IN THIS WEEK’S NEWSLETTER

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News from the Principal
News from the DRS
News from the PTA
Attendance Dues Statements
News from Outside the Classroom
News from Enviro Team
News from Information Centre
Quick Reference
Key Dates
Term Dates
Community Notices

NEWS FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Families,

Welcome to our newsletter, which sees us at the end of our sixth week of Term 1.

We are already halfway through the first term! I am sure, like me, you will be feeling as though we cannot be this far through the term already. It is amazing what a second, week-long COVID Level 3 lockdown within a short space of time does for upsetting our usual sense of time passing.

Once again, I wish to express my sincere thanks for our community’s response during such trying times. Once again families quickly and effectively responded to school requests for those needing their child/ren to be supported in a bubble at school during Level 3 and many, many families shouldered the responsibility of supporting learning at home while also continuing their own work. In listening to many families at drop off this week, I hear the collective resignation that this may be our reality for a while to come, and how challenging it is to support student learning and work from home at the same time. We appreciate your ongoing commitment to the shared responsibility and deep home/school partnership that lockdowns necessitate. This week, under Level 2, we are so grateful to all families for their patience during entry and exit protocols.

This Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent. As we prepare ourselves, through words and deeds that bring us back into full relationship with Jesus, for the celebration of Easter in three weeks’ time, we pray for continued strength on the journey. We hear in the gospel reading that God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. We are called on to embody God’s deep love in our interactions with others. Please follow this link to view this Sunday’s readings.

OLSOS Learner Profile. Many thanks to those of you who came to the recent community consultation opportunity held at the same time as the Meet the Teacher Evening. We shared the key knowledge and understandings at each of the core curriculum levels as well as the draft of our school Learner Profile. The comments and feedback generated around the curriculum level documents were very helpful. We have taken those comments on board and added to the level examples as a result. We aim to share these in their completed form by the end of the term.

Those of you who attended would have also seen presented the evidence behind how the learning dispositions in our Learner Profile support strong academic outcomes. You will have heard that while a child is solving a problem with a group of students during a maths lesson, for example, they are using, developing, and strengthening their communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills so their ability to solve the maths problem is advanced. Furthering this example, they will also be showing creativity when they can demonstrate that they can solve the problem in more than one way.

In this newsletter, I would like to share with you our Learner Profile which reflects what we believe an Our Lady Star of the Sea student should be demonstrating by the time they leave our school.

You will see that it brings together our School Values, which are central to who we are as a Catholic school community, and four learning dispositions that, through research and consultation with OLSOS families, we believe are important for students to develop for lifelong learning.

It is hoped that this document will provide a shared language of learning between home and school.

At home, families will be able to use the Learner Profile to talk to their children about the skills and dispositions they notice the children are showing when, for example, they are playing well together, or when speaking with someone older than them etc.

At school students will use the Learner Profile to self reflect and identify areas of strength and areas they need to work on. This profile will also help support students to develop goals in specific skill and disposition areas.

It will be used by teachers to support all current academic learning to help students be even more successful in a broad range of learning situations.

Commissioning Liturgy: Last week, due to Level 3 lockdown, we missed the opportunity to attend our beginning of year Commissioning Mass at our Parish Church where we usually honour and celebrate our Year 6 leaders. Instead, today we held a modified liturgy and blessing of our Year 6 badge holders. The senior team was present in the school hall, and we had zoom connections to our other classes as well as to parents of badge recipients who couldn’t attend, so the school could be ‘present’ with our Year 6 leaders as they were commissioned into their leadership roles. I wish to congratulate all of our Year 6 leaders. We will see great leadership from them in the vital roles that they fulfill throughout our school this year. Well done to all!

Garin House Captains	Mitchell Brooke, Anaiah Smith
McAuley House Captains	Nico Taurima, Ariane Cordeiro
Barbier House Captains	Sammie Bongiovanni, Christian Lianto
Maher House Captains	Cullen Chaytor, Payton Williams
Liturgy Team Leader	Amelia Hunt
Patrol Team Leader	Emmerson Hohaia
Wet Day Team Leader	Ascari Robb
Sick Bay Team Leader	Rachel Melville, Sophie Burgess
Library Team Leader	Tino Wu, Amelia Luo
P.E. Team Leader	Micah McGraiL, Liam Martin
Technology Team Leader	Grace Tan, Nyall Serrao
House Point Monitor	Marcus Cuer, Monica Naylor
Flag Monitor	Sebastian Brownrigg, Phoenix Lubich, Austin Cai, Sophie Burgess
Hall Leader	Cooper Telfer
Bell Monitors	Holly Currie, Alexis Kumitau, Jake Preisig, Marcus Pang, Charlotte Hunter, Justin Jung, Jack Mitchelmore, Felix Ling
Loose Parts Leader	Rocco Gribble, Shiven Sureshkumar
Environmental Team Leader	Gianna Cordeiro, Amaya Abeykoon

Camp 2: We are most excited to be able to announce that Camp 2 for our Year 5 and 6 students who missed out on their Camp Bentzon opportunity due to the first Level 3 lockdown will proceed at a different time and venue. Karen Noble-Campbell has worked tirelessly in order to make an alternate arrangement. From 31st May to 4th June our intrepid Camp 2 students will attend the Christian Youth camp at Ngaruawahia. We know they will have a fabulous time – thanks Karen for all of your hard work to make this opportunity happen!

Looking Back: Level 3 Lockdown meant we missed out on our second attempt at the distribution of ashes which marks the start of the season of Lent. As you will have noted above we also missed out on attending our beginning of year Commissioning Mass. We certainly made up for it this week by hosting a Commissioning Liturgy. Our seniors embarked on Shared Pathways Training, learning about bike safety thanks to Counties Manukau Sport. This will continue into next week. Our junior classes also managed an abridged version of their junior picnic, enjoying time with their teddybears picnicking in our hall due to inclement weather, after making their picnic together. Level 2 restrictions also saw a modified competitive senior swimming sports go ahead at Lloyd Elsmore this morning ahead of the HPPA zone sports next week. Results of our swimming sports will be published in our next newsletter.

Looking Ahead: Our fabulous PTA will be hosting their ‘world-famous at OLSOS Sausage Sizzle’ on Thursday of next week. We continue our HPPA connect with the upcoming Year 5/6 cricket field day and interschool swimming. Our juniors look forward to the prospect of a trip to Murphy’s Bush the following week. Here’s hoping that we have smooth sailing COVID wise to enable us to make the most of these and other such opportunities.

Wishing you all of God’s blessings over the next fortnight.

Ngā mihi nui and cǐ zhì jìng lǐ,

Louise Campbell
Principal

NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Thank you for supporting your child’s religious education and spiritual growth during lockdown by encouraging them to lead prayer at home, by joining in with class prayer sessions via zoom, by sharing stories from the bible with them and helping them to understand the meaning for us today, by making connections in your life to the way Jesus wants us to live, by being the best parents for your children.

The impact of Covid 19 Lockdown levels has meant we were unable to celebrate our usual beginning of the year mass as a parish school family. Technology came to our aid and this afternoon, our student leaders were Commissioned during a special liturgy on site. Each of these students has made a commitment to serve. Serve as leaders, serve as role models, serve as active members of our school community. This is their year to shine. I would like to particularly acknowledge the members of the Liturgy Team – Sophia Puleanga, Amelia Hunt, Amaya Abeykoon, Havana Smith, Grace Tan, Micah McGrail, Ava Lily Wilkinson and Eva Moulynox Hicks. I look forward to working with them this year. The team are highly motivated and are already actively promoting the special character of our school by leading the Stations of the Cross every Wednesday at lunchtime, and by promoting and running the We Can Bring a Can school focus for Lent. Each member of the team was presented with a special badge today as a reminder of their role.

Father John spoke with our senior students about the opportunity to serve and bring Joy to others. From this, 18 senior students have requested to serve both our parish and school by taking up the Ministry of Altar Serving. We know these students will bring many people JOY through the work they will do. It is a privilege to walk alongside them

We are now halfway through Lent. Recently we have all given up things because of the constraints Lockdown has given us. Pope Francis reminds us what we give up by choice rather than by external constraints are two different things. One thing he particularly talks about is time. The pace of life today easily makes us time poor. Pope Francis suggests we think of things differently and give up our time by taking the time to stop, to sit, to listen, to pray, to be. One of the greatest gifts we can give each other in this busy, busy world is time. Time to play, time to pray. Two things a family benefits from. Go for it!

Fr James Martin has made a revision of the serenity prayer which is worth reading and reflecting on. Enjoy

A New Serenity Prayer
By Fr. James Martin, SJ

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the people I cannot change,
which is pretty much everyone,
since I’m clearly not you, God.
At least not the last time I checked.

And while you’re at it, God,
please give me the courage
to change what I need to change about myself,
which is frankly a lot, since, once again,
I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect.
It’s better for me to focus on changing myself
than to worry about changing other people,
who, as you’ll no doubt remember me saying,
I can’t change anyway.

Finally, give me the wisdom to just shut up
whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter
than everyone else in the room,
that no one knows what they’re talking about except me,
or that I alone have all the answers.

Basically, God,
grant me the wisdom
to remember that I’m not you.

Amen

Detta Fairweather

Deputy Principal / Director of Religious Studies

NEWS FROM THE PTA

Keep an eye out for PTA updates and news coming out over the next few weeks !!

We have some exciting things planned !!

First up we have our first Sausage Sizzle for 2021 next THURSDAY 18TH MARCH

Sausages $1.50

Juice $1.50

Water $1.50

Please send order in a named envelope to the classroom teacher.

Orders are unable to be taken at the office.

Nicole Kelly

PTA Chairperson

ATTENDANCE DUES STATEMENTS

Statements for compulsory Attendance Dues and Special Character and General Purpose donations have now been sent to all families. Along with this you will have received a letter from your Board of Trustees outlining the charges and ways to pay. Payments for Term 1 are due by 30 March 2021.

If you would like to discuss your account in confidence, please contact Sue Yandell.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Financial assistance is available to assist families who may need financial support with the payment of Attendance Dues for preference students attending Catholic schools in Auckland Diocese, both primary and secondary.

Families facing financial difficulties can contact their school office, their Parish Priest or the Revenue Manager on 09-360-3069 at the Catholic Diocese of Auckland for further information.

Application forms for this assistance are available from school and parish offices, or can be down-loaded from the Catholic Diocese of Auckland Website:

https://www.aucklandcatholic.org.nz/acfl-attendance-dues-financial-assistance/

NEWS FROM OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

MIDDLE SCHOOL SWIM CARNIVAL

On Wednesday 24th February the Middle team went to Shelley Park Beach School for their annual Swim Carnival. All the students participated in a range of races with the Year 4s swimming the length to see who would go through to the Senior school swimming sports. It was also great to see parents come along to support their children and kindly offer help. The races involved flutter boards, noodles, balls and cones. A favourite race was the cone race where the children swum across with cones on their heads. At the end of a hot and busy day, all the children enjoyed free time in the pool to splash and play with their friends. The Middle School carnival is a great way to build the students’ water confidence, resilience, perseverance and independence. It was wonderful to see the children really enjoying themselves and many thanks go to the parents who came to support.

NEWS FROM THE ENVIRO TEAM

NESPRESSO : Our Lady Star of the Sea School is now a recycling centre for Nespresso pods.

You can send your used Nespresso pods to school and they can be tipped into the box outside the information centre.

This box is only for coffee pods so please don’t throw your plastic bags into the box. The pods will be collected by Nespresso and recycled. The coffee is sent to an industrial composting facility to be transformed into compost, while the aluminium is recycled and sent back to the aluminium industry to produce new aluminium products.This is an easy way we can be the kaitiaki of our environment by ensuring that these pods don’t end up in the landfills.

GLAD ….

NEWS FROM THE INFORMATION CENTRE

We have a great team of enthusiastic student librarians this year! They have been working hard during their lunchtime duty and have already organised a great ‘Guess the theme’ competition for students which will run weekly until the end of term.