Greetings, Kia ora, Kia orana, Talofa, Mālō e lelei, Namaste, Ni Hao, Bula, Hola, Kumusta, Namaskārām,
Sat Shri Akaal, Vanakkam and Ayubowan
Dear Families
This Sunday, the liturgical season of Advent commences. Advent is a season observed as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. The term Advent means “coming” in latin. Many families will have an Advent Wreath at home where they light one candle each week in joyful and expectant hope of celebrating Christ’s Birth.
We too, can light a candle and in the silence of our hearts and name one thing that we can be more aware of this Advent Season, that will draw us more deeply into Christ’s light and love.
As we light our first purple candle which symbolises hope, on the Advent Wreath, let us pray … ” Jesus you are light even in dark places, shine hope into our hearts we pray”
Christmas Twilight Market – Thank you – Ngā Mihi Nui
Thank you so much Holy Trinity whānau for contributing to and participating in such a happy, fun and fantastic Christmas Twilight Market on Friday. It was great! We are so appreciative of all of the wonderful support we receive from our hard working PTFA team, committed School Board members, our incredible staff and our wonderful tamariki and whānau!
We have raised over $8,000 for the senior school playground equipment! What an amazing result for our community. It is an achievement to be very proud of! Ka mau te wehi – you are amazing! Thank you Thank you Thank you.
A special and heartfelt thanks to Louise Ruegg, Jeff Williams and Sarah Langford, our PTFA office holders – these wonderful people and their families have been heavily involved in organising, co-ordinating, finding sponsorship for raffles, designing posters, preparing and so much more for the Christmas Twilight Market. We are very fortunate to have them leading our PTFA with such skill, enthusiasm and wairua/spirit.
Thank you to our PTFA Team who have put their hands up for so many of the tasks such a community event entails – thank you for running stalls and providing your knowledge and wisdom and your practical support – you are champions!
Thank you to our wonderful parent/community cultural food and BBQ food stallholders – our Pasifika food stall, our Indian food stall, our Filipino food stall and our BBQ food stall – WOW! Your contribution to the success of the Christmas Market is so greatly appreciated. Thank you for your generous donation of food to the cultural food stalls and to the BBQ. The tasty food made it a truly happy, fun community event! We are so proud of you all!
Thank you to all our fantastic stallholders for creating, making, baking and sharing of your gifts and talents so that there was plenty on offer for us all to purchase at the Market AND a BIG thank you to the Turner Whānau for bringing your wee pony “Tuku” along for the pony and cart rides – definitely a drawcard for the children!
A BIG Thank You to our sponsors at the Christmas Market – Cathy Mei and her team from Ray White, Takanini – we are very grateful for the free coffee, chocolate treats and for the stunning raffle prizes. Ngā mihi to our friends at sKids, for their sponsorship and ‘manning’ of the bouncy castle for the children – their little faces were pictures of delight!
Thank you to our wonderful staff, our students and School Board members who took on roles and responsibilities to help make this a great event who helped with activities for the stalls, the setting up and the manning of the stall for the evening – it certainly is an ‘all hands on board’ type of event and with everyone contributing in such a positive way, that sense of belonging, unity and community is what makes us Holy Trinity Whānau! THANK YOU all!
Here’s some lovely photos of our wonderful community event – kotahitanga/unity at its best!
DRS Report
End of Year Leavers Mass
We have our End of Year Leavers Mass coming up on Wednesday 11 December at 9:15am in Taamaua/school hall with Father Mathew of St Mary’s Parish, Papakura. It will be a special time where we farewell all our Year 6 student leavers as well as our staff who are also leaving at the end of the year. We invite our school whānau to come and be part of this special Eucharistic celebration.
Religious Education Learning
A special thank you to our whānau who took the time to listen as their children shared their RE learning with them when they brought home their books this week. It’s always heartwarming to read the whānau comments that come back. Thank you for the way you support your tamariki in deepening their knowledge and understanding of the teachings of the Catholic church as well as walking beside them on their faith journey.
CSYMI Retreat Day
CSYMI is an acronym for Catholic Schools Youth Ministry International – a programme started by the Canberra Diocese in Australia, to support the formation of young people in Catholic schools to become witnesses to their Catholic faith in their school and parish communities. We are excited to have our Year 5 students be part of this formation next week on Wednesday 4 December as they work together with Year 12 students from the CSYMI group at Sancta Maria College. These senior students have been formed through the Secondary Schools CSYMI programme for the last two years. This Retreat Day of faith formation will be held at St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College, led by the Sancta Maria College students and supported by Luke Maher who is coming from Australia to help set up the programme here in Auckland. We look forward to this exciting way for our students to grow in faith and ministry in the new year.
Season of Advent
Derived from the Latin word meaning ‘coming’, this Sunday 1st of December, we enter into a time of waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the period of four weeks before Christmas that we, as Christians are reminded to prepare for – preparing our hearts and our minds for the birth of Jesus. We do this through making time to be in prayer and away from the distractions of the world. We do this through discernment and through family time sharing again about the meaning of Christmas – a time of celebration and joy for the birth of Jesus. We do this through being present at the Sunday Masses and counting down the weeks as a faith community by lighting each candle on the advent wreath. As we wait and prepare, let us open our hearts to Jesus.
Digital Online Reporting
We are looking forward to sharing our term’s learning with our families including individual students’ achievement levels in reading, writing and maths. Teachers/Kaitiaki and students have completed assessments and recording evidence of their progress and achievement to share with families through the HERO online parent portal. Reporting information will be published for families to access online from Monday 9th 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.
Enjoy reading through and sharing the HERO online reporting comments with your child/ren so that together you can celebrate learning successes and the positive personal growth and development that has occurred across the school year.
2025 Staffing and Learning Communities
Our staffing is confirmed for 2025 and the Learning Communities and kaitiaki/teachers have been organised as:
Learning Community Whenua = New Entrants, Years 0 and 1 students
Mrs Euginea Fernandes, Mrs Sydney Buzmion and Miss Jennifer Anacleto
Learning Community Awa – Older Year 1s and Year 2 students
Mrs Geraldine Malgas, Mrs Sahlee Cortez and Mrs Danielle Clarivette
Learning Community Ngahere (relocatable rooms) – Older Year 2s and Year 3 students
Mrs Alana Sherlock and Mrs Upashna Nadan
Learning Community Maunga – Year 4 students
Mrs Esther Anitelea and Mrs Lainee Davies
Learning Community Moana – Years 5 and 6 students
Ms Kirstie Gill, Mrs Ranjita Reshmi/Mrs Ali and Mrs Michaela Griffiths
Ms Laura Ahern, Mrs Liezl Jeftha and Mrs Mavis Chung will be working with us in a ‘release teacher’ capacity.
Senior and Middle Leadership Team:
Miss Peta Lindstrom, Mrs Maria Speechlay, Mrs Ana Silva (DRS), Ms Kirstie Gill, Mrs Esther Anitelea, Mrs Alana Sherlock, Mrs Geraldine Malgas and Mrs Euginea Fernandes
Students will have the opportunity to visit their 2025 Learning Communities in the next two weeks and spend time getting to know their teachers/kaitiaki and their new 2025 learning community environment.
2025 Learning Community placement confirmation for your child will be on the HERO Online Reporting underneath the General Comment.
Due to the differing numbers of students at each year level, our learning communities spaces, make-up and composition do change in the Year 0-3 classes for 2025.
Please note …
Learning Community Whenua = Years 0 and 1
Learning Community Awa = Older Year 1s and Year 2
Learning Community Ngahere/relocatables = Older Year 2s and Year 3
Learning Community Maunga = Year 4
Learning Community Moana = Years 5 and 6
End of Year Staff Farewells
At the end of this school year, we farewell Mrs Rochelle Drollét/release teacher, Mrs Carmel Stewart/LC Awa teacher and Mrs Clare Williams LC Awa teacher. “Thank you” does not seem adequate enough to say to these wonderful staff members, for all that they have contributed to our school community this past year.
For many years, Rochelle has been an absolute stalwart for us in her part-time teacher role supporting with ‘release’ for our kaitaiki across the school. She has given her absolute all to the school and we cannot thank her enough for the many contributions she has made. We will certainly miss her enthusiasm and willingness to support our tamariki and our staff in all of our activities.
Carmel and Clare joined our teaching team in Term 2 of this year as co-workers in Learning Community Awa – welcoming our new entrants to Year 1. Their combined wealth of experience, knowledge and wisdom has been greatly appreciated. We have loved the way they have encouraged our young ones as learners and helped to smooth the pathway for them as they began their schooling life!
We thank Rochelle, Carmel and Clare for the collaboration, engagement and relationships they have nurtured with us all and their shared strengths as teaching practitioners. We wish them every blessing as they go on to seek new adventures!
WE DO SAY A “BIG THANK YOU” TO YOU ALL!
New Families 2025 Orientation Day
It was lovely to welcome our new families and ākonga for 2025 with a Whakatau and Liturgy on Thursday morning. During our time together, we shared important school information, and ākonga met their 2025 kaitiaki/teachers and each other for the first time. They enjoyed a wonderful morning getting to know one another in their learning community for next year.
It was also great to catch up over a shared morning tea, where we connected in a relaxed setting. Thank you, whānau, for attending—we look forward to seeing you all in 2025!
Congratulations to …
Anayah Fernandes! On Monday 25 November, Mr Connor Hull from Mainfreight was on hand to present the Mainfreight Excellence in Attitude Award to Anayah Fernandes of LC Moana. Anayah received this award as she consistently shows the school’s Gospel values and is a true role model to others. Her attitude towards learning, loving, and serving is exemplary. Congratulations, Anayah!
and Congratulations to …
Congratulations Weetbix Tryathlon Teams …
On Wednesday 20th November, six of our Holy Trinity students put in a huge effort and represented our school at the Weet-Bix Kiwi Kids Tryathlon. This event requires three sporting disciplines, the students began with a swim, then moved into the bike ride and finished the race with a run.From our parents … we’re just sharing the wonderful effort our kids from HTCPS showed at the Weetbix Tryathlon event yesterday. We are so full of admiration for how they motivated each other and how they were so chilled and hung-out together after the event. We are very proud of them!
Teaching and Learning News
Learning Community Maunga Visiting Rest Homes
Paataka Kai Story – “share what you have and take what you need!”
Our Story, Our Taonga learning has taught us the importance of sharing and preserving stories as taonga to empower others to respond to God’s mission. Our paataka story emerged as a transfer task from previous concept learning, where Learning Community Whenua identified a need: some learners were coming to school with little or no food.
Ka mau te wehi, Zoe and Izzy for choosing this meaningful way to celebrate Our Story, Our Taonga by regularly contributing food to the paataka kai. Your actions are an example of how we can respond to God’s mission while empowering others to do the same.
Mahi Tahi Open Day
Many thanks to our whānau who attended our Mahi Tahi Open Day last Friday. Our learners appreciated the opportunity to lead this special time of sharing their learning progress and achievements, particularly around their goals and Tōku Reo reflections. These reflections highlighted how they have been building and growing their learner capabilities throughout the year:
- Respectful: We are respectful, responsible and responsive.
- Engaging: We are active in our learning.
- Collaborating: We are ready and willing to work with others.
Duffy Books in Homes Programmes
Learning Community News
Learning Community Awa
This week, LC Awa learners have been presenting their “Transfer task” to their audience – their Kaitiaki and peers. We, as audience are delighted to see the marvellous presentations. Some learners chose creative posters and postcards as a way to share their message “to be like Jesus and empower themselves and others for mission”. Other learners thoughtfully incorporated the elements of dance and created their dance moves to share their message of the chosen faith story to empower mission. For Maths strand learning, we are working on capacity and volume activities. We used simple items such as sand and water to measure capacity and volume of a container and described it using everyday language of full, empty, half, nearly and more – less than.
Learning Community Whenua
At Mahi Tahi, LC Whenua students delighted in sharing their accomplishments, learning and aspirations with their families. Families and students honoured their children’s growth and accomplishments in a lovely way.
By integrating their understanding of the parts of dance in their presentations and our Gospel stories, our students even had the opportunity to share their lovely liturgical dances with a larger audience, reflecting our learning on the lessons of welcoming just as Jesus did, in order to encourage others to respond to their selected message and support their purpose to empower others to mission.
In Maths, we have been learning about volume and capacity using concrete materials that our children find more engaging and fun to work with.
Learning Community Ngahere
In Learning Community Ngahere we have been using our maths learning around volume and mass to make our candles for the Christmas Twilight Market. Learners measured out their wax using a measuring cup and compared the volume after the wax was fully melted. We used this learning experience to write instructions on how to make a Christmas scented candle and to explain the significance of candles when we receive the Sacraments. We will be using our candles as a way to tell the story of Christmas. We have also been practising our financial literacy – we looked at the different New Zealand coins and notes and learnt the stories behind the pictures on NZ money. We are working on adding our total costs and giving the correct amount of change.
Learning Community Maunga
It has been an exciting week of learning in Maunga! In Religious Education, we presented our amazing liturgical dances reflecting our learning about our faith stories and the Sacraments. Our learners were very proud of their liturgical dance creations using the elements of dance to create their movements.
As part of our korero paki story “Pania of the Reef”, Maunga has been learning a traditional māori waiata about Pania learning authentic Te Reo Maori to retell the story. We have also been learning about the deeper language features of similes, metaphors and alliteration to create imagery in our writing.
Maunga students have been busy writing a range of poetry about our stories and creating Christmas cards to give to the elderly at the Resthomes next week as part of our mission to share God’s love. We are also preparing for the season of Advent by learning Christmas carols to share the message of joy, peace, love and hope.
Learning Community Moana
It has been an ultra-busy term with lots of exciting learning happening in LC Moana. We’ve learned lots of acronyms which have helped us remember new learning for our concept of Mission. We continued to use KWH-DTP-LAQ as a way to track our knowledge. We have consolidated our learning and used our knowledge of the nine Catholic Teachings (or CHPPPSSSD) to empower ourselves and others to mission.
Many learners have become text creators to design prototypes which identify how we should live our everyday lives in love and service in our community, with others, for GOD and then self (or COGS).
We presented our prototypes to an audience of our peers, and received feedback of two stars for positive affirmations and a wish to revise and improve our prototypes. Then we reflected on the feedback as to what we’d learned, what action we would take, and if we had any more questions about our Catholic Social Teachings presentation.We have enjoyed consolidating our learning and our presentations will be presented to you on our individual learning walls in HERO.
We have been learning the dance elements of BREST – Body, Relationship, Energy, Space, and Time. All learners participated in creating a dance step to share with others, and then we joined together in groups of four and combined each others’ dance steps. This means we were designing a routine with four steps and had to synchronise our movements to present to an audience. Three semi finalists were chosen; we are yet to present to LC Moana to find out who the winners in our dance off will be. WOW! We’ll keep you posted when the final presentation is performed next week.
A great time was had at Bruce Pulman Park for the North Counties Girls’ Cricket Festival. This was an opportunity for 21 Years 5 & 6 girls to participate in a day of fun, learning some basic cricket skills. A thank you to our parent helpers, Mr Smith and Mr Lau, who gave up their time to support us in this event, as without their help we could not have taken part.
We divided into two teams and played against our neighbouring primary schools’ learners from Years 5 to 8. This was a good way of getting to know who our competition will be in the future and share in some friendly rivalry. We look forward to meeting them again “across the green” in 2025.
Finally, we have had the added bonus of having a Community Educator from St John/Hato Hone delivering lessons on Whātuia te Wairoa – Weaving Wellbeing. Ms Rogers has provided lessons on mindfulness with a positive interpretation of how we can take responsibility for our own words and actions when confronted with some of life’s challenging experiences. For the last eight weeks, learners have explored how to deal with their thoughts and emotions in a positive way. Next week is our final lesson where our learners will celebrate and reflect back on their new learning.
Hauora/WellBeing News
Stories to Remember
Learning new stories about the people we are closest to can strengthen our relationships and can deepen our sense of who we are, and where we’ve come from.
Whānau Activity: Support your child to choose another family member who they look up to. They’ll need to ask this person their questions, note the answers, then use these to create a memory poster about the person. They can share their poster with other family members!
Sports News
Sailing Day at Maraetai Beach
Did they get very wet? Yes!
Did they show amazing resilience? Absolutely!
Term 4 Special Events and Activities
Please save the date for these ‘end of Term 4’ celebrations events and activities. These are all family/whānau events and we are delighted to warmly welcome our school families and wider school community to be part of each special event and activity where we celebrate who we are as a catholic school – rejoicing in our catholic faith, our students achievements and our school’s achievements from throughout 2024.
Tuesday 3rd December
School Helpers THANK YOU Morning Tea 10:30am @ school
Friday 6th December
Praise-giving Awards Afternoon 12:00pm @ school in Taamaua/school hall
Monday 9th December
Liturgy and Assembly for Other School Leavers and Service/Leadership Awards 9:00am @ school
Wednesday 11th December
End of Year Mass – Blessing and Acknowledgement of 2024 Year 6 Leavers and their families 9:15am in Taamaua/school hall
Wednesday 11th December
Whānau/Family Picnic – Cultural Group performances and Nativity Liturgy celebrations 4:00pm – 7:00pm @ school
New Zealand Traveller Declaration
Going overseas this summer? Everyone travelling into, or returning to, New Zealand must complete a New Zealand Traveller Declaration.
The New Zealand Traveller Declaration collects travel, customs, immigration and biosecurity information and aims to improve the safety and security of New Zealand. It replaces the paper card you used to fill out on the plane.
To make your arrival easier, do your digital declaration before your flight to New Zealand. It’s free to complete.
If you’re travelling as a family or group and completing multiple declarations, the NZTD app allows you to copy your travel details into another declaration, making it easier to complete multiple declarations for the same journey. The submitted declarations are then all easy to see within the app.
Head to travellerdeclaration.govt.nz today!
Upcoming School Events
Cultural Groups and Nativity Practices
Monday 2nd December
Whātuia te Wairoa – Weaving Well-Being lessons for Year 5/6 students
Tuesday 3rd December @ school
School Helpers Morning Tea
Tuesday 3rd December 10:30am @ school
Rest-Home Visit by Learning Community Maunga
Tuesday 3rd December
CSYMI Retreat Day for Year 5 students
Wednesday 4th December @ St Ignatius of Loyola College
2024 Praise-giving Awards Celebration
Friday 6th December 12:00pm @ school in Taamaua/school hall
Liturgy and Assembly for Other Leavers and Service/Leadership Awards
Monday 9th December @ 9:15am in Taamaua/school hall
HERO Online Digital Reporting published for each student
From Monday 9th December
End of Year School Mass/Acknowledgement and Blessing of 2024 Year 6 Leavers
Wednesday 11th December 9:15am @ school
Whānau/Family Picnic, Cultural Group Performances and Nativity Liturgy celebrations
Wednesday 11th December 4:00pm-7:00pm at school
Term 4 Concludes for the 2024 year at 1:00pm
Tuesday 17th December
Upcoming Community Events
BNZ Breakers Promotion
School’s nearly out! If you’re spending any of the summer holidays in or around Auckland, slam dunk into the summer holidays by catching a BNZ Breakers game.
Save 15% on tickets to any of the BNZ Breaker’s games in Auckland during December and January. Simply use promo code STUDENT to redeem your 15% off.
BNZ Breakers v Tasmania JackJumpers – “North Shore Game”
Thursday 12 December, 7:30pm @ Eventfinda Stadium
BNZ Breakers v Sydney Kings – ” Christmas game”
Friday 20 December, 7:30pm @ Spark Arena
BNZ Breakers v Perth Wildcats – “Mascot Party”
Sunday 5 January, 4:30pm @ Spark Arena
BNZ Breakers v Tasmania JackJumpers
Thursday 16 January, 7:30pm @ Spark Arena
Book tickets at www.nzbreakers.basketball/pages/tickets
