Dear Families,

Welcome to our fourth newsletter of the year.

Parish Connect

What a celebration we had two weeks ago as Parish and School, celebrating the beginning of our 175th year! Mass was so well attended with in excess of 700 attendees filling our school hall to overflowing. It was a special Mass, not only to begin a year of celebration but also as our Year 6 School Leaders were commissioned into their leadership roles for the year.
The picnic following Mass was a roaring success with an afternoon of fun on the waterslide, with face painting, a lolly scramble, helium filled balloons, a fabulous Sausage Sizzle and iceblock stand put on by our amazing PTA Team and supported by our Parish Youth Group. Mr Whippy and a coffee van rounded out the treats available as attendees enjoyed the music performed by our Parish musicians Heart Strings.
To all who contributed to making this day the success it was; Fr John and Fr Terry, to Detta Fairweather and Karen Noble Campbell and our school staff, to Heart Strings musicians, Kate Smeath and Catherine Min with their amazing team of PTA helpers, the Youth Group, our team of parents who helped set up the hall on Saturday and pack it back down again on Sunday, our parking wardens… the list goes on…  thank you, thank you, thank you – what a mobilisation of support and teamwork to make a day that will sit as a special memory for all who were lucky enough to attend.

This Friday evening we pray for our parish and school students who are making their First Reconciliation. May our loving Lord be with them as they undertake this important sacrament of initiation into full and active membership of our Church.

Click here for this Sunday’s readings.

Refreshed Strategic Direction 2023-2025 In our last two newsletters I shared our refreshed Strategic Direction and gave you more information about our first and second goals: Confidently LIVING with Jesus as our guide and Confidently LEARNING with Jesus as our guide. 
This week it is my pleasure to share with you more details about our third strategic goal: Confidently SERVING with Jesus as our guide.

Goal 3, The third of our revised Strategic Goals is focused on how we Confidently SERVE with Jesus as our Guide. This goal focuses us on developing an understanding that we are all members of God’s family, knowing about our responsibility to serve God’s world and using this knowledge to serve God’s world with confidence.
Through the community consultation undertaken last year at our Community Dreaming day and subsequent online consultation period, our community identified Christian Witness in the form of building on our outreach practices as the area that we should work on developing further over the next few years. Working on strengthening our network within our parish school through Whanau, Fono and Jia family group engagement features within this strategic goal as well as strengthening our wider network in collaboration with our local Christian schools through our association with the South East Christian Kahui Ako (Community of Learning) which we are active participants in.  We are currently working towards a Talanoa in early Term 2 with our Pacific families. We will engage with our Whanau and Jia Family groups as the year continues to unfold.
We are looking forward to further developments over time in our students as they learn about what it looks like, sounds like and feels like to Confidently SERVE with Jesus as their guide.

PTA Disco! Last night was our first PTA disco for 2023 and what a night it was! Thank you for your understanding in making the disco a Thursday night, we did not want our first Reconciliation students to miss out by hosting this event on Friday! We are so grateful to Kate Smeath, Catherine Min and their fabulous team of helpers who made this PTA night a fun filled experience for all involved.

Fundraising for the Caring Foundation Thank you for your generous support of our wear green mufti day on St Patrick’s Day last week, where we raised $382.50 for the Caring Foundation, one of the Christian witness outreach activities in our school calendar.

Travelwise Park and Walk Congratulations to those families who are dropping their children off on Orangewood Dr so they can walk along Oakridge Way and into school. This is having a positive impact on traffic around school and the safety of our children. Children are collecting ‘clicks’ from our Travelwise Leaders to go in the draw for spot prizes at our next assembly. We are anticipating this initiative will help to establish a habit of behaviour that continues beyond the time of the initiative and that we will see families continue to park and walk into school once the campaign has concluded in a couple of weeks time.

Parent Committee reshaping We are excited about the prospect of reinvigorating and reshaping what has formally been known as the PTA here at OLSOS – please see an invitation later in this newsletter to a wine and cheese evening on Monday 3rd April at 7pm. A chance for connection, fellowship and a chat about possibilities for the future. Bring a friend!

Celebrating birthdays at Our Lady Star of the Sea of late, our classroom teachers have noticed that the practice of bringing goodie bags into school to give to classmates on birthdays has started to become an all-too-frequent event at school. Whilst COVID prevented families from celebrating birthdays in the usual ways at home over the past few years, bringing such goodie bags to school seemed appropriate at the time. However, we are very conscious of the pressure on families around birthdays if this becomes a common practice, particularly as the contents of such bags can and seems to be getting more extravagant and expensive for families that potentially cannot afford to provide such treats. Can I please request that if families want to mark their child’s birthday by sending a small treat into school to share with the class, we keep this at a bag of lolly-pops to share or something similar and that families save the rest of the treats for sharing at birthday celebrations outside of school. Thank you for your support and understanding in this matter –  it is important for our birthday students to feel special on their special day and this is best done at school through our usual practices of prayer, song and kind gestures.

Sickness reminder We have recently seen Covid bubbling up once again in several of our classrooms. If your child has a stomach upset, has a cough or displays other cold symptoms please keep them at home until they are well enough to return to school.

Looking Back Our cricketers were in action again this week at the HPPA Cricket Competition, making it through to the semi finals next week, we wish them all the very best! Last Wednesday the Jump Rope Taster sessions were well received. Our top senior swimmers can be congratulated for their effort and sportsmanship as they attended the Interschool Swimming Zones last Friday with some pleasing results too. See later in the newsletter for further information and photos related to these events. 

Looking Ahead We have a team running in the Howick Fun Run on Sunday of this weekend – we wish our runners the very best of luck in this great event! Next week our Travelwise Park and Walk initiative continues. We look forward to finding out how our cricket team get on as the zone heats continue into next week then into semi finals and finals the week after – we wish them much continued luck! We also look forward to the HPPA Cultural Festival on Wednesday 29th March at Sancta Maria College where our Pacific and Asian groups will be performing. They have been working so hard on preparing for this special event. Next Friday evening we have some of our Liturgy Leaders leading Stations of the Cross at our Parish Church at 7pm. As we then head into our last week of the term, we will be in Holy Week, the week leading up to the celebration of Easter. We will celebrate Palm Sunday with a liturgy together as a school on Monday at 11am. We will have our solemn Passion Play liturgy on Holy Thursday, Thursday 6th April at 1.30pm – all families are welcome to attend both of these Holy Week liturgies with us. A reminder that our term ends on Holy Thursday at the usual time of 2.45pm.

Wishing you all a happy, safe and blessed fortnight ahead until we next communicate via our school newsletter.

Ngā mihi nui and cǐ zhì jìng lǐ,

Louise Campbell
Principal

Father Walter MacDonald was parish priest of Howick from 1886 – 1899. Father Walter was immensely popular with the people of Auckland both catholics and non Catholics, adults and children. He became the chaplain to Ellerslie Race Course as well as chaplain of the Auckland army garrison. His flamboyant style saw him leading the Saint Patrick’s parade through Howick, riding his beloved horse Hero. A parish report in 1898 refers to the Howick Parish as St Mary’s Star of the Sea. Father Walter appealed for religious sisters to come and teach at the parish school. 

Our Flood the Foodbank with Food Lenten challenge continues. This is one of the biggest outreach promotions we do as a school. To date we have fed 57 families.  God bless you all for your generosity.  You are teaching your children how the simple act of sharing an item with the foodbank each week is a way to walk in the footsteps of Christ and be a Christian Witness.

Tonight around 70 young people from our parish and school community will receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. This is a milestone in their journey of faith. Please keep all of them in your prayers. Next Tuesday 28 March at 7pm you have the opportunity to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation with our neighbouring parish St Marks. There will be plenty of parking and plenty of priests.

Holy Week will soon be upon us. The school will hold a Palm Sunday liturgy 11am Monday 3 April in the school hall. You are invited to join us. During the week, classes will focus on the events leading up to the resurrection of Jesus. You and your family are always welcome to spend time at the outdoor Stations of the Cross. The stations start at the sabbath space, meander through the nature trail and follow along the boardwalk behind the information centre.  On Thursday 6 April at 1.30pm in the school hall, we will join together to pray the stations together in a special Holy Thursday liturgy before we go our separate ways at the end of the term. Please take the time to talk with your children about the importance of Holy Week in our lives as Catholic whānau. 

Stations of the Cross.

At school each Friday before lunch begins, the Liturgy Team leads the Stations of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross is a form of prayer used traditionally in Lent. Each of the 14 Stations retells part of Jesus’ Passion (his suffering and death) through images and words. These Stations of the Cross introduce our young learners to Jesus’ Passion, breaking it down into stages that they can reflect upon and remember. The outdoor stations and boardwalk are a wonderful resource for our school community. Next Friday 31 March, 7pm, in our parish church, the Liturgy team will be leading the parish in praying the stations of the cross. Please come and support them.

Mea ana te atawhai haere mai i runga i te aroha me te awhi

     Mercy invites us to love and to care

Prayer Intention: We pray for our young people who will receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, that they feel the love and mercy of our Lord in their hearts.

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE DUES
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Financial assistance is available to assist families who may need financial support with the payment of Attendance Dues for preference students attending both primary and secondary Catholic schools in Auckland Diocese.
Families facing financial difficulties can contact their school office, their Parish Priest, or Auckland Common Fund Ltd at the Catholic Diocese of Auckland on 09-360-3069 for further information.
Application forms for this assistance are available from school and parish offices,or can be downloaded from the Catholic Diocese of Auckland Website:
https://www.aucklandcatholic.org.nz/catholic-schools-2/

A reminder that payment for Term 1 was due on 10.03.2023     Note that any donation payments made prior to 31.03.2023 will be included in the Tax Receipt for the financial year 01.04.2022 – 31.03.2023 which will be emailed as soon as possible after 1st April 2023.

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

We congratulate the following Senior Badge Holders for 2023.  These students were commissioned and received their badges at our recent Parish/School Mass.

Liturgy Team Members – Amber Law, Danielle Smeath, James Baker, Hayden Homewood, Gareth McLay, Sophia Gao, Stella Wakefield, Olivia Min, Julia Mills, Ethan Crouch, Paige Ieremia
Liturgy Team Leader  – Julia Mills

House Captains
Barbier House Captains – Ethan Crouch and Rosalie Naylor
Garin House Captains  – Tamia Tavita-Falesiu and Mia Yandell
McAuley House Captains – Sydney Brooke and Olivia Min
Maher House Captains – Isabella Dellabarca and Grayson Shaw

Other Leadership roles

Environmental Team Leaders – Isabella Jansen and Amaya Wickramasinghe
Travelwise Team Leader – Kish Bassi
Patrol Team Leader – Avery Hunter
P.E. Team Leaders – Isobella Evans and Xavier Grant
Loose Parts Leaders – Hayden Homewood and Gareth McLay
Information Centre Team Leaders – Cherrie Che and Rachael Geor
Sick Bay Team Leaders  – Sian Channing and Siena Lee
Wet Day Team Leader – Danielle Smeath
Technology Team Leader  – Linson Ye and Kaisyn Dang
Hall Leader – Caleb Hooper
House Point Monitors  – Boaz Lee and Steve Rui
Flag Monitors  – Austin Jiang, Liam Hibbert, Elise Ting and Cameron Lynch
Bell Monitors –  Amber Law, Cedric Ongkodjojo, Sienna Lo and Flora Wang

Cricket Update

Our cricket team played the second round of their pool games on Thursday and were lucky enough to win 2 out of the 3 games played. The team really gelled as a group and everyone fielded and batted well. Out of our 7 pool games we were lucky enough to win 5 which gives us enough points to make it through to the semi and finals day on the 28th of March.

Coach Dave was very impressed with the team’s ability to stay cool when placed under pressure. Once again we thank Dave Grant for giving up his time to support our school and our sideline supporters who cheered the boys on during the day. We now look forward to next Tuesday where once again we will play our best and try to secure another win or two!

Interschool Swimming Sports

Last Friday 34 budding swimmers headed off to Lloyd Elsmore Pools to participate in the HPPA Interschool Swimming Sports. All of our swimmers presented themselves with pride and gave their very best on the day.

Of particular mention are the following students who made it into the finals of their selected races:

Cavan Reilly, 2nd Place 10 year old 50m competitive freestyle
Tiffany Chen, 1st place 9 year old 25m competitive freestyle
Rosalie Naylor, 3rd place 9 year old 25m competitive freestyle
Gracie Presig, 5th place 8 year old 25m competitive freestyle

Ethan Ho, 6th place 10 year old 25m novice freestyle
Danielle Smeath, 5th place 10 year old 25m novice freestyle
Siena Lee, 5th place 9 year old 25m novice freestyle

Cavan Reilly, 2nd place 10 year old 25m backstroke
Tiffany Chen, 2nd place 9 year old 25m backstroke
Rosalie Naylor, 4th place 9 year old 25m backstroke

Cavan Reilly, 1st place 10 year old 25m breaststroke
Gareth McLay, 6th place 10 year old 25m breaststroke
Tiffany Chen, 1st place 9 year old 25m breaststroke

Congratulations to all our swimmers. Thank you for representing Our Lady, Star of the Sea with pride!

Report from Cavan Reilly and Tiffany Chan:
There was a lot of chatter as our team entered through the doors. We felt the excitement as we entered poolside . The bleaches were full so Our Lady Star of the Sea team were seated on the benches behind the starting blocks; we had the best view of all the action. The races started and we all tried our best to do well for our team, ourselves and our school. We cheered each other on. We were all getting placed and we all felt of proud of our combined effort. It was a great event.

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.

Rubbish Free lunches are here to stay! For those families who were here last year you will know that as a school we went on a mission to eliminate rubbish and packaging from our school lunches.  This not only made a huge difference to our school environment with less rubbish escaping in the wind, but we did our bit to be the kaitiaki (caretakers) of the world our children are inheriting.  Rubbish free lunches are now just part of what we do everyday.   Thanks for your ongoing support.  For families new to our school, as an Enviro school we set several goals that help our children to learn more about caring for the world God made for us.  Working towards zero rubbish is part of this plan.  One easy way to do this is to keep all packaging out of lunch boxes.

Here are some ideas to get you started.

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ANZAC DAY – TUESDAY 25 MARCH

If you would like to purchase an ANZAC poppy for a gold coin donation and wear for the last week of term, we have these available in the school office.

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Howick Lions Club – Water Safety Picnic

Date:  Sunday 26 March 2023
Venue:  Cockle Bay Beach Parade area
Time:  10 am to 3 pm

The kayaks are free
The BIG Dig is a koha and there will be a number of other free activities plus kai, demonstrations etc

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Sacred Heart Enrolment Applications for Year 7 and Year 9 for 2024 are now open
A Sacred Heart education provides a foundation of faith and aspiration to succeed at the highest level in personal and professional life. Places are available in Years 7 and 9 in 2024, with Boarding available from Year 9. Applications are prioritised in accordance with our Enrolment Scheme. Scholarships are available.

Applications for enrolment close Friday 31 March 2023. Apply online here. Visit www.sacredheart.school.nz for more information.

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Please follow the link below to our Bizzy Bodz Star of the Sea Specialised workshops for April 2023

Star of the Sea Workshop April 2023

We are offering workshops to families who are wanting specialised holiday care.

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Netball registration to be completed if joining Our Lady Star of the Sea Netball team.  A separate letter has been emailed to all students in Years 3 – 6. Registration is to be made via Sporty link: https://www.sporty.co.nz/viewform/221026   
Season date: Term 2 & term 3:

• Year 3 & 4: the game will be on Tuesday, 4pm – 5pm
• Year 5 & 6: the game will be on Saturday morning

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Tuesday morning basketball training.

Is your child interested in improving their basketball skills. If so NZ Swished On offers weekly coaching sessions for students at our school. If you are interested in enrolling your child please follow the links in the information below.

Term 2 Our Lady Star of the Sea School Year 4 – 6 Basketball Session Info:

• Week 2 (2nd May) – Week 10 (27th Jun);
• Tuesday 7:30 am – 8:30 am;
• Term Fee: $81 (9 sessions);
• Hero Annual Fee: $35 (for new players);

New Players Enrolment steps:

1. New Players: Please click the enrol link: https://enrolments.linc-ed.com/apply/NZ/SwishedOn. Fill up the form for each player, and choose the school programme and/or club time and year you would like to book for your child.
2. Each player will need to pay $116 to enrol in HERO(Year) and Term 2; please transfer the money to our bank account: 02-0108-0531348-000 (Reference – “Child’s Full Name”, example James Smith);
3. Once we receive your payment, you can sign into your HERO.

FACE TO FACE COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS FOR THE CHANGES TO PLANNING AND REPORTING
The Ministry of Education are holding face-to-face ākonga, parent, whānau and community workshops, where they will be talking about planning and reporting. The programme, Te Whakangārahu Ngātahi | Planning Together, is focused on preparing for the upcoming changes to planning and reporting legislation and requirements.

They would like to share these preparations with you, to not only ensure you are in the know, but also to gather your feedback on the proposed supports – e.g. the tools, resources and support channels to be developed. They need your voice and help co-creating these supports, to ensure they are fit for purpose and add value where it is needed.

These workshops will be held at the following places from 6 – 8:30pm:

• Tuesday 28 March:  Bluelight, Papakura.  159 Dominion Road, Papakura
• Wednesday 29 March:  Henderson Intermediate School: 70 Lincoln Road, Henderson

If you’d like to take part in either of these workshops, you can email [email protected] to register your interest.  Food and drink will be provided, and they look forward to seeing you there.

Further information on planning and reporting and the consultation process can be found here: Te Whakangārahu Ngātahi: Planning Together for Ākonga Success – Our School, Our Community – Conversation space (education.govt.nz).