew competed at the Hip Hop Unite competition in Wellington in May.  It was their second ever outing as a crew.  They came fourth place out of 20 crews from all over NZ up to age 13. BOA are a very young crew (8-10yrs old) in comparison to the other crews that were performing.  The dance crew have also competed at Project in Tauranga and a couple of local comps (winning with highest overall score across all genres at Impact) and will be off to Australia in September for Get The Beat finals. Mya is extremely passionate and dedicated to achieving success in dance. We are very proud of Mya and thank her for allowing us to share her talent with our community.

We would like to congratulate Georjia!

Georjia raced in round 4 and round 5 of the Australian National series in Sydney in the school holidays. Georjia won round 4, coming 1st in all of her races on day 1. On day 2 she came 3rd in round 5. Georjia raced her heart out and was fortunate to race against 4 Australian girls who all hold world rankings. She did so well and we are so proud of her!

Statements for Attendance Dues and fees for Term 3 have been sent out to families.  These are due for payment by 1 September.    If you wish to apply for assistance or to make arrangements for regular payments, please contact Sue Yandell in confidence.

This term the enviro team completed our annual waste audit. This requires us to collect a whole day’s rubbish and sort and weigh it.  Each year we make steps towards our goal of being rubbish free.  This year we collected and weighed 3.62Kg of rubbish.  This was a drop from 4.32kg in 2023.  This is a great decrease but there is still more that we can do.

Good job everyone for reducing your waste last term. Just remember if you have fruit scraps like apple cores and other fruit, you can put these in the compost bins. Please don’t put in citrus as the worms don’t like it. Let’s work together this term to show respect to our school and environment.

Thanks from the Enviro Team!

Twilight Market News

This year our Gala Team is hosting a Twilight Market, we have saved the date, if you haven’t already, add Friday 1 November from 5pm to your diary!

We have awesome food lined up and fantastic entertainment including carnival rides for the kids and those young at heart. We will also have stalls selling items such as lucky dips, jolly jars, cakes, sweets, hampers and more! Unlike our gala, we will not have stalls selling items such as books, clothing, toys and white elephant.

This year class collections will look a little different – each class will be asked to bring a specific type of item to add to their class stall. Look out soon for what items your class will be contributing.

If you have a great idea about something that your family could contribute, or a stall you would like to run to add to the fun and fundraising, we would love to hear from you.

Look out for our flyers and more details in the newsletters, you can reach out to us at [email protected] or through the office.

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Accountant – Fixed Term 1 year Parental Leave Cover

We are looking for a CA qualified Accountant to provide full-time parental leave cover for a fixed term period of one year.  The role will assist the Diocesan Accounting Manager with operational leadership for the financial management of various entities under the Catholic Diocese of Auckland. In this role, you will be responsible for ensuring all financial reporting requirements, imperatives are delivered accurately and add value to the organisation.  You will provide accurate, timely and relevant statutory and management reporting information for entities which ensures the Diocese both fully meets its statutory requirements and to support the Diocese in the achievement of its strategic goals.

To view the full advert and the position description please go to our website www.aucklandcatholic.org.nz under Diocesan Services and Staff Vacancies.

Applications close 12 August 24.

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Howick College 50th Jubilee

Details of the reunion:

• Date: 18th & 19th October 2024
• Various Events: Golf Day, Afternoon Tea-quila, Decade Photos, School Tours and Mix & Mingle

Registration NOW OPEN: https://howick.ptly.com/50thjubilee

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