Term 4 Week 3 Newsletter #10

Term 4 Week 3                           31 October 2024                                                   Newsletter #10     

Principal’s Message

Tena Koutou Katoa    Talofa Lava     Kamusta    Malo e lelei    Mauri   Malo ni  Faka talofa atu    Namaste   Greetings to all Term 4 is well underway and by now you would have received your child’s team’s term newsletter and the Term 4 Key Dates, so it will be of no surprise to you that we have a very busy term ahead. The tamariki look smart in their summer uniforms; it’s a pity about this week’s cold snap.  I had a very busy term break spending a week with my daughter and grandson in England before joining a principals study tour in Finland. This was an amazing experience and it was interesting to observe a very different education system in action. Finland leads the world in academic achievement but they are so well resourced, financially and with teaching staff, that it could not be compared to my Australian and New Zealand principal colleagues’ reality. I feel assured that we are providing the best education possible with our resourcing limitations and I congratulate our teachers/staff on their commitment to meeting the learning needs of our students.  This week our Year 3-6 students were to participate in inter-school Touch Rugby. Unfortunately this was postponed for our Year 3&4 students and we were unable to participate tomorrow as we are joining the 9:00 am parish mass celebrating All Saints Day. The month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. At school, our children will be saying the rosary each day and taking turns to pray the rosary in our prayer area with the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes who also holds her rosary beads. I encourage you to say the rosary in your homes so our children can experience this traditional prayer with you as a family.  Today and tomorrow, St Joseph’s is hosting the Franklin Schools EPro8 competitions in our school hall. The EPro8 Challenge is an exciting, hands-on engineering and problem-solving competition for primary and intermediate students across New Zealand. Teams of students use their creativity and critical thinking to tackle practical challenges in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM). Equipped with specialised kits containing materials like pulleys, gears, motors, and building supplies, teams work collaboratively to construct solutions to real-world problems under time constraints. The competition encourages teamwork, innovation, and resilience, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for students to develop their STEM skills in a fun, competitive environment. We will have two teams of Year 5&6 students competing in the hall tomorrow, Friday 1 November.  A special welcome to Mrs Estelle Julius to our staff. Mrs Julius replaces Mrs Gallagher in Arahi Ki Runga and we are delighted to have her with us. Mrs Julius has worked in Catholic schools for several years and is very familiar with how we work.  I hope you and your whānau enjoyed your Labour Weekend together.  Next week you can look forward to another long weekend as teachers have a Professional Development Day on Friday 8th November (allocated by the MOE due to the new Curriculum changes) and an additional Teacher Only Day on Monday 11th November. In 2024, NZ primary schools are to be open for a minimum of 384 half days. St Joseph’s School will meet this commitment by ending our school year on Wednesday 18th December. We are all looking forward to participating in our annual Mission Day on Friday 15th November organised by our senior students. This year all of our classes are contributing to it and we know it will be a great success. On Mission Day, our children raise money to help other children in our Mission Sisters’ mission stations in India and Vietnam.   Wishing you and your whanau many spring blessings.  Nga manaakitanga ki a koe.

Special Catholic Character

1. Make the Sign of the Cross and pray the “Apostles’ Creed”
2. Pray the “Our Father”
3. Pray three “Hail Marys” for Faith, Hope, and Charity
4. Pray the “Glory Be”
5. Announce the First Mystery and then pray the “Our Father”
6. Pray ten “Hail Marys” while meditating on the Mystery
7. Pray the “Glory Be” (Optional: Pray the “O My Jesus” prayer requested by Mary at Fatima)
8. Announce the Next Mystery; then pray the “Our Father” and repeat these steps (6 through 8) as you continue through the remaining Mysteries.
9. Pray the closing prayers: the “Hail Holy Queen” and “Final Prayer”
10. Make the “Sign of the Cross”

Pope Saint John Paul II suggested the recitation of the Rosary as follows: the JOYFUL mysteries Monday and Saturday, the LUMINOUS on Thursday, the SORROWFUL on Tuesday and Friday, and the GLORIOUS on Wednesday and Sunday (with this exception; Sundays of Advent and Christmas – the JOYFUL; Sundays of Lent – the SORROWFUL).

https://rosarycenter.org/how-to-pray-the-rosary

Arahi’s year 5 and 6 students led our school in A Rosary Liturgy last Wednesday.

 

Key Dates

Term 4 Key Dates

Please note these dates are subject to change For further dates see calendars on the website  at: www.stjosephs.co.nz or the eTAP app       

 

School Board

SCHOOL POLICIES

A link to our school policies can be found on our school website or through www.schooldocs.co.nz

1. Go to www.schooldocs.co.nz/
2. Click Search for your school
3. Start typing the school’s name (St Joseph’s School Pukekohe) and then select it from the dropdown list.
4. Enter the community username: stjosephspukekohe and password: mission.

SchoolDocs Term 4 Policy Review: 

This Term the Board is asked to review the following policies: Finance and Asset Management Policy, Managing Income and Expenditure, Financial Conflicts of Interest, Asset Management and Protection.

The following reviews are open to the staff and the school community: School Donations and Student Activity Payments/Attendance Dues and Other Income, Expenditure, Property Planning and Maintenance, Prevention of Bribery, Corruption, Fraud, and Theft.

This Review closes on 13 December 2024.

Our next Board meeting is on Wednesday November 6th.

If you would like to contact the Board directly at any time, please do so through our email address schoolboard@stjosephs.co.nz 

School Notices / Upcoming Events

School Attendance Dues

We would like all 2024 Attendance Dues to be paid in full before 30 November.

into our account: ASB  12-3023-0338374-01 ref: student’s name

The Catholic Character Contribution is a voluntary contribution forwarded to the Catholic Education Services Board. The St Joseph’s Development Trust Contribution is a voluntary contribution which the Trust is extremely grateful to receive. This is used in our school for improvements to our site and facilities. Both of these voluntary contributions are tax deductible.

 

School Start Time

Students are expected to be at school by 8:30 am. Teachers are not in class until 8:15 am.  

Any children who come to school earlier than 8:15 are not supervised. 

Our Term 3 Attendance Summary from the MOE says that 70% of our students are regularly on time to school. That means 30% (92 students) are not. That needs to improve. 

Parents, you need to ensure you child is at school by 8:30 every day. Thank you.

 

Second-Hand Uniform Shop

The second-hand uniform shop is now open on Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:30-3:00 pm.

All students should now be in their summer uniforms. Lightweight grey shorts for boys with a short-sleeved school polo. A summer tunic for girls and black Roman sandals for boys and girls. Sun hats are compulsory and children who are not wearing them will have to play under the shaded areas.  

We would like to acknowledge Michelle Farrell and say a big thank you.  She has kept the second hand uniform shop running for us for the last few years, without her help we couldn’t have given our school community this service. Due to other commitments Michelle is no longer able to help us with the shop but we appreciate all the time she has given our school.

We have two new parents to the school who have kindly offered to share this job, thank you to Shelley Nicolson and Natasha Alderton for giving us their time.

Please be mindful that this is a secondhand shop for families who are struggling to buy new uniforms. The items are donated and we charge a small amount that goes back to the students through the PTA.  We are not a retail store, we do not have all items, we only have what is donated. If you require items we do not have, you will need to buy them new from The Uniform Shoppe on Glasgow Road, Pukekohe.

New Enrolments

 If you have a 4-year-old child or a child who is turning 4 in the next few months we would like you to come and collect an Enrolment Pack please.  If you know of another family who is thinking of enrolling at St Joseph’s please let them know we need to hear from them now.  

Enrolment documents can also be found on our website.

Knowing the number of new students starting in advance assists us with our 2025 staffing allocation.

School Photos

Your school photos should be delivered to school by the 7th of November.  Please contact Masterpiece if you have any queries, Phone 07 823 4306 or masterpiece@xtra.co.nz

Year 7 – 2026 Enrolments

Attention current Year 5 families and students!

Do you know which school your child will be going to for Year 7 in 2026? St Ignatius of Loyola is currently taking enrolments for 2026. Their enrolment cut-off is Friday 21st February 2025. All other Catholic Colleges will be accepting enrolments for 2026 at the beginning of next year. All St Joseph’s Students who wish to continue their education at a Catholic College should be completing enrolment applications or forms now.

 

2024 School Magazine/Year Book

If you would like to purchase a school magazine the cost is $26.00 all payments are to be received by 15th November to the school bank account 12-3023-0338374-01 with the ref: magazine.

This is a lovely record of our school year.

 

School Communication

Please make sure you are using the eTAP @students app. This is the main way we communicate information about the school. The best way to make sure you are receiving all information is to ensure that you have notifications turned on and that you receive emails from the app.

 

If you are experiencing any difficulty please let the office or Mrs Burns know.

 

Year 6 Graduation Event

As most of you are aware, St Joseph’s School always celebrates our graduating class with a celebratory event. This year the dinner will be held on Thursday 5th December 6 – 8:30pm. The invites and RSVP will be coming out shortly to our Year 6 families. Behind the scenes a dedicated bunch of Year 5 parents and members of our PTA are busy planning the event. This is another tradition at our school. The younger year (previously Year 7, now Year 5 parents plan and organise the event for our graduating class). At this time the planning committee is needing the school’s assistance in donating some supplies. 

We are currently seeking:

Rice Cookers – must be 7 cups or more capacity

Warming Trays

If you are able to lend us these items from Wednesday 4th – Friday 6th December we would be very grateful. Please make sure your item is clearly named. Please email Mrs Burns to let us know if you can assist. robinb@stjosephs.co.nz        Thank you very much!

Celebrations 

Aroha

What a lovely start to the term in Aroha! Welcome to all of our new students and family who are new to our kura. We have been busy settling back into our school routines as well getting ready for our big Athletics day coming up in Week 4. In Math we have been learning about repeating patterns and have had some fun making patterns with our construction equipment. Lastly for Concept we have begun our learning about water. Check out some of our amazing Year 1 writers in Aroha!

Weeeee! I jumped out of the cloud. I am falling yay! I am excited because I am a very wet raindrop. I slid down a rainbow and fell off the rainbow. I got soaked up in the ground and I saw heaps of wiggly worms. I saw a mole. I saw ten of them. I went up a stem of a yellow flower then I saw my friends and I floated back up to my house. It is my cloud. By Caleb

I am a little rain drop. I jumped out of the cloud. I said weeee! Well I was coming down from the sky. I saw some beautiful birds. Next I fell on a beautiful flower. I am also a wet raindrop. My friends were there too! I turned into fog and I then went back up to the cloud. I went back to my home. By Anamalia

I am a little raindrop falling from the sky. Weeeeee! On the way I passed by a rainbow. I took a slide weee! Now that I am down I’m going to grow a flower, grow, grow, grow. Down under ground I saw wriggly worms actually lots of them. Up I went back to the cloud. Up, up, up, up, up, up! I slept in. It was such an adventure! By Malaika

Ako

Ako has had a great start to the final term of 2024. We have started learning all about service and how we can be of service to those around us. We have begun creating items for Mission Day, learnt all about being a volunteer and some important First Aid information. We even joined in with St John Ambulance and their Save a Teddy Day. We learnt lots about calling an ambulance and how to give someone CPR when needed. It was especially fun practising on our teddies. 

Arahi 

In Week 1 we had EPro8 where all of Arahi had to solve the engineering feat of creating an Earthquake simulator. Take a look at our creations.

Arahi have been super busy this term already. We have our annual Mission Day coming up in Week 5. Our Year 4’s have been learning about advertising and creating a product to sell at Mission Day and this year they are creating Cloud Playdough. The Year 5’s have been designing and creating Lucky Dips where they have to have a product, activity, and a treat. The Year 6’s are busy organising their own stalls to sell products and activities to the whole school such as: Wacky Hair, Slime, Ice Cream, Spin the Wheel challenges and so much MORE! 

This Term for RE our Year 5 and 6 students have been working on the Communion of Saints Strand where our focus is Mary. Take a look at our depictions of Mary in the Bible.

Community Notices

 

ACCOMMODATION NEEDED

We have a school family in need of rental accommodation close to St Joseph’s School and St Patrick’s Church.  Please contact the School office if you can help.  

Ph: 09 238  7745

 

 

 

 

 

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