Newsletter Term 2 Week 7

Dear Parents

Congratulations to you all, on an amazing Official School Opening celebration last week. The day was a wonderful reflection of who we are as a Holy Trinity School family. We have received a number of emails from guests who attended, sharing their delight in our Powhiri, Liturgy, Blessing and the student performances. We are incredibly proud of you all!

Thank you to our school community for your unwavering support and “hands on” practical help to ensure the day was a success for all. We especially thank the parents and families who were part of the Official Opening Committee and who worked tirelessly to ensure all was in place for the celebrations. Thank you to Kirstie Thorpe, Nicky Welch, Katie Hastings, Juliet Nawisielski, Moses Huni, Marvin Tabobo, Paulo Quizora, Ani Thomas. We also thank Philip Cortesi, Stefan Ryan, Fr Peter Murphy and the Senior Leadership Team of Peta, Maria and Ana for their roles and contributions to the Committee organisation.

Learning Community Awa would like to extend a big thank you to Gagan Singh – Harveer and Manveer’s mum, who taught the children the traditional Indian dance and supplied the musical instruments and costumes.

Thank you to our Establishment Board of Trustees and special thanks to our school staff who ensured all was prepared, organised and in place for the celebrations especially their work with the children in the preforming arts.

Thank you to our children for their involvement in every aspect of our celebrations and for their incredible, lively performances with both the Hakas and the Learning Community items. You were fabulous!!

Thank you to our families and friends who assisted with our Working Bee afternoon – your generosity of service is much appreciated, with the school “gleaming” for our big day.

The strength of unity within and for our school community was very evident and gives us renewed energy and focus to continue to build and nurture our school culture and Holy Trinity charism in this lovely school environment.

Our Official Opening celebration was chosen to be held on the Friday closest to Trinity Sunday in honour of our school name and charism. Each year now, we will be able to look forward to celebrating Trinity Sunday as our School Feast Day on the closest Friday to this special time in the Church year.

Board of Trustees Election Results

With the tenure of the Establishment Board of Trustees having come to an end, a new Board of Trustees has been elected to govern our school. Sincere thanks from the Establishment Board to all those people who put their names forward to be on the new Board. Your interest and support of the school is much appreciated.

Congratulations to the following successful candidates:

David Kenyon, Tony Nawisielski, Vavae Nuia, Joanna Petrie and Bradley Rudsits- who have been elected as parent representatives. Other members of the Board are Ana Silva (elected staff representative), and Peta Lindstrom (Principal)

Bishop Patrick Dunn, Bishop of Auckland, has appointed the following people as his representatives on the Board: Father Peter Murphy (Parish Priest Papakura), Philip Cortesi, Anna Soo Choon and Apaula Lautua.

Our special thanks also go to Faye Gibson, our Returning Officer, for the time and effort she has put into the election process.

The Establishment Board wishes the new Board of Trustees the very best as they begin the next stage of the school’s journey, as they work towards achieving the school’s vision – To Learn, Love and Serve in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The first meeting of the newly elected Board is next Wednesday 21 June at 7.00pm at school.

Philip Cortesi
Chairperson Establishment Board of Trustees

DRS Report

Congratulations to Bernadette from Learning Community Moana who is receiving the sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Communion/Eucharist at St Anne’s Parish Mass this coming Sunday. May God’s Blessings and Grace be with you on your special day Bernadette!

Holy Spirit Strand

holy-spirit-revalation3 We are currently underway with the teaching and learning of the Holy Spirit Strand for Religious Education. The Holy Spirit/Te Wairua Tapu is the third person of the Trinity and our Advocate who encourages us to do the right thing and to speak with truth.

At the end of each strand, we will be sending the children’s Religious Education (RE) books home for them to share their wonderful learning with you. You are encouraged to celebrate their learning by writing a small comment in the RE Comment Box. These are a few examples of the things that you can write:

“Jesus’ life helps guide us to be better people and to follow his footsteps. Great learning and beautiful work – I’m proud of you!”

“……….. shared her learning and is working very hard to be more like Jesus.”

“I like your stories about the miracles. The stories helps us to believe.”

“……… shared some new prayers at home and shows more interest at church.”

“I am very glad to see ……….. grow in faith and love. We are very proud.”

Ra Whanau Suzanne Aubert

suzanne-portrait On Monday 19 June, it is Suzanne Aubert’s 182nd birthday, otherwise known as Mother Aubert. We remember and celebrate NZ’s possible first saint. Born and raised in France, Suzanne Aubert travelled to New Zealand alongside Bishop Pompallier when she was 25 years old. During the voyage to New Zealand, Bishop Pompallier taught Suzanne and the other missionaries Te Reo and eventually Suzanne became very fluent in the Maori language. She wrote a Maori dictionary and prayer book. Mother Aubert founded the Religious Order of the Sisters of Compassion and she died at the ripe age of 91 on October 1st 1926.

Reporting to Parents

We are looking forward to sharing our term’s learning with our families including individual students’ National Standards achievement levels, connected curriculum learning and the development of key competencies and values. Teachers/Kaitiaki and students are currently working with assessments and recording evidence of their progress and achievement to share with families through the LINC-ED online parent portal. Reporting information will be published for families to access online from Monday 26th June. 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.

School Library

We are excited to announce that our school library is now open. The Learning Communities have spent some time in the library this week and what a joy it has been to see so many of our students faces lit up when they were told that they could take books home!

The library will open daily at 8.30am and we encourage everyone to come in and look at the amazing books we have available. It will be a wonderful opportunity for parents and students to share and read books together.

Please note that all students will require a book bag before they can take books home. This is to ensure that our books can be enjoyed for many years by our students and future students. Teaching students to value books and to treat them as the treasure they are is so important!

We would like to acknowledge and thank Mrs Carolyn Harvey for the work and time taken to help set up our school library.

Learning Community Whenua

Last Wednesday we had a special visit from Joseva’s Daycare. They came to watch our practice performance for the big Opening and they were a great audience. Afterwards we went back to Whenua and enjoyed a beautiful morning tea together! Ka pai “Play and Learn Papatoetoe” for the kai and showing Kotahitanga/Unity with our school community.

Matariki Show

Learning Communities Awa and Moana will have an opportunity on Monday, 26th June to view a free puppet show called Heaven and Earth – Rangi and Papa! The 30 minute performance will explore the legend of MATARIKI and her sisters with innovative storytelling and an original sound track.

Matariki is the Maori name for the cluster of stars also known as the Pleiades. For Maori, it heralds the start of a new year.

At the moment we are planning activities around Matariki and we look forward to sharing our learning and celebrations with you in the next few weeks.

Reminders!

Please inform the office if you make changes to personal and family contact information so that our records at school are always up-to-date.

For Health and Safety purposes, if your child is absent from school at any time, please phone the school office to leave a message or email the office: office@holytrinity.school.nz

We are encouraging all children to take their morning tea and lunchtime rubbish home in their lunch boxes. This supports school with recycling and reducing rubbish in the school environment and also allows you as a parent to check in with what the children have eaten or have left for another time.

Please take care and consideration when uploading school photos and videos to your personal/family social media. Good practice would be to only upload images of your child/children.