Dear Families,

Welcome to our penultimate newsletter of 2022 as we rapidly approach the end of our school year.

Advent This Sunday is the beginning of Advent, the four weeks leading up to our celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas. The Advent Season is all about reflecting on how we can prepare our hearts and homes for Christ’s birth in the world as it is today.  It is a time for faith communities and families to remember, through prayer, reflections, special music, and good deeds what the true meaning of Jesus’ birth is. Read more about Advent in our Director of Religious Studies area later in this newsletter.
Click here for this Sunday’s readings.

Howick 175th Anniversary Ecumenical Celebration Service On Saturday 12th November, three students represented Our Lady Star of the Sea at the Ecumenical Service celebrating Howick’s 175th anniversary. We heard in Fr Kevin Murphy’s homily (old boy of OLSOS) that the Fencibles landed expecting houses to move into on land they were promised, however this was not what they found when they arrived. They were ably supported by local Maori in building huts and shelters and were continually supported over the first few years as their crops failed and life became very challenging. Howick really was a village of inclusion where everyone worked together to support one another – a great legacy left for us all to live up to! We heard that in the year following the first Fencible’s landing that Fr Garin (a French Marist Priest and one of our house patrons who was fluent in Te Reo) built the first school and Church building with timber gifted by Chief Tara Te Irirangi making Our Lady Star of the Sea School and Parish one of the first established in the Auckland area. As part of Fr Kevin Murphy’s homily, he invited our three students to read the names of the first settlers. Maia, Jevon and Leah did us proud, representing us with great dignity.

DISCO! Two Friday’s ago we had our first PTA school disco this year.  We thank our PTA for their efforts to get this much-loved activity back up and running after not being able to do so for such a long time due to Covid restrictions.

Traffic and Parking There have been reports lately of cars disrespecting the safety rules when driving and parking around school (8 cars in 11 minutes on Monday morning as reported by a concerned local). Please refrain from speeding, parking on broken yellow lines, and across the driveways of our neighbours. These behaviours put our children and local residents at risk. Thank you for your understanding,

Looking Back In the last fortnight, great additional, hands-on experiences have brought fun and colour to the learning experiences of our students. Last Tuesday we had the Caritas One Day Challenge in support of Caritas Zimbabwe. Our students having lessons with Lewis Eady entertained at a lunchtime concert.  Our fabulous PTA Sausage Sizzle was strongly supported. Our whole school Environment Day last Friday became a Monday celebration due to the weather, where those who brought a litter free lunch to school for the week enjoyed having fun on the waterslide. Junior Swimming began and concluded today. Today, we enjoyed the celebration of Mission Day with our Mission Day Market. Read later in our newsletter for further details and images of some of these great events.

Looking Ahead Next week on Wednesday we have students representing us in the Weetbix Triathlon as well as the chance to enjoy a final PTA Sausage Sizzle for the second time this term. The following Monday we have our Interschool Athletics and on the Thursday we have our Orientation Morning for families new to our school. That same evening, Thursday 8th December we have our Annual Prizegiving which commences at 6.30pm in the Sancta Maria College Auditorium. All children are expected to attend in their full school uniform. In the final week of our school term, we have our Year 6 Leavers Evening on Monday 12th December for families of children who are graduating out of Year 6 this year. Our Junior Athletics fun day is on the Tuesday. Our End of Year Mass at our Parish Church is at 11am on Wednesday 14th December. Team End of Year Outings are the following day, with School closing at midday on Friday 16th December. 

Staffing Update At the end of this year we will be bidding farewell to a number of staff. Two of our long-standing Academic Support Staff members, Jan Botherway and Anne Marie Harvey are retiring at the end of this year after 28 years and 24 years of service respectively. We will have a combined special assembly and celebration for Jan and Anne Marie on Tuesday 6 December. We also bid farewell at the end of the year to Lesley Benjamin has been teaching in our New Entrant/Year 1 class for 4 years; Zahira Salejee in our middle and senior school for 4 years and Raneen Kettoola in our senior school for 2 years. We will farewell all our leaving staff members at our end of year Mass. We sincerely thank all of these staff members for their contribution to our school over their time with us and wish them all of God’s love and blessings as they embark on new adventures.

To all families, wishing you a very happy and safe final three weeks of school as we rapidly look towards the end of our school term and academic year.

Be safe and God bless.

Ngā mihi nui and cǐ zhì jìng lǐ,

Louise Campbell
Principal

At this time of the year we wait. We wait for warmer weather. We wait for the holidays. We wait for family time. Waiting is not something we are generally very good at today as many things, like texts, emails, tweets, facebook and of course instagram give us an instantaneous response. Gone are the days of waiting for a letter in the post to bring us news from family and friends. Waiting takes patience. Waiting takes time. When we wait we prepare ourselves, thinking about what is to come, often with great anticipation and expectation. 

Advent is the season of waiting, of preparation. There are many things we can do at home with our children during this season in preparation. Things like…

• • • • • • set up a nativity scene, 
          • build a Jesse tree, 
          • organise an Advent wreath, 
          • make an Advent calendar 
          • play Christmas carols

… the list is endless. Each one of these activities helps to build the anticipation and excitement of welcoming Jesus at Christmas time. 

Something you can do for yourself during the season of Advent is to join in an online retreat. Fr Rob Galea, a young Maltese priest in Australia, and FRG Ministries Australia are  offering a free online Advent retreat starting Sunday 27 November. Click the link for more information.

The Faith Journey website is filled with short video clips you could share with your family about the meaning of Advent. There is even one in Gangam Style! I encourage you to have a look and be inspired.

Our parish Saint Vincent de Paul group is calling for donations of $10 – $20 gift vouchers from KMart or the Warehouse. This collection is in place of the annual toy drive and will be included in the food parcels that are given out before Christmas. Please consider donating one or two vouchers as a family Advent action. Your child can give them to their class teacher. All voucher donations received at school will be brought forward during the offertory procession at our end of year Mass of thanksgiving. 

Today the children celebrated Mission day where we remembered the works of the Mission Sisters and all those who work to improve the lives of others. Thanks to the Middle and Senior Teams who organised this day. This is another way for our children to shine as Christian Witnesses. A great day was had by all.  Congratulations to our student council for running such a brilliant campaign to support Caritas Zimbabwe.  Mission Day market today raised a whopping $1,734.40.  This was far beyond our expectations.  Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou for your generosity.

Our End of Year school Mass will be celebrated 11am Wednesday 14 December in our parish church. At this Mass we will acknowledge our student leavers and all those who have helped to ensure our school has had another successful year.

Kia hari koa, ka uru tera wairua ki tena ki tena 

Be cheerful and happy, generating life in those around you

Prayer Intention: We pray that during the Advent season we prepare to receive Jesus and share His love with all we meet.

The Auckland Catholic Diocese have recently advised us of an increase to the compulsory Attendance Dues for 2023.  These will increase to $488 per year for Primary Schools, which is an additional $20 per child per year.  Both Special Character and Proprietors Contribution will remain the same as 2022.

Keeping in mind the increasing costs of living we are all experiencing your Board will keep the General Purpose fees the same as 2022.

A full letter of explanation will come home in February 2023, however we wish to advise the fees for 2023 will be increasing by $20 to $1028.00 per child i.e. $257.00 per term.

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

Lunchtime sausage sizzle – Wednesday 30 November.  Sausages, juice, water – all $2 each.  Please send money in an envelope with the order written on the outside.

Uniform Shop

The last day for the uniform shop to be open is Thursday 8 December.

If you will have uniform to sell back to us, you can drop to the office early in Term 1 2023.  Please provide your name; contact phone number and a bank account for payment.

Our Caritas One Day Challenges held last Tuesday were very successful. Each student across the school got a small taste of what life is like for others not as fortunate as us.

Justine Delport came from Caritas NZ and was very impressed with the involvement of all students and the enthusiasm they showed.

It was great to see the exhaustion on the junior students’ faces after walking for a long distance to get water and then having to share the small amount equally among themselves to make sure everyone had enough.

The Middle Team enjoyed their continuous run around the field tagging out team members when they needed a rest. Working as a team and collectively encouraging each other when things got hard were great highlights of the event.

The senior team students experienced life in a sweatshop under the careful eyes of sweatshop managers. They were put under pressure to complete certain numbers of products in very strict working conditions. Breaks were limited and talking prohibited.

Student voice gathered after the event expressed that the challenges helped the students really understand how difficult life can be for others and how grateful we need to be for what we have access to every day.

Walking Willow Tree – Walking to school initiative

Thank you to all the families who supported our Walking Willow Tree initiative last week. It was amazing to see so many children walking into school from Orangewood Drive.

This action helps reduce the traffic around our school gates and keeps our students safe on the roads.

The picture below was taken on Wednesday afternoon.By the end of the week the tree was so laden with feet leaves that many had dropped to the ground!

Congratulations to the children who were the lucky winners of the spot prizes.

We hope to see you continuing to walk into school over the next few weeks.

Lewis Eady Lunchtime Concert

Earlier this year a group of year 4 students approached the Environmental team with a plan to build and install a water tank in the school, to catch rainwater to be used in the gardens, mud kitchen and junior water trays.  They had been learning about how water is a precious resource that we need to use with consideration, realising that collecting rainwater is a great solution to this problem the boys got to work. The Board of trustees approved this initiative and we now have a new watertank which will be installed next to the field.  Great work, Charlie Bongiovanni, Zac Grant and Cavan Reilly.

Thanks Mr Baird for installing our new ‘worm bath’.  Starting at the beginning of next year we will have another way to compost our food scraps and provide great compost for our gardens.

A huge thank you to you all for supporting our rubbish free lunches. In week 6 of term 4 our data showed that approximately 33% of lunches coming to school were rubbish free, now, after promoting and educating our students and community we now have approximately 80% of the lunches coming to school that are rubbish free. This is a huge effort and our environment is cleaner as a result.  THANK YOU.  We are really hoping to lift this number to 100%.  2023 Star of the Sea is RUBBISH FREE! We can do this!

Congratulations to Mia Yandell and Sophia Gao from Room 18 whose artwork has been published on ‘Poetry Box’ a NZ Poetry page for children.  Mia and Sophia illustrated ‘Zebrafish,’ a poem by Jo van Dam.
Click here to see more.

Summer reading

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!

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.

Bizzy Bodz Holiday programme

We are super excited to announce that our January school holiday programme based at Star of the Sea is now live and bookable for families via Aimy Plus.

Please see the link below to our Star of the Sea Holiday brochure.

Star of the Sea January 2023

Bizzy Bodz will be running a programme based at Star of the Sea School from 12pm-3pm on the last day of term 16th December 2022.

Before and aftercare will run as normal.

To book for the 12pm-3pm session on the last day of term, you can find this under “special day” via their Aimyplus profiles.

ENTERTAINMENT BOOK

For a limited time only, you can purchase a Single City Membership to the Entertainment App, and receive a bonus Multi City upgrade*, unlocking access to 20 cities and thousands of offers anywhere in Australia, New Zealand and Bali.

And of course 20% of the membership goes directly to support our school fundraising at Our Lady Star of the Sea School Howick

Now you can enjoy the best restaurants, cafes, fine dining and shopping with your family while traveling – and donate to fundraising at our school.

Get this limited-time offer at our fundraising page (LINK) :
https://subscribe.entertainmentnz.com/fundraiser/990f07

Buy one for yourself, and for a loved one. Every purchase helps our fundraising effort.