Greetings, Kia ora, Kia orana, Talofa, Mālō e lelei, Namaste, Ni Hao, Bula, Hola, Kumusta, Namaskārām,
Sat Shri Akaal, Vanakkam and Ayubowan
Dear Families
As we journey together this Lenten season, we can reflect on the great works of CARITAS!
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is the New Zealand Catholic Bishops’ agency for justice, peace and development working together with the Catholic community to provide advocacy, education, emergency relief and community development.
We study and learn about Caritas’ wonderful work in Aotearoa and around the world. We use the Caritas Lenten 2025 resources to help us to explore the Gospel stories and to connect our reflections and actions to the Catholic Social Teaching focus for each week. For Week 3 of the Lenten season it is IMPACT – Te Pānga, asking … “Are we ready to make an impact through our own actions?”
Let us be inspired by the work of Caritas and this message of hope and mercy, and commit to creating a positive impact in our world, upholding the dignity of all on this shared journey.
(paraphrased from Caritas Lenten 2025 Resources)
Principal’s Message
Bullying-Free NZ
Bullying-Free NZ week is coming up in the month of May with one of the major promotions being the ‘Pink Shirt Day’ Campaign – To SPEAK UP, STAND TOGETHER, STOP BULLYING – Kōrero Mai, Kōrero Atu, Mauri Tū, Mauri Ora!
At Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School we are committed to providing a physically and emotionally safe place that is free from bullying and harassment for students, staff, and our wider school community. We always endeavour to take all reasonable steps to eliminate bullying and harassment within our school and to respond effectively to concerns and complaints, and/or incidents. We want our children and our families to ‘speak up’ and let us know when there are incidents of disagreement, upsets and at times bullying especially when someone is physically, verbally or emotionally hurt. We want to ‘stand together’ with our children and our families and our staff to say “stop bullying!”
We are guided by our catholic faith in living the Gospel values of unity, respect, compassion, resilience, integrity and excellence – our school’s Gospel values! In living out these school Gospel values, in particular, we need to see the practices of restorative justice, forgiveness, reconciliation, mercy and respect being evident in the way we ‘speak up’, ‘stand together’ and ‘stop bullying’.
Therefore it’s very important that we know and understand ‘what is bullying’ and ‘what is not bullying’ so that together we can respond to incidents, complaints and concerns in a way that is restorative and reconciliatory as is appropriate to each situation.
What is not bullying?
Bullying is a word often used to describe behaviour that is not actually bullying — not all verbal or physical aggression is bullying. For example:
- a one-off fight or argument, or difference of opinion between friends where there is no power imbalance and they can sort it out between themselves
- not liking someone or a single act of social rejection
- one-off acts of meanness or spite
- isolated incidents of aggression, intimidation or violence
- using sexist or racist terms but doesn’t mean to cause harm
- theft: taking someone else’s things once is theft but not necessarily bullying.
These other behaviours may be just as upsetting and serious, but may need to be dealt with in a different way. As families and teachers, we need to use our judgment to decide whether or not a specific incident is bullying.
Most widely-accepted definitions of bullying are based on four elements: bullying is deliberate, harmful, involves a power imbalance, and has an element of repetition.
Defining Bullying
Whether bullying is physical, verbal, or social (relational), four widely-accepted factors can be used to identify it:
- Bullying is deliberate – harming another person intentionally
- Bullying involves a misuse of power in a relationship
- Bullying is usually not a one-off – it is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated over time
- Bullying involves behaviour that can cause harm – it is not a normal part of growing up.
Bullying can happen anywhere, in person or online (cyberbullying), at any time, and can be verbal, physical or social (relational). It can be obvious or hidden.
Children who bully use their power — such as physical strength, knowing something embarrassing, or popularity — to control or harm others. Bullying is when one student (or a group of students) keeps picking on another student again and again to make them feel bad. They say or do things to upset them, make fun of them, stop them from joining in, or keep hitting or punching them.
This downloadable factsheet can be used by us all to help promote a common understanding of bullying.
DRS Report
End of Term Mass
On Wednesday 2 April at 9:30am, our school will be gathering together in Taamaua/school hall for our end of term Mass. We gather to give thanks for another successful term before we head away to spend some time with our families and friends over the holidays. We invite all our school whānau to come along and be part of our end of term Mass with Father Mathew of St Mary’s Parish Papakura.
Reconciliation
Last week on Wednesday 12 March, our senior students spent some time in Reconciliation with our wonderful priests. Also known as Penance, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the Healing Sacraments that offers God’s forgiveness and mercy when we do something wrong. It’s such a special Sacrament that gives us the opportunity to grow closer to God by preparing ourselves for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our students were very lucky to have had Father Mathew of St Mary’s Parish Papakura, Father Robert of St Patrick’s Parish Pukekohe, Father Kevin of St Anne’s Parish Manurewa and Father Michael and Father Soane from St Peter Chanel and St John the Evangelist, Otara Parishes. What a wonderful team of priests who were present to support our young people!
Stations of the Cross
On the last day of school, just before we head off to our holiday time, we will gather together as a faith community and invite you all to come along as our children re-enact the “Way of Pain with Jesus”. We will be praying the Stations of Cross through drama as we walk the “Way of Pain” outside on the school field on Friday 11 April. All our tamariki will be participating as each Learning Community will be assigned a Station to pray on the day. Stay tuned for more details to come on our HERO posts!
RE Books Coming Home
Next week commencing Monday 24 March, our students will be bringing home their Religious Education (RE) books to share their learning with you at home. It would be great if you can spend some time with your child/ren to hear about the new knowledge they have gained from their RE learning. We encourage all our families to please add a whānau comment in the section provided for you in the children’s RE books. Your whānau comment is important as it helps affirms our children on their learning in Religious Education.
St Mary’s Parish Spiritual Retreat Information
PTFA News …
Math-a-thon Week 2 Challenge Winners!!
Congratulations to this week’s Math-a-thon winners …
Eva from Learning Community Whenua
Harrison from Learning Community Awa
Marley from Learning Community Ngahere
Elron from Learning Community Maunga
Elsa from Learning Community Moana
AND … Mele from Patrick Dunn Whānau is the winner of the ProBeats x3 True Wireless Earbuds!
Great maths learning kids!
The Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School Math-a-thon fundraiser is in full swing! Just a reminder if you sign up before Friday 21st of March and get at least one donation to go in the draw to win ProBeats X3 True Wireless Earbuds! If you haven’t already just head to https://
Make sure you check out the basic fact sheets that we have loaded to the fundraising site and also encourage your kids to get involved in the weekly class prize draws! Keep an eye out next week for our next spot prize opportunity with a sKids kids activity pack up for grabs!
Thank you again to our amazing sponsors – thank you to sKids, Auckland Zoo, Toshiba and Silky Otter who have provided us with a great range of prizes!
We have partnered with Go Raise It to run our fundraising platform and we have some great fundraising spot prizes up for grabs – further details on the fundraising website. Thanks for your support!
PTFA Meeting Next Tuesday!
Our next Parents, Teachers & Friends Association (PTFA) meeting, will be held at school next Tuesday, 25th March.
Everyone is welcome! We would love to see you there!
Date: Tuesday, 25th March 2025
Time: 7:00pm
Venue: School Staffroom
This is a great opportunity to contribute your ideas and volunteer support for the upcoming 2025 events, get an update on what’s happening at school, and chat to other parents.
HTCPS PTFA
New Families Information Morning
We warmly invite our new families/students to a meeting on Thursday, 3rd April, from 9:00 am to 10:30 am at school. This session will include a presentation to help families learn more about our Catholic Special Character, curriculum and school information. It will also be a great opportunity to connect with other families.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Teaching and Learning News
Dog Safety Lessons
Auckland Council Animal Management have been patrolling our community area in the interest of reducing harm and nuisance caused by roaming dogs and to proactively engage with the community around dog safety and responsible dog ownership.
We have a great opportunity to have some of the Animal Management Officers visit our school/kura and offer some dog safety talks to our tamariki on how to stay safe around dogs/kurī.
This is one of the many community engagement initiatives being offered by the Proactive Animal Management Team and forms part of the campaign to reduce dog attacks around Tāmaki Makaurau, particularly on tamariki.
The Dog Safety team will be presenting sessions to all Learning Communities at our school this coming week!
Outdoor Education Day – Connecting with Nature
This coming Monday 24 March, our tamariki from Learning Communities Awa, Ngahere, Maunga and Moana will be taking part in a planned outdoor education programme that will empower our students to connect with nature. This is part of our Health and Physical Education curriculum which is integrated across all areas of student learning. On this day, some of our students will be exploring the use of harakeke/flax, learning about the protocols followed before cutting the harakeke and using it for weaving. Some will be looking at safety around fire, making sparks with flint and steel and making bread dampers to share. Our younger students will be using magnifying glasses as part of a nature scavenger hunt, looking at Te Whare Tapa Whā and exploring the four elements of Wellbeing – Physical, Spiritual, Social and Mental. It promises to be a great day in the outdoors for all!
Our Learners putting Kaitiakitanga learning into Action
This term, our learners are exploring Kaitiakitanga—our responsibility to care for and protect God’s creation. They are using their learning to seek ways to serve, nurture, and sustain our common home.
As kaitiaki (guardians), they have been learning about how we can all take action to look after our environment and support others in our community. Their challenge is to present their new learning in a way that will inspire others to do the same.
Through this journey, our learners are also discovering how they can encounter Christ by caring for creation and serving those around them. We look forward to seeing how they choose to share their learning and make a difference!
Building Gymnastics Skills at Bruce Pulman Park Recreation Centre
Every Thursday, students from Learning Communities Ngahere and Maunga walk to the Gymnastics Centre at Bruce Pulman Park to develop their foundational gymnastics skills. For Ngahere students, this is their first time, so they were initially unsure of what to expect, especially when using unfamiliar equipment. However, they are always excited for Thursdays because they know it’s gym session day!
Maunga students were fortunate to participate last year, so they are reviewing and practicing previously learned skills while also developing new ones. Now, students confidently recognise positions such as pike, tuck, and straddle and are becoming more skilled on the high beam and long trampoline.
A big thank you to the parents and family members who support us during these sessions—we appreciate your help each week!
Learning Community News
Learning Community Whenua
Whenua has been learning about our school’s Gospel Values—Arohanui (Compassion), Kotahitanga (Unity), and Ngākau Pono (Integrity)—in connection with Kaitiakitanga. Learners can share their understanding that we all need to work together to sustain God’s creation, our Whenua.
After sharing their ideas, learners compared different ways of showing Kaitiakitanga by looking after themselves and caring for others. As part of our KWHLAQ inquiry, one group is exploring the question: What jobs do people have that show Kaitiakitanga? They are investigating how people in various roles—such as supermarket workers, doctors, and swim instructors—show Kaitiakitanga in our common home.
We were privileged to have Mrs. Harvey speak to us about her role as our school librarian and how she contributes to sustaining our common home. Learners discussed the importance of handling books with care.
Also, our focus for Math strand is Pathways using Bee-Bots; allowing learners to describe, follow, and give instructions to move from one place to another.
It is inspiring to see our children take the initiative to stand in front of our class prayer focus, pray for God’s grace, and strengthen their Wairua.
Reminder: We have PE Physical Education) on Fridays, please make sure that your child wears their PE gear under their school uniform when they come to school and we will help them change in and out of their PE gear as needed.
Learning Community Awa
Awa is focusing on environmental care to foster Kaitiakitanga and connect it to encountering Christ. They are also learning about Gospel value stories and connecting them to Kaitiakitanga concepts. Literacy is integrated with RE, Health, and PE learning through story writing, Using hands-on experiences like making sparks with flint and steel, weaving, and PE activities like rakau, blue ride on, and inch worms sparks greater interest in story writing. For Maths we are focusing on days of the week and time measurement, and even learning the names of days in te reo māori through our on line Wai Ako programme.
Learning Community Ngahere
Ngahere have carried out a statistical investigation to find out the most popular way others like to look after their hauora/wellbeing. Learners collected data from different learning communities and recorded them using tally marks. They are working on using their tally marks to share their information using a bar graph. Learners have also been working on creating a way to teach others about how to look after their hauora – they have done an amazing job at coming up with creative ways to share their learning such as puppet shows and songs.
Learning Community Moana
In Moana we have been celebrating some fabulous active learners who have been completing tasks for home learning. These keen tamariki have completed a ‘bingo card’ of tasks to help support their reading comprehension. The reward for doing so well was a certificate, 100 whānau points, and a free pick from Ms Gill’s super duper ‘Caught Being Good’ book cupboard. We’re on to our second bingo card now and already learners have been busy ticking off tasks. Keep up the great mahi, learners!
Also in our LC, we have been focusing on Kaitiakitanga and how it’s about looking after people as well as the environment. We have explored our school story, our parish story, and Laudato Si’, and how these stories can help guide us to be kaitiaki (guardians) of all of God’s creation. Some learners created posters to highlight key messages of Laudato Si’; a phrase that stuck with many of them was Pope Francis’ reminder that “the Earth is our sister, not our slave”. We look forward to sharing our learning with the wider community soon.
Field Trip to the Botanic Gardens – EYE ON NATURE
Our Year 5/6 learners had a wonderful time exploring the Botanic Gardens on Tuesday 18th March. Students were eager to learn about the different aspects of the Eye on Nature theme for 2025: “Wellbeing: Taiao and Me”.
The day started off with learning the importance of recycling, reducing plastic use and the management of plastics. It also involved hands-on experiments in the interactive exhibits, followed by a guided tour of the reserve.
The trip provided an amazing opportunity to apply what we’ve been studying in class around Kaitiakitanga to real-world experiences. It was especially exciting to see how engaged the learners were in asking questions and discussing what they learned.
Finally, the excursion helped the students understand the importance of conservation and sparked their curiosity about the natural world.
A big thank you to all the parents who helped out to make this trip a success. We’re looking forward to more learning adventures like this one!
Hauora/WellBeing News
Awhi Team Peer Mediation
On Monday 10 March, the new student Awhi Team had their training day. We were joined by Christina Burrell from the Peace Foundation – and New Zealand’s expert on peer meditation in schools! We played listening and co-operation games, and practiced the peer mediation process. We also reviewed causes of conflict in our school and which ones that the peer mediators can help their fellow schoolmates with (the minor ones!).
Kia Ora Ake Wellbeing/Hauora Programme
Our school has been selected to help trial the Kia Ora Ake programme – an initiative of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. The programme supports the mental and emotional wellbeing (hinengaro) of children aged 5 – 13 years in the Counties Manukau region. The programme is delivered by a mix of clinical and peer support expertise personnel. Holy Trinity’s providers are the Asian Family Services team. This team of trained personnel have been working with our students in small group programmes each week. Some of the topics that can be focussed on are: managing anxiety, friendship and peer relationships, understanding emotions, distress tolerance, mindfulness, connection to culture, identity etc. Our students are loving their Kia Ora Ake programme time!
Sports News
North Counties Football
Our Year 5/6 students are taking part in the North Counties Football on Thursday 3 April at McLennan Park, Papakura. It promises to be a good day as Mr Kumar (Year 4 kaitiaki) will be coaching the team and having time to referee some of the games on the day. It’s always wonderful when we have the opportunity to take our senior students to inter school tournaments with our local Takanini/Papakura schools and for this to continue to happen, we ask for family support where you can, to come along and help either to supervise the children or to referee or coach a sport.
Duffy Books in Homes Programme
School Organisation
Emergency Drills (Earthquake & Fire)
These last few weeks our tamariki have been actively taking part in our emergency drills to help prepare them for emergencies that may take place while we are at school. They have become confident with the earthquake drill where they know to take a ‘turtle’ stance to protect their face and neck or to follow the mantra of ‘Drop, Cover, Hold’. Our children are learning that for any emergency, it’s important to remain calm and to follow their kaitiaki. Our next emergency drill that we will be practising is a Fire Drill. When the signal is on, our students know to stay calm and line up outside so their kaitiaki can lead them to the evacuation point on the field just past our sacred space/prayer garden.
Upcoming School Events
PTFA MATH-A-THON Fundraiser – online registrations still open
Fundraising sponsorship continues online
Healthy Active Learning OUTDOOR EDUCATION Day – Years 1/2- Years 5/6
Monday 24th March @ school
Dog Safety Sessions with Auckland Council Animal Management Officers
Monday 24th March – Wednesday 26th March @ Taamaua
Religious Education (RE) Student Books coming home
From Monday 24th March
PTFA Monthly Meeting
Tuesday 25th March 7:00pm in the school staffroom
School Emergency FIRE Drill Practice
Wednesday 26th March
School Board Monthly Meeting
Wednesday 26th March 7:00pm in the school staffroom
Gymnastics/Fundamental Skills Lessons for Year 3 (10am-11am) and Year 4 (11am-12:00)
Thursday 27th March @ Bruce Pulman Park Recreation Centre
School Gathering Liturgy and Assembly – led by Mrs Cortez/LC Awa and Mrs Nadan/LC Ngahere
Monday 31st March @ 8:50am in Taamaua/school hall
Duffy Books Role Model Assembly
Monday 31st March @ 9:30am in Taamaua/school hall
School End of Term Mass
Wednesday 2nd April 9:30am in Taamaua/school hall with Fr Mathew as celebrant
New Families Information Morning
Thursday 3rd April 9:00am – 10;30am in Taamaua/school hall
North Counties FootBall Inter-schools Tournament – Year 5/6
Thursday 3rd April
Gymnastics/Fundamental Skills Lessons for Year 3 (10am-11am) and Year 4 (11am-12:00)
Thursday 3rd April @ Bruce Pulman Park Recreation Centre
PTFA MATH-A-THON Fundraiser – FINAL
Fundraising sponsorship closing
HERO Online Digital Reporting published for all students
From Monday 7th April
Duffy Books Theatre Performance
Wednesday 9th April @ 1:30pm in Taamaua/school hall
School Stations of the Cross
Friday 11th April @ school
Term 1 Concludes
Friday 11th April
Term 2 Commences
Monday 28th April 8:50am
