Greetings, Kia ora, Kia orana, Talofa, Mālō e lelei, Namaste, Ni Hao, Bula, Hola, Kumusta
Dear Parents
The following statement is a lovely and very pertinent extract from “Community and the common good” in the Catholic Education of School-Age Children document … “The community of each Catholic school is part of the mission of the Church … When the people of the area support their school, it strengthens not just the school community, but the whole ecclesial community of that area.”
So thank you for the very generous way you have helped and supported us at school this past term through … contributing to special catholic character events, donation of books and equipment, organisation for school cross country, hospitality and bbqing, transporting of students for excursions, spending time with us at Assembly, prayer times, sports times, conferences and learning times … we appreciate and value the community support that continues to bind and unite us as Holy Trinity School Family!
We give thanks for all that has been achieved this term as a faith community, as a learning community and as a loving, serving community.
Reporting to Parents
Next week, we will be publishing students’ learning from throughout this term in Linc-Ed. Your child will be able to share their Religious Education, Science, Technology and Physical Education learning with you. You will be notified by email that there are learning updates that you can access through the Linc-Ed parent portal. We are looking forward to sharing our term’s learning with our families!
If you are unsure of how to access the LINC-ED parent portal, please call in to the school office for support with accessing the link and setting up of a password.
Some students will have also received digital reporting information in relation to interim and anniversary National Standards progress and achievement levels. Thank you to all the families who have made time to meet and share learning conversations about their child/ren with teachers/kaitiaki these past weeks. It is great to be able to work in partnership with you, to ensure our children have the best possible opportunities to learn and develop.
Term 4 Community Meeting
Early in Term 4, we will be holding an evening Community Meeting inviting parents/whanau/families to gather with us as we share updates about school policies and procedures, review our curriculum design and consult with our community on catholic special character, health programmes and cohort entry to school. Please do come along as your contributions are invaluable to the direction of our school.
DRS News
SOCIAL JUSTICE WEEK
WEAVING BONDS OF BELONGING
Last week was indeed a week of generous giving and making connections with our people in the local community. We celebrated with the 305 cans that were collected for St Vincent de Paul and Mercy Hospice. This “Can Drive” helped so many people in Auckland and with 33 Catholic Schools participating in the “Can Drive”, altogether we managed to collect 19000 cans. What a huge achievement!
We also celebrated by reaching out to our local Rest Home and Hospital – Lady Elizabeth in Takanini. Every item that was donated was received with joy and gratitude. Our children should feel very proud of themselves as we weave the bonds of belonging in our local community. Thank you to our families/whānau for standing behind our children/tamariki and our school as we worked together to bring a little justice to our world. What an awesome Social Justice week it has been!
WHOLE SCHOOL MASS
Next week Friday 29th September, we will be celebrating our End of Term Mass in Learning Community Maunga at 9am with Fr Peter Murphy of St Mary’s Papakura. Our focus for the Mass is around ‘Serving in Faith’. We look back on the incredible term we’ve had and reflect on how we serve our God with faith. Everything is possible if we place complete trust in God! Please join with us for this community Mass.
Learning Community News
Learning Community Moana Science Open Day
Next Thursday, the 28th of September, Learning Community Moana would like to invite all whānau – parents, grandparents, aunties etc… to our Science Open Afternoon.
All term we have been exploring, learning, researching and creating our interest based projects. We are now ready to present them to the community. In groups students have been researching galaxies, volcanoes, earthquakes and more. Each group will have a presentation and a creation to share with our school community. So please, come along next Thursday, support our learners and learn something new!
Learning Community Awa
Awa has been very busy planting seeds, watching them grow and recording how they grow. We have done experiments to find out why some plants did not grow so well and discovered that they have certain requirements that must be met. We really enjoyed setting out our garden and planting. We planted tomatoes and next to them some marigolds because we have learnt that the insects do not like the smell of the marigolds and therefore will stay away from the tomatoes. We planted lots of other vegetables and flowers too!
Learning Community Whenua
The children in Whenua have been working very hard all term to plan a garden we can easily maintain and keep safe from birds and animals that might eat our fruits and vegetables. Although we have had to overcome the obstacle of where to place our gardens and using the resources we had, we showed resilience and unity by working together to create something we can be proud of! We are very excited to share that our hanging garden and garden beds that were kindly donated to us by Henry Iosefo and Nicky Welch have been filled with soil and compost and are ready for planting. Thank you Mr. Miller for doing the hard work of putting the soil and compost in them! Whenua have enjoyed learning about God’s creation and are excited to share the responsibility of looking after our gardens.
School Events
Te Wiki o te Reo Maori Activities
Week 8 was Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori – Māori Langauge Week. We spent time in our new Whānau Groupings learning skills and creating art – all in the name of learning Te Reo Māori, an official language of New Zealand Aotearoa.
We learnt the Papakura and School Hakas and the meaning behind the words, created Flax flowers – Harakeke Putiputi, learnt simple ways to introduce ourselves in te reo and asked others to answer the same questions in te reo and we practised our Tī Rakau skills.
Everyone had a great time learning new Reo and spending time in our whānau groups.
Library Open Morning
To promote reading and to strengthen our Home-School Partnership we are going to run School Library open mornings on a Wednesday morning from 8:00 – 8:45am.
The library will be open from 8:00am for parents and students to come in and browse the books and to read together. There is no pressure to take books out – the most important thing is that students see us as adults engaging in reading.
The National Library of New Zealand has some great ideas HERE to encourage reading at home.
Please, come along and read a book or three, share your ideas and get involved!
Sports News
Turbo Touch Success
We had a wonderful day at the Papakura Cluster Turbo Touch Tournament – Both Moana teams tried their best and gave their all. Congratulations goes to Holy Trinity Team 1 who made it to the final – coming second in the Year 5/6 competition.
Thanks to Tayla, Feata and Benny who came along as photographers/helpers – here is a video of the day made with photos and videos they took. Also, thanks to Mrs Silva who coached Holy Trinity 2 and thanks to Mrs Speechlay who drove the gazebo and gear to the fields for us.
We got to meet Stephen Donald, hero of the 2011 Rugby World Cup Final, and had a lot of fun playing and competing against the other schools in our local area.
Hula Hooping
Over the last couple of weeks we have been lucky enough to have Gladys Hartshorne come and teach us Hula Hooping. We have had a lot of fun learning to spin, roll and move with the hula hoops. A big thank you to Gladys for her time and for donating to the school some new, large hula hoops to practise with.
Term 4 Swimming/Aquatics Programme
Next term, Holy Trinity students will be engaging in Swimming/Aquatics skills/survival lessons at Massey Park Pools in Papakura. There will be more information coming out closer to the time. Swimming is an essential skills that all Kiwi kids need to learn and it is part of the New Zealand Curriculum that we are required to teach.
Term Dates for 2018
Term 1 Tuesday 30th January – Friday 13th April
EASTER Friday 30th March – Tuesday 3rd April
Term 2 Monday 30th April – Friday 6th July
Term 3 Monday 23rd July – Friday 28th September
Term 4 Monday 15th October – Thursday 13th December
Coming Events
School Assembly and Prayer
Monday 25th September 8:50am in Learning Community Maunga
Monthly Board of Trustees Meeting
Tuesday 26th September 7:00pm
Counties Manukau Sports Coaching continues
Wednesdays for Term 3
Science Open Afternoon – Learning Community Moana
Thursday 28th September 2:00pm
School End of Term Mass
Friday 29th September 9:00am in Learning Community Maunga
School concludes for Term 3
Friday 29th September 2:50pm
School commences for Term 4
Monday 16th October 8:50am
Welcome Liturgy and Blessing for new Staff, Children and Families
Monday 16th October 9:00am in Taamaua (school hall)
With God’s Blessings
Peta Lindstrom
Principal
Community Notices
Auckland is experiencing an unprecedented mumps outbreak. There have been over 370 cases with more than 60 schools affected this year. Schools have had to exclude students and staff with mumps and any close contacts who haven’t been fully immunised with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.
This has disrupted the school, the students’ learning and parents who have had to take time off work. Mumps can have serious complications requiring hospitalisation.
With exam and assessment time coming up in secondary schools, please suggest parents check their children have had two doses of the MMR vaccine. This will also protect students from the contagious measles and rubella viruses as well.
Part Time Receptionist Pompallier Diocesan Centre – Fixed Term
We are looking for a confident, professional and proactive part time Receptionist to assist our main Receptionist to co-share reception duties at Pompallier Diocesan Centre. This role will require excellent customer service skills along with sound administrative skills and a positive friendly manner is essential. This is a part time 20 hours per week position from 10.00am to 2.30pm Monday to Friday, for a fixed term period of six months.
The successful candidate will need strong interpersonal skills; be approachable; be self-motivated with the ability to demonstrate initiative and have sound computer skills.
Please send cover letter, CV and application form to Leanne Killgour, HR Manager atleannek@cda.org.nz.
To view the full advert and the position description and download an application form, please go to our website www.aucklandcatholic.org.nz and look under staff vacancies. Applications close Friday 6 October 2017.
Attendance Dues Collections Assistant – Pompallier Centre
Part-time Position
This part-time position of 20 hours per week (flexible and includes some evening and Saturday hours), is to provide credit control administration support to the Revenue Manager in the Diocesan Catholic Schools Office.
Key Tasks include: Collection of compulsory school attendance dues; contact with school parents via outbound phone calls; follow up of unpaid accounts and Debtor ledger management.
Ideally applicants should have previous credit control and administration experience, good organisational skills with strong attention to detail, excellent written and oral communication skills and be a team player with integrity and dependability with the ability to work unsupervised. The ability to speak Samoan or Tongan would be advantageous, but not essential. Empathy with and commitment to upholding the values of the Catholic Church would be an advantage.
Please send a cover letter and CV to Leanne Killgour, HR Manager, leannek@cda.org.nz. For more information on the Catholic Diocese of Auckland or to view the full job description please visit our website www.aucklandcatholic.org.nz under staff vacancies.
Applications close 29 September 2017
