School Newsletter 5th November 2021

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

Dear Families

As we complete another week of Term 4, we hope and pray that you are all well in your family bubbles! We acknowledge and understand the uncertainties that many of us have around on site schooling for our children this term. The restrictions of Alert Level 3 and 4 have been a real challenge to the wellbeing of our tamariki and whānau and we have heard from many of you that your children are very keen to see their friends and kaitiaki once again! However, we have had no information or direction from the Government as yet as to … if or when … schools may reopen for the term.

Currently Principal representatives from the Auckland Schools are meeting with the Ministry of Education to discuss the many considerations that will apply if the schools are to reopen on Monday 15th November. There is NO decision to date about schools reopening and students returning to school. Once any announcement is made, then our school will follow the Ministry of Education guidelines. We will inform our families as soon as we know what the decision is about the return to school.

Once again, I extend out gratitude to our families and whānau for responding with such a positive attitude to the challenges of learning and working from home. We must keep reflecting with pride on the way our staff, children and our families are responding to the changes in teaching and learning programmes AND we must celebrate our successes and achievements so THANK YOU for posting the students’ work to the HERO ‘My Learning Wall’. We love seeing the learning tasks and family activities that the children are completing from home!

We had a lovely surprise this week, when an envelope arrived at school for us all, from students at Reignier Catholic Primary School in Napier. Inside were handmade cards wishing us “good luck” during this lockdown time and hoping that we would all be back to normal soon. Receiving this act of kindness from another catholic school certainly reinforces that we all belong to a wider catholic community, one that can bring God’s love to those who need it most through simple, heartfelt gestures. We feel very blessed!

Ana Silva, our Director of Religious Studies (DRS), shared this lovely prayer with us this morning – you may like to pray this together with your family too!

God of Compassion,
With your help and guidance, we have made it through another week.  We thank you.
Help us not to be consumed with worry and anxiety.  Fill us instead with your joy which strengthens us, and your peace which surpasses all understanding.
Comfort those who mourn, bring friendship to those who are alone and through us, may we be your voice, your face, your hands, your feet to those whom we meet.
Amen

From the School Board …

Greetings to all our Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School families as we begin our twelfth week of navigating these COVID restrictions. On behalf of the Board, I hope you are well and managing this challenging time okay. Hopefully, with the proposed move to Alert Level 3 Phase 2 next week, the restrictions will be eased in some ways and give us the opportunity to reconnect with more family and friends.

The school Board continues working to make sure we fulfil all our responsibilities as school governors. To keep us focused and on track, we have our Strategic Plan. In our current three year plan, 2021-2023, we have four key goals.

• Catholic Special Character- Nurture a living Catholic faith community where each person encounters the living God, grows in the knowledge of Christ and His teachings, and responds to the call to give Christian witness.
• Design and implement a connected and localised curriculum.
• Build kotahitanga/unity through inclusive partnerships with community groups.
• Grow collaborative leadership capabilities of all.

You, as our school community, have played a valuable part in shaping these goals, through responding to our on-line surveys and questionnaires, participation in our community meetings, and through discussions with your children’s kaitiaki. With your thoughts and ideas, these goals are actioned through various school initiatives in which we can all take part and make learning meaningful and fun for our tamariki.

It is great to see the ways in which our school whānau are working with their children at home, supporting their learning and engaging in fun activities. THANK YOU! You are playing a very important part in working towards achieving these goals- especially during all these weeks where the learning and teaching are confined to home. Please KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! As you are well aware, the education of our tamariki is a TEAM effort.

Next year, the Board will be engaging in another review of our Strategic Plan, and again we will be looking forward to the valuable contribution you will be able to make as we look to the time ahead.

A COVID Reflection

Not Everything is Cancelled
The sun is not cancelled
Spring is not cancelled
Love is not cancelled
Kindness and compassion are not cancelled
Conversations and having fun with our children are not cancelled
Hope is not cancelled
Music is not cancelled,
And GOD’S LOVE for His people is NEVER CANCELLED.

Warm wishes and many blessings,

Philip Cortesi
Presider of the Board

DRS Report

All Saints Day and All Souls Day

This week we celebrated two special solemnity days at the beginning of November. All Saints Day is celebrated on the 1st followed by a commemoration of All Souls Day on the 2nd.
We honour all the saintly men and women who have gone before us, whose lives have been marked by outstanding love and service. They inspire and remind us that we are all called to be a saint as we share the same love of Christ. We journey in our own unique pathways and along the way we encounter challenges and opportunities, just as the saints did. May we be reminded that our journey in life is a testament of our journey to sainthood. Let us ask the saints to pray for us, especially during these interesting times.

All Souls Day is a special day commemorated in remembrance of all those who have died. We pray for their souls to find eternal peace and happiness in God’s loving embrace.

Eternal rest grant to them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they, and all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

St Anne’s Vaxx Ma Pac

St Anne’s Parish, Manurewa is having a Vaxx Ma Pac on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th November open for all to come along to receive vaccinations. The committee would appreciate any support by way of donations to help our families in the community during these difficult times. There will be grocery vouchers and spot prizes for people who come and are vaccinated. For more details or if you would like to volunteer on the day please contact Deacon Sanele at 0272673210.

St Anne’s Manurewa Parish Bulletin #40 – Sunday 7th November (online)

St-Marys-Papakura-Newsletter-32nd-Sunday-In-Ordinary-Time

THE BLESSING – CATHOLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS AOTEAROA 2021

Our Home Learning Website

Our HTCPS Home Learning google site is updated every Monday from 10am. We thank all our whānau who have worked from this site, and kept in contact with school through your sharing of your child’s amazing learning. Sincere thanks to those who continue to email through your concerns, queries and questions.

To access our HTCPS Home Learning google site, please click HERE.

Through HERO and the HERO My Learning Wall, we continue to encourage all our students and families to upload all the great learning activities and experiences you’re doing at home. If you’re not sure how to do this, we have instructions you can follow HERE. Our kaitiaki will endeavour to respond to your posts and please know that every post made is appreciated by all our kaitiaki.

Our weekly virtual liturgy and assembly is also released at the same time our HTCPS Home Learning google site is published – 10am each Monday morning. Our Youtube school channel is where our liturgies and assemblies can be found. To find our channel click HERE. This is our way of continuing a weekly tradition that normally begins a week of learning at Holy Trinity.

A reminder that our staff are available from 9.00am to 2.50pm, Monday to Friday. Any queries or questions that you may have, check our HTCPS Home Learning google site for their contact details or click HERE to access email addresses.

And lastly, a reminder that 2 to 3 tasks a day from the home learning site. Do what’s right for your child and the rest of your whānau.

Our Home Learning Website – iPad Access

Because the learning site is a Google design, we ask all our whānau to access our site through the internet browser Google Chrome, especially on an iPad. Safari which is the default browser for an iPad doesn’t translate the site well and may not show you all that you need to see. So if you do have access issues on your iPad, make sure that you’re using Google Chrome and not Safari.

Any other queries or questions around access issues, please email Andrew Malele amalele@holytrinity.school.nz

Learning Community News

Learning Communities Maunga & Ngahere

Below are some learning snapshots from students in LCs Maunga and Ngahere. This week’s learning revolved around persuasive pieces of writing and sharing an opinion. It is great to see our Learning Assistants also involved in on the action and providing great tasks for some of our learners. Ka mau to wehi Maunga and Ngahere students!

Learning Community Whenua

LC Whenua students and kaitiaki dressed up for for last Friday’s Zoom catch ups. We played games and shared news from our family bubbles!

Springtime in our LC Gardens!

Our container gardens at school are flourishing this term thanks to all the spring rain and sunshine. We have been picking the beautiful deep red poppies to arrange in a vase to help brighten up the Reception  Area AND we have been harvesting and cooking up the gigantic broad beans for a nutritious nibble. Thanks to the Enviro Team and to all of the LC students that have been caring for their gardens! They are flourishing!

Attendance Dues Payments

Attendance Dues for Terms 3 and 4 2021 statements and reminders will be sent electronically to families next week.

If you are still to make payment for Term 1 and/or Term 2, please do so as soon as possible. Thank you for attending to this.

Please note that there are 3 options for payment of the Attendance Dues and Catholic Special Character Contribution

1. Full amount paid by Internet Banking to ASB school account – details for payment are on the statement.
2. Automatic Payment to be set up via internet banking to ASB school account
3. Payment can be made at the school office – cash or Eftpos

For those families paying by Automatic Payment (AP), please note that 2021 payments must all be completed by 1st December 2021.

Please see Carmel Stewart (Office Administrator) or Peta Lindstrom (Principal) in the strictest confidence if you have any concerns or questions regarding the payment of Attendance Dues.

Financial Assistance is available for payment of Attendance Dues.

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

Pre-recorded School Gathering Liturgy and Assembly – led by Learning Community Maunga students and whānau
Monday 8th November 10am on HTCPS Home Learning Google site

Pre-recorded School Gathering Liturgy and Assembly – led by Learning Community Whenua students and whānau
Monday 15th November 10am on HTCPS Home Learning Google site

Term 4 concludes
Tuesday 14th December

Eat My Lunch Cooking Competition!

Competition Brief: Eat My Lunch and Ironclad Pans are working together to search for an all-time cooking legend by entering our cooking competition! The recipe and instructions are attached, and everyone who enters the competition receives a badge especially made for Kiwi kids!

Who can join?
• Students enrolled in schools which are part of the Eat My Lunch Give programme.
• Families are welcome to join their kids too!

What are the prizes?
Winner will receive a prize worth $240. Plus, there’s are spot prizes for:
• Best pancake art
• Funky face pancake
• Coolest pancake flip
• Best MasterChef and Pancake pose
• Best kitchen pancake mess reaction

How to enter:
Post your entry on Facebook or Instagram and tag: @eatmylunch.nz and @ironcladpan with the student’s name and school name.

OR: email us your entry at kiaora@eatmylunch.nz with subject “Cooking Legend” with the student’s name and school name.

Closing date: 20th November 2021 The Winner will be announced on the following week!

Eat My Lunch Cooking Competition

Upcoming Community Events