Dear Whanau and Parents,

Yesterday we were delighted to hear of the arrival of Ms Murdoch’s baby daughter. A truly special day for her and her family. We look forward to seeing them both later in the year. Please keep them in your prayers.

Next week we are looking forward to Auckland possibly moving into Alert Level 3. All going well, we will be open on Wednesday next week for the children who are reflected in the MOE guideline – In Alert Level 3 schools must be open for children who need to attend as there is no suitable carer in the home.

The MOE asks that we remind parents that when we do move to Alert Level 3, we legally must stay within our household bubble unless for essential personal movement, including going to work and going to school.

We are required to keep school bubbles to no more than 10 students. These bubbles will not mix with other bubbles. We will continue to support all children who remain learning from home, and within school bubbles, through our distance learning programme.

All our usual safety precautions for Alert Level 3 will be in place which include following all the recommendations from the public health experts. Our contact tracing systems will be in place, which includes our attendance register and visitor register, and we will be limiting staff onsite with the majority of our team working from home.

All the Alert Level 3 information is available through this link. Please read if you are not in a position to keep your child at home.

The Minister of Education has announced this morning that the upcoming school break will begin as planned on Saturday 2 October.

The Principal’s Message will cover the following topics:

• Childrens Chat
• PTA News
• Parish News

Ka manaakitia e te Atua

Alister Bridgman
Tumuaki

Thank you for the positive feedback we have received regarding the ‘Childrens Chat’ initiative. It is great the children are enjoying these.

Monday next week, as you did this week, you will receive an email from the homegroup teacher with the zoom link for the ‘Childrens Chat’ for your child. For some of the teams there will be different groupings. The days are the same as they have been for each team. The groupings will be as follows:

• Team Kiwi Friday 2 X 2 Home Groups and 1 x 1 Home Group
• Team Kea Thursday Team Zoom – 3 teachers
• Team Kakariki Wednesday Individual Home Groups – 2 teachers
• Team Kakapo Tuesday Individual Home Groups – 2 teachers

Due to the current COVID restrictions we’ve had to cancel our Shipwrecked Quiz Night, as it’s going to be well into Term 4 before we can hold an event for over 200+ people. We’ve therefore come up with TWO fun, online events for the St Joe’s community to enjoy from the comfort of their bubble:

Lockdown Family Funlympics

Date: Friday, 17th September 2021 (Level 4, Lockdown)

Time: 6 pm

Tickets: FREE – one ticket is required per person attending (i.e. a family of 4 requires 4 tickets, a couple requires 2 tickets). Please grab your tickets ASAP, so we can ascertain how many people are booked in each session.

Dress Up: Olympics Theme

Price: FREE from https://stjosephspta.org.nz

Where: Zoom from Your House. A Zoom link will be emailed to you 24-48 hours before the event by FunLabs.

Find out more here.

Lockdown Family Quiz

Date: Friday, 24th September 2021 (hopefully Level 3, Lockdown – so grab a takeaway from a local business and join in!)

Time: 6 pm

Tickets: FREE – one ticket is required per person attending (i.e. a family of 4 requires 4 tickets, a couple requires 2 tickets). Please grab your tickets ASAP, so we can ascertain how many people are booked in each session.

Dress Up: Crazy Hat Theme

Price: FREE from https://stjosephspta.org.nz

Where: Zoom from Your House. A Zoom link will be emailed to you 24-48 hours before the event by FunLabs.

Find out more here.

Donations welcome: By having to cancel the Shipwrecked Quiz Night, we have unfortunately lost our biggest fundraising event for 2021. As we are focused on fundraising for a deck area for our library, the facilitation of SPHERO & LEGO learning program, and the refurbishment of our junior playground, the cancellation has been disheartening.

The PTA is focused not only on fundraising but also on bringing the community together, especially in unprecedented times. Hence we thought it was prudent to support a Community Event like the St Joe’s Online Funlympics. These sessions will cost the PTA a few hundred dollars to run each session via FunLabs. We have funds to hold this community event, however, if you would like to make a small donation to support this, you have the option on the cart page or you can make a deposit to the PTA bank account. ASB Bank: 12-3026-0316672-000. Reference: Fun

See you online!

St Joseph’s PTA

St Joseph’s Parish Newsletter – Sunday 19 September

CDA Connect

NZ Catholic