School Newsletter 2019 Term 2 Week 5

Greetings, Kia ora, Kia orana, Talofa, Mālō e lelei,  Namaste, Ni Hao, Bula, Hola, Kumusta

Dear Families

This week has been very busy with the celebration of the triennial National Catholic Schools Day. This is a day to celebrate who we are and what we stand for.  Below is an extract from the reflection that was shared by our student, Tiana Tewake, at the combined South Auckland Catholic Schools Community of Learning Mass …

The theme of our Catholic Schools Day is about our mission in the Church today. To help us understand this mission, maybe we need to listen and reflect on and act upon Archbishop John Dew’s words. He said, “faith is a verb” – it is something that we do because as we know, a verb is “a doing word”. In our Catholic Schools then, we need to “DO FAITH”. We need to act with kindness and compassion – arohanui. We need to serve others – awhinatia. We need to care for the sick and disabled – manaakitia. We need to forgive and say sorry – houhou rongo. We need to reach out to others – kotahitanga. And much more – all to be done in the name of Jesus! Today we celebrate who we are, what we are called to be and do and how we are challenged, knowing that we can rise up and live out this challenge by … “DOING FAITH” If we can make our Catholic Schools, a “HOTBED of DOING FAITH” then we are truly living our mission in the Church today. It is wonderful and inspiring and awesome to be a part of the Catholic Schools Whānau so let’s celebrate well, let’s love, let’s be, let’s do …. in Christ’s name and let’s live with hope and love and be proud of who we are to our communities!

School /Parish Mass

As a Catholic Community we celebrate Trinity Sunday as part of the Church’s liturgical year. Holy Trinity is the charism for our school community as we are named Holy Trinity Catholic Primary school, and we too celebrate this special time in the season of the church by marking the closest Friday to Trinity Sunday as our School Trinity Feast Day.

Relationship, love and unity is important to who we are and how we are at our school. We have a great example and model of relationship in the Holy Trinity – the Trinity exemplifies love – it is the love of the Father for his Son, the love of the Son for his Father and the overarching love of the life giving Holy Spirit. It is love that binds the three together. And it is this love and relationship that’s the essence of the Trinity. This is an important part of our school culture and the type of community that we want to be – where we welcome all, we participate and contribute, we build and nurture relationships, we model love and service and seek excellence in our learning and where we unite as Holy Trinity Family. How wonderful then that we can celebrate this special day as a school with our Parish family – Saturday 15th June 5:00pm Mass at St Anne’s Parish, Manurewa.

Helping Hands Required

Emergency Drills

Fire Drill

We had a wonderful Fire Drill last week. Students quickly, sensibly walked out of the Learning Communities and down to the courts / field. We managed to get all students out and the rolls taken in under 5 minutes! Well done students.

We will be holding an earthquake and lockdown drills later in the year. It would be a good idea to discuss what to do in different emergency situations with your children. It would be good to see if they have been listening!

DRS Report

Catholic Schools Day 2019

On Tuesday 28 May, we celebrated Catholic Schools Day. It’s a special day where we showcase who we are as a Catholic school. This year’s theme is “Extending Christ’s Call: to love, to be, to do. Kia rangiwhāwhātia tā te Karaiti karanga: kia aroha, kia tūturu, kia mahi”.

We celebrated with a thanksgiving Liturgy in the morning followed by Whānau time for the rest of the day where our students worked with their tuakana/teina buddies in arts, sports, baking and in the sharing of haka and waiata/songs.
Our senior students in Learning Community Maunga also attended and participated in the Community of Learning  Catholic Schools Day Mass held at Holy Cross Parish in Papatoetoe. It was a beautiful Mass with all nine Catholic Community of Learning Schools attending.

Feast Days of the Ascension & Pentecost

This coming Sunday, we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension. It is the time we remember Jesus returning to his father when he completed his mission here on earth. The Ascension is meaningful to Christians as it signified the end of Jesus’ work on Earth and allowed him to prepare a place for followers in Heaven. Jesus promised the disciples that they would soon receive the Holy Spirit, and asked them to remain in Jerusalem until the Spirit had come.
On the following Sunday, 8 June, we will be celebrating Pentecost Day. It commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples as tongues of fire. It also marks the end of the Easter season, and is often called the “birthday of the Church” as it was from this event that the disciples went forth to spread the Good News and establish the Church. Jesus’ mission is now our mission. We can do this by being witnesses in the way the Spirit empowers us to do great deeds; through small acts of kindness. A simple smile, a listening ear, an offer for assistance or even a hug of comfort. All things that we can do in our daily lives.

Feast of the Holy Trinity

We have a special day coming up for our school and it is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. We will be having a school celebration day on Friday 14 June beginning with a whole school Liturgy at 9am in Taamaua. This special Liturgy will be led by Patrick Dunn Whānau students and staff. It will also be a mufti day where we encourage our children to come dressed in our school colours – dark blue, light blue and red.

On Saturday 15 June, we will host the 5:00pm School/Parish Mass at St Anne’s Parish, Manurewa to commemorate the Feast Day of the Holy Trinity. This Mass will be led by Father Brian Prendeville with students and their families encouraged to attend. Students are asked to be in their school uniform for this occasion. It will be a special Mass to celebrate our Feast Day.

Board of Trustees Election

Parent Representative Voting papers were posted to all parents for the postal election. Voting papers need to be returned in the addressed envelope provided or delivered to the school office and placed in the ballot box. Voting closes Friday 7th June.

PTFA (Parent Teacher and Friends  Association)

We have a very small but wonderful group of parents that make up our hard working PTFA. As we know, many hands make light work and our PTFA are in need of more members. This will ensure that we can have further successful fundraiser events like the School Fun Run as well as social community events. It is so rewarding to be actively part of school life so please do come along to share your gifts, talents, skills and ideas. The next PTFA meeting will be held Thursday 13th June 7pm in the school staffroom.

Samoan Language Week

Samoan Language Week – Vaiaso o le gagana Samoa has been a celebration of Samoan culture and language. It was wonderful to see our Samoan students who are part of the Cultural Leadership Team fulfilling their leadership roles by leading school assembly on Monday speaking in Samoan. The Cultural Leadership Team introduced the theme for this year’s Samoan Language Week, ’Lalaga le si’osi’omaga mo se lumana’i manuia’ – ‘Weave an environment for a better future’. They also performed a beautiful siva for the school. Here is a reflection they wrote and shared at assembly about what the theme means to them.

Fa’aaloalo – Respect! We should always show respect to our elders, especially our grandparents, parents, teachers and peers.

Tu – Stand! In everything we do always stand tall! Be proud of who you are and be proud of your culture.

Savali – Walk! Always walk in the footsteps of Jesus by showing our Gospel values through our words and actions

Tautala – Talk! Speak words of encouragement and words of love, peace and joy!

Learning Community News

Last week, 4 of the Senior Whānau Leaders attended a Student Leadership Retreat Day hosted by De La Salle College. This initiative came from the South Auckland Catholic Primary Schools Community of Learning with the aim of bringing together potential leaders from each of the catholic primary schools. The student leaders learnt about what it means to be a Catholic student leader in today’s school environment. They also learnt from each other, the various gifts that they have and bring to their leadership skills. Our young group of men, Avian Chand, Pierre Quizora, Stephen Thomas and Stephen Kurian Sajan, came back to school “absolutely fizzing” and excited about the learning, the comradeship, the friendliness and how they could put their learning into action here at Holy Trinity!

Some of their comments are below … “It was fun and we got to participate in everything – we were really involved in the workshops … I learnt that leadership is about talking to people and listening – not to just think about yourselves. We got to sit with others so we had to meet other people from other schools – this is part of leadership – making sure you get to know others – we met lots of people there. I really enjoyed meeting students and adults from De La Salle College – they said we only had to ask and they would help us and show us what we needed. Leadership means knowing you can’t do anything alone, you need help from other people and learn to put God first before others and yourself. We played games – it was a pretty good day and I learnt that … what makes a good leader – is putting others before yourself”

Our sincere thanks to the De La Salle College Leadership Team for this wonderful opportunity and for helping our young ones grow in faith and in mana. A big thanks also to Mr Chand for providing transport and support to the boys on the day.

Sancta Maria Production

Last week, Learning Community Maunga visited Hawkins Theatre in Papakura to watch Sancta Maria Colleges version of High School Musical Junior. It was a fabulous event full of acting, singing and dancing. Thank you to Sancta Maria for the opportunity to see theatre in action.

Curriculum News

Family Learning Workshop

In response to our last community survey, we have organised a Family Learning Workshop around eLearning / Cyber Safety.Please come along at 6:30pm to our school hall – Taamaua next Tuesday 4 June. We have a guest speaker from Netsafe, coding, robot programming and some ideas around managing students app/phone use. Hopefully, Michelle Hunt, our Community Constable will be available also to discuss cyber bullying ideas. See you there.

Concept B: Systems

Our Systems learning is up and running, following on from our successful Tūrangawaewae concept. The questions we will be focussing on are:

Students might be learning about our Solar System, rockets, body systems or ecosystems. We will have a strong focus on the Science and Technology curricula. If you have any resources or expertise in this area, and are keen to share with students or teachers, please get in touch with the office or your child’s kaitiaki.

Stardome Trip

On Friday, 7 June Learning Communities Moana and Maunga are heading off to the Stardome Observatory to engage in learning about the Systems at play in our Solar System, world and the universe. If there are any outstanding permission slips, please have them back to school as soon as possible.

We would like to welcome Rangimaria Hotere here to Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School. She is a kaiako o Te reo Māori and is here at school every Thursday to help us learn Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori. She is known to the students as Ma Hotere. Some of the learning that is happening already are around basic everyday words and greetings in Māori. She is also helping us to understand the different elements in a pepeha, which is a way of introducing and telling people who we are, by sharing connections with each other and places that are important to us. We are excited to have Ma Hotere and look forward to learning Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori.

Sports News

Netball Tournament

We had two teams of students participate in a Netball Tournament. They had a great day, playing netball and having fun at Bruce Pulman Park. Thank you to all the staff and parents who supported on the day.

School Cross Country

Our HTCPS Cross Country is coming up on Friday the 21st of June (save day of Fri 28). Students have begun practising at school and we encourage them to get out running at home. The Cross Country will be held at Bruce Pulman Park on Kuaka Drive – more information to come out closer to the time.

Year 5&6 Winter Sports Day

We have three teams of Year 5&6 students heading out next Wednesday, 5th June, to Bruce Pulman Park/McLennan Park to participate in our local schools cluster. We have a Rippa team, Football team and a Netball team. Notices have gone home to all students involved. Please return permission forms as soon as possible. If you are able to support on the day, please get in touch with Mr Brown.

Year 7&8 Winter Sports Day

Our Intermediate students will be participating in the local schools Year 7&8 winter sports tournament, on Tuesday, 11 June. Notices have gone home to students involved, please have permissions back as soon as possible and if you are able to support on the day, please indicate on the form or email Mr Brown.

Reminder

Upcoming School Events

Queen’s Birthday Weekend – National Holiday
Monday 3rd June

School Assembly and Prayer – led by Learning Community Awa
Tuesday 4th June 8:50am in Taamaua/Hall

Family Learning Workshop – CYBERSAFETY
Tuesday 4th June @ 6:30pm – 8:00pm in Taamaua/School Hall

Year 5/6 Winter Sports
Wednesday 5th June @ Bruce Pulman Park

Stardome Trip for Learning Communities Moana and  Maunga
Friday 7th June

Board of Trustees Parent Election voting closes
Friday 7th June

School Assembly and Prayer – led by the Catholic Special Character Team
Monday 10th June 8:50am in Taamaua/Hall

Year 57/8 Winter Sports
Tuesday 11th June @ Bruce Pulman Park

PTFA Meeting
Thursday 13th June 7:00pm @ staffroom

School TRINITY FEAST DAY
Friday 14th June

School/Parish TRINITY FEAST DAY MASS
Saturday 15th June 5:30pm Mass at St Anne’s  Parish, Manurewa

Upcoming Community Events

Beginning Experience Grief Resolution Weekend

14 – 16  JUNE  2019

ALONE AGAIN?  Widowed, Separated or Divorced?   The Beginning Experience is a non-profit organization with the motto a “Weekend Away for a Lifetime of Change”.  The retreat will help you work through your painful loss.  The participants find new hope, increased emotional health and renewed energy.  Date Friday evening 14 to 16 June Sunday afternoon. Cost $325 or early bird price of $295 if paid by 3 May.  Includes accommodation, meals and materials.  Contact Carol evenings 0210169-0222 or Bev (09)298-9943.  Visit www.beginningexperience.org.nz