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

Dear Families

It has been such a heart warming week for our school as we have reconnected with our families and students, welcoming those who are able to, to be back at school. The joy and happiness radiating from teachers, support staff and the children and families all meeting again has been fantastic to see.

We are incredibly proud of our families for the huge workload you have taken on with home learning and for ensuring your child/ren had every opportunity to learn in so many ways during their time at home. The children have returned to school strong, happy and positive and definitely much taller!

We have over 60% of our students attending school across the week, which is wonderful! We also understand that some parents are still wanting to keep their children learning from home so please do make use of the HTCPS Home Learning google site and the zoom and google meet lessons that teachers are still offering throughout the week. If you wish your child/ren to return to school on their allotted days then please contact the school office for this to be arranged – office@holytrinity.school.nz.

I also would like to acknowledge our staff – both teaching and support staff who have been incredible throughout this time of change in the school setting. The School Board join with me, in sharing our appreciation for the tireless work the staff has done to ensure school teaching and learning programmes along with pastoral care have been maintained with integrity, compassion and excellence! THANK YOU TEAM!

As a community, let’s pray to the Holy Trinity to unite us in perfect love and to walk with us on this journey of returning to school so that we can continue to learn, love and serve in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Health, Safety and WellBeing

School organisation for the partial reopening of school has gone very smoothly. THANK YOU to the students, our families and to our staff who have helped to create this seamless transition from home back to school!

Here are a few reminders for next week’s school organisation …

 

From Monday the 22nd of November: 
Aubert and MacKillop whānau groups will attend full time on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8.30am to 2.50pm
Pompallier and Patrick Dunn whānau groups will attend full time on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8.30am to 2.50pm.
Students currently in School Bubble Groups will attend Monday to Friday as per arrangement.

Please note sKids Before and After School Care will not be available as they can only operate from Alert Level 2.

To ensure we keep everyone safe, the following health measures are in place:

  • children to arrive from 8:30am for a 8:50am start and to be picked up at 2:50pm
  • children in Learning Communities Moana, Maunga and Ngahere to wear face coverings when inside (we have a supply at school also)
  • children are to wear their school summer uniform inclusive of sandals and school sunhat
  • children are to bring their own water bottle plus morning tea and lunch etc as normal

Parents/Families returning to school need to:

  • refrain from coming into the school site
  • use the Bus Bay area for drop off and pick up times – staff will be there to assist the students
  • remain in your vehicles
  • wear a face covering if you do need to leave your vehicle
  • ask a staff member for guidance if you need to come onto the school site with your child to drop off/pick up from the learning community
  • only use the Reception area front door to access the Office/Reception area if school business is necessary

Further health measures actioned by school are:

  • a limit to the number of students onsite
  • students are be in separate groups in their own learning communities
  • learning community spaces are well ventilated (our school has a fresh air ventilation system already in place due to being a new build)
  • physical distancing is being practised
  • good hygiene etiquette is being practised – hand sanitising, surface cleaning etc
  • all staff wear face coverings when inside
  • staggered morning tea and lunch breaks are in place
  • students and staff who are unwell are to remain at home

By working together and abiding by the health guidelines, we are ensuring all of our students and staff are being well cared and are safe when on the school site! THANK YOU!

DRS Report

Christ the King

This coming Sunday 21 November, the Catholic Church will be celebrating the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Otherwise known as the Feast of Christ the King. It is a very special day that marks the end of the liturgical year, just before we enter into the time of preparation, Advent. It would also be the day that World Youth Day will be celebrated virtually where both Bishop Patrick Dunn and Auxiliary Bishop Michael Gielen will be in attendance. Please see below for more details.

Auckland Catholic Youth Ministry

We have some wonderful upcoming events for you to be a part of virtually.
Sunday 21 November, 7pm – World Youth Day 2021
To celebrate World Youth Day, we are excited to come together on Facebook Live for what promises to be our biggest online youth event yet! Featuring our Bishops, music from The Stations and plenty of young people. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to STAND UP with the youth of the Auckland Diocese https://www.facebook.com/AKCYM

Sunday 28 November, 7pm – Converge // Youth and Young Adult Leaders Gathering
In the wake of World Youth Day, our youth and young adult leaders are invited to join us for an evening of fun, formation and sharing their feedback. Featuring Fr Rob Galea and plenty of familiar faces, we’re excited to dive into the conversation of how we can journey together!
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87574994154

Sunday 5 December, 7pm – The Great Diocesan Christmas Quiz
Back by popular demand! After having such a blast at our first quiz night, we are back with another opportunity to win up to $500 for your Parish school or faith community. Grab your best Christmas outfit and join us for another night of trivia-filled fun!
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87540912405

Malaeola Vaccination Drive

Fifteen Samoan Catholic Youth groups from across the Auckland Diocese have come together to plan and prepare a Vaccination Drive which will be held at Malaeola on Saturday 27 November from 9am to 5:00pm. Our own Samoan St Mary’s Parish Youth will be volunteering on this day to help families to get vaccinated and protected from Covid-19. If you would like to know more information please email Ana Silva asilva@holytrinity.school.nz

We’re all in this together!  #kato4vax

ADVENT

We wait for the days to get warmer and we wait for the school year to end and for the summer holidays to begin. Waiting can help us to celebrate the Season of Advent. Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas when Christ’s first coming is remembered. It is a joyful Season! It is a Season of wonderful expectations. Every year, we practise the receiving of Jesus in our everyday lives. So, as we begin our Advent journey of waiting joyfully from Sunday 28 November, let’s pray earnestly to our loving God to help us open our hearts and let Jesus dwell within us and in our homes.

Welcome Back!

The school truly came alive again with the return of our students on Wednesday 17th of November. Sincere thanks to our parents and families who made this transition back to school very easy and for following our school expectations. Here are a few snapshots of our wonderful tamariki reconnecting and demonstrating the school Gospel value kotahitanga/unity.

Praise-giving 2021

Our gatherings this year have been disrupted by the restrictions put in place to keep us all safe and protected from Covid. And we will continue to do what is right to ensure everyone feels safe and protected at school. Praise-giving is one such gathering and for this year, will be presented differently.

To recognise the achievements of our students, each Learning Community will host their own liturgy and presentation ceremony within their Learning Communities. This will occur Wednesday the 8th of December. Knowing and understanding full well that parents and whānau would have loved to be present at such events, we will record the presentations either by taking photos or video recording, and will release a collated video community presentation on Friday 10th of December.

The heart of praise-giving has always been the presence of our whānau with our children and staff, however to ensure that our tamariki are safe and protected, we must do things differently, for this year at least.

Any queries or questions, please feel free to make contact with school. We appreciate your support and understanding.

Enrolments and Interviews for 2022

Over the next two weeks, I am meeting up with our new students (and their families) who will commence schooling with us in 2022. This is a great time for sharing home and school information and a time to connect and to begin building those very important relationships and partnerships between home and school. When we get to know each other in this way, it means that we can do our very best to support each child’s schooling journey in faith, in learning and in their personal growth and development.

Enrolments

It is really important that we know of all younger brothers and sisters that are commencing schooling with us in 2022. If you have little ones at home, please contact the school office to make a time to meet with Miss Lindstrom so they can be assured of a placement at Holy Trinity for when they are ready to start in 2022. If you have any queries about enrolment, please contact the school office by email office@holytrinity.school.nz or by phone 09 296 9039.

Orientation Morning 2022

In normal circumstances, we would hold our Orientation Day for new families at the end of November, enabling our new families and students to spend some time getting to know us here at school. For our 2022 new families, the Orientation Morning will be held at school on Wednesday 26th January from 9:30am -11:30am. Further information will be shared with the families concerned.

This is always a special occasion for us as we welcome our new families and share school information to support the preparation of joining our Holy Trinity School community.

Digital Online Reporting to Parents

We are looking forward to sharing our term’s learning with our families. This year the reporting comments will be reflective of the home and school learning that has been in place since mid August 2021.  Comments for reading, writing and maths as well as a general comment will be shared with you through the HERO online parent portal. The reporting information will be published for families to access online from Friday 10th December.  If you are unsure of how to access the HERO parent portal, please call in to the school office for support with accessing the link and setting up of a password.

Learning Community News

Learning Community Awa and Awa-Taamaua

Welcome back to school to our younger junior learners. It has been an amazing experience joining a bubble at school. Awa and Awa Taamaua have reunited and become 2 bubbles in their common home of Learning Community Awa. The children have had mixed emotions and have been excited, a bit nervous, a bit teary eyed AND overjoyed to see each other and their kaitiaki.

Everyone has changed and grown at least a few centimetres taller. Lots of us have longer hair and are due for a visit to the hairdressers but the smiles are what capture our hearts. The smiles are everlasting.

PHEW! We have taken a few big breaths and started our new journey of learning how to be in a school bubble. This is a new experience for most of the children and the kaitiaki in LC Awa. We have had a successful couple of days to showing resilience through working alongside each other whilst keeping a safe distance apart. The kaitiaki have to remember to speak louder as sometimes it is hard to understand what is being said. We are happily working as a LC whānau in our school bubble. Well done to all the children who have been part of our bubbles in Learning Community Awa.

At the beginning of November we learnt about All Saints and All Souls Days. As part of our Service Concept learning, tamariki setup prayer focus tables at home and added a list of names of family and friends who have departed this world and have been praying for them.

Curriculum integration was made possible when fractions was being learnt in Maths. This led to a sharing of flags and how flags are divided into parts. The children then shared their cultural heritage by dressing up in clothes representing their culture and shared this with their teachers.

Learning Community Whenua

This week the LC Whenua learners at school have been doing some arts and crafts around Eucharist, Spring and Superheroes. We talked about how superheroes perform acts of service by helping others, and how we can be ‘superheroes’ too, by helping those around us. We then made some awesome superhero masks.

In Religious Education, we have been learning about how the ‘Eucharist’ is a way to remember Jesus. We created some art to help us remember why the ‘host’ and a ‘chalice’ are important.
To celebrate the season of Spring, we created a ‘cute caterpillar on a leaf’ craft. It was lots of fun!

Learning Community Moana

Our Drama focus for this week was for each whānau to create a freeze frame identifying people who have jobs that provide service in the community. We were so grateful to our whānau who took the time to participate in this challenge and we know that many of them do hold jobs that serve in the community. Thank you so much!

Learning Community Maunga and Ngahere

It was great to see the return of some of our senior students this week. For them, it was important to reconnect with each other and to return to some sense of normality.

Below are snapshots taken from the HERO learning wall of some of our students. Sincere thanks to those who are still at home, but are still connecting with us through online learning.

Curriculum News

Home Learning

The HTCPS Home Learning google site will be refreshed by kaitiaki and published as per normal on Mondays at 10am so that the children will be able to access learning from home. You can access the HTCPS Home Learning google site from the HERO notification.

Our kaitiaki will continue to hold online learning via zoom and google meets to connect with children who are learning from home. They will advise you each week of the timetable and share the online meeting links as well.

 

Ministry of Education Learning Packs

We are pleased to let you know that we have received the new learning packs from the Ministry of Education (MoE) for children who are still learning from home. These learning packs are now ready for you to collect from school.

Summer Uniform

With the return to school, students are required to wear our correct summer uniform.

This includes the short sleeved blouse or shirt, open toed black school sandals and the school sunhat. Please name all items of clothing so that they can be returned to the children immediately when found.

Our School uniform is only available for purchase from NZ Uniforms on 20/5 Lambie Drive, Manukau.

All students are required to wear the correct school uniform for summer as listed below.

Girls Uniform

Tartan skort
Blue short sleeved monogrammed blouse (summer)
Black open toed school sandals (summer)
Navy bucket sun-hat monogrammed
Navy woollen monogrammed school jumper OR school jacket

Boys Uniform

Navy shorts
Blue short sleeved monogrammed shirt (summer)
Black open toed school sandals (summer)
Navy bucket sun-hat monogrammed
Navy woollen monogrammed school jumper OR school jacket

Your support in having your child(ren) in the correct uniform is very much appreciated.

School Dates 2022

Term One    11 weeks     Thursday 3rd February – Thursday 14th April 

Term Two     10 weeks     Monday 2nd May – Friday 8th July 

Term Three   10 weeks     Monday 25th July – Friday 30th September 

Term Four     9 weeks       Monday 18th October – Friday 16th December

Holiday Times  

TERM ONE    Friday 15th April – Sunday 1st May

(includes EASTER Fri 15th April to Tues 19th April and includes ANZAC Day Mon 25th April)

TERM TWO   Saturday 9th July – Sunday 24th July

TERM THREE  Saturday 1st October – Sunday 16th October

TERM FOUR  Saturday 17th December

Upcoming School Events

Aubert and MacKillop whānau students return to school
Mondays and Tuesdays

Pompallier and Patrick Dunn whānau students return to school
Wednesday and Thursdays

Essential workers students return to school by arrangement
Mondays to Fridays

Pre-recorded School Gathering Liturgy and Assembly – led by the Catholic Special Character student leaders
Monday 22nd November 10am on HTCPS Home Learning Google site

Pre-recorded School Gathering Liturgy and Assembly – led by Learning Community Awa students and whānau
Monday 29th November 10am on HTCPS Home Learning Google site

Cultural/Traditional Christmas /Nativity stories shared by pre-recorded video
Thursday 9th December

School Praise-giving shared by pre-recorded video
Friday 10th December

School Digital Reporting shared on HERO
Friday 10th December

Term 4 2021 concludes at 1pm 
Tuesday 14th December @ 1:00pm

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