Dear Parents

Yesterday we celebrated a beautiful Mass with parishioners and whanau. It was our opening school Mass for the 2023 school year, celebrated by Monsignor David. The students led the Mass. They showed their talents with their reading and singing. The liturgical dancers were superb. A wonderful celebration for our school.

On Easter Friday, our students will be enacting the Stations of the Cross as part of the Parish Easter Liturgies. We would appreciate parents considering their children being a part of this liturgy. If you are happy for your child to participate in the Stations of the Cross liturgy on Friday, 7th April, could you please contact Annette Woodhead DRS – annettew@sj.school.nz

The school programme is well underway for the year and is great to see our students participating in an amazing array of activities. It is great to be back to a relatively normal year of AWESOME learning and interaction. Enjoy the photos below of some of the activities.

Alister Bridgman
Tumuaki
principal@sj.school.nz

The Principal’s Message will cover the following topics:

• A Prayer for Lent
• Kakapo Family Picnic
• Netball & Hockey Sports Registrations
• Photos from Back-to-School Picnic
• Hot Cross Bun Fundraiser
• Beach Ed
• North Shore Primary Schools Swim Meet
• Kakariki Arts Rotation
• Book Club
• Kakariki Retreat Day
• Community Notices

I am the light of the world

“He opened my eyes”

E te Ariki, Lord, today we listen to the story of the blind man. Lord, open our eyes to the things you want us to see and give us wisdom in our discussion and prayer today. We make this prayer through Christ our Lord. Āmene.

Thank you to all the parents who could make it to Team Kakapo’s family picnic.

The field was a bit too wet for our picnic so we brought the picnic indoors.

It was lovely to see everyone and the children enjoyed having lunch with our parent community

We invite parents to enrol for the following sports:

Note: Based on feedback received from the Google form sent out to the netball parents earlier this month, the majority of the Year 4’s want to play at Netball North Harbour, while the Year 5’s prefer Kidzplay. Please note – if your child is in these year groups and would like to play in the other league please register and we will look to place them into a mixed year group team.

Kidzplay Netball (Winter season Terms 2 & 3) – Years 1-5
Played at Pinehurst School in Albany on Saturday mornings
Games start on Saturday 6th May until 2nd September (no games on 3 June – King’s Birthday weekend)

North Harbour Netball (Winter season Terms 2 & 3) – Year 4
Played at Netball North Harbour on Northcote Road on Monday afternoons
Games start on Monday 1st May until 21st August.

North Harbour Netball (Winter season Terms 2 & 3) – Year 5 & 6
Played at Netball North Harbour on Northcote Road on Wednesday afternoons
Games start on Wednesday 3rd May until 23rd August.

*North Harbour Hockey (Winter season Terms 2 & 3 ) – Years 3-6
Played at North Harbour Hockey grounds on Bush Road, Albany on Monday afternoons
Games start on Monday 8th May until 28th August (no games on King’s Birthday)

*Please note – we only had enough players in 2022 to form one mixed Year 4-6 hockey team; therefore these registrations will only be confirmed when we know if we have enough players to form a team.

Registrations for Netball and Hockey close on Friday 24 March

How to enrol?

Please go to www.sj.school.nz

– scroll down to the link to SCHOOL/SPORTS PAYMENTS

– this will take you to Enrolmy

– Login/create a login (if you haven’t already got one)

– Click “See School Activities”

– When you click ‘Book Activity’ if you have already registered your child for an activity through your enrolmy login, please just select the box of the child you are wanting to enrol.

Please consider your child’s schedule carefully before booking. Any refunds will be charged a $5 administration fee unless they can be transferred to another activity.

Any questions please email sports@sj.school.nz
Kind regards

St Joseph’s Sport

Order your Hot Cross Buns!
https://stjosephspta.org.nz/collections/fundraising

This Easter we are joining with Bakers Delight (Milford) to bring you delicious Hot Cross Buns! You can choose between the four flavours and order as many packs as you like.

Pop them under the grill and enjoy them for morning tea with lashings of butter in the lead up to Easter; or freeze to feed the troops during the school holidays!

All funds raised will be allocated to St Joseph’s Catholic School for the building of an exciting, new Junior Playground for our tamariki!

Need to know dates:

• Thursday the 30th of March – Last day for orders
• Monday 3rd April – Hot Cross Buns will be delivered to St Joseph’s School and given to the St Joseph’s student nominated on the order form (under billing address). The student will deliver these to the purchaser. Please include the child’s full name and home group number.

Hot Cross Bun options:

• Traditional Hot Cross Bun 6-Pack – In case you knead another reason to devour our Traditional Hot Cross Buns, they’re made with real fruit, delicious spice mix, and no bitter orange peel!
• Apple & Cinnamon Hot Cross Bun 6-Pack- Tasty to the core, our Apple & Cinnamon Hot Cross Buns are made with real Pink Lady apples and baked fresh especially for you! You won’t want to stop at one! 
• Choc Chip Hot Cross Bun 6-Pack – With over 100 choc chips in every bun, our Choc Chip Hot Cross Bun is a chocolate lover’s dream! Enjoy as they are, or pop under the grill for a melted chocolate delight. One won’t be enough!
• Mocha Hot Cross Bun 6-Pack – Satisfy two cravings in one with our delicious and freshly- baked Mocha Hot Cross Bun. It combines two of life’s greatest necessities, coffee and chocolate! 

JUST CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW AND START ORDERING IN TIME FOR EASTER!

St. Joseph’s has been invited to compete at the annual North Shore Primary Schools swimming event which is on Tuesday 2 May 2023 at the National Aquatic Centre in Mairangi Bay (the new pool beside AUT Millennium). The event will run from 9.30am until 2.30pm.

This event is for Years 4-6 only and will be held in a pool that is 2m deep and 25m in length. Therefore to enter your children, you must confirm they are able to competently swim 25m without needing to touch the bottom of the pool.

The event is optional and is $12 per child.

If your child is attending, the parent(s) of each swimmer will need to take them to and from the pool, as well as supervise them on the day (some will need to help out at the event as well). There will be no staff from the school attending, as this is an individual event.

The final day for registration is Friday 31 March or when the maximum number of swimmers per school has been reached.

Each swimmer can select up to 3 events from the list below (note: only experienced swimmers should enter the 100 Free):

• 25m Free
• 25m Back
• 25m Breast
• 25m Fly
• 50m Free
• 50m Back
• 50m Breast
• 100m Free – 9 years + and for very confident swimmers only

Please add an approximate time for each event e.g. 25 Free – 20 secs, 25 Back – 25 secs, 25 Breast – 30 secs (if you do not have any times, we can add an average one for their age group).

Any questions please contact sports@sj.school.nz

Thank you!

Book Club is Rewarding!

By participating in Book Club, not only are you encouranging a reading culture in your school, a percentage of the total order will be given back to your school in Rewards to spend on additional educational resources!

Scholastic Rewards are our way of saying thank you for being our partner in learning and literacy. Over the last financial year, Scholastic gave schools across New Zealand and Australia more than $13 million in Scholastic Rewards!

Place the handy images below into your newsletter and social media to inform your school community about Book Club News.

Last Friday 3rd of March, Year 5 and 6 students from the Kakariki team had a Retreat Day to get closer to God, and try to act like Jesus.

We began with Mass. Then we met Justine from Caritas, which is a big charitable group of people and volunteers who help others in war, natural disasters and in poverty. It is the 2nd biggest group after the Red Cross. The focus this year is on supporting Fiji.

After Mass, our group went to view a slideshow and watch a video about how Caritas works.

Then after morning tea, we got split up into 4 groups: Shining, Gleaming, Glowing and Illuminating. All of us based our focus on Lent – “I am the light of the world… Ko Ahau te Whakamarama o te Ao”.

Then we went in a rotation of Caritas learning: building the tallest tower with toothpicks and blue-tack, a “talking to God” session, and making a booklet which we can use in class to record our own karakia/prayers.

Many of us are aiming to do extra tasks and jobs at home to help to support Caritas during Lent this term.

Reporter: Aaron Yap

Please check out the latest community notices that are on our school website.