Kia ora Whanau,

It is wonderful to have all the students back for the new term.

Thank you for taking the time to meet with your child’s teacher on Monday. It was a lovely opportunity for teachers and whanau to touch base and discuss the progress the students have made in the first half of the year. Later this term, parents will be invited in for the Term 3 “Sharing the Learning” (4th of September).

This morning, our prayer leaders led us through a lovely school prayers focused on Matariki. It was great that families were able to join us for Matariki Coffee and join the students for Matariki prayers.

With winter now setting, in we ask that parents ensure all their children’s uniform items are clearly named, including the school polo fleeces. Please support your child by reminding them they are responsible for their uniform. If they take off their polo fleece, they need to put it in their school bag, rather than leaving it lying around for someone else to pick up. The Lost Property cage lives outside HG 10. Students are able to access this throughout the school day. Occasionally students pick up the wrong polo fleece in their HG. If you find the wrong one has come home, please get your child to return it to the owner and to locate theirs.

On Tuesday this week, you will have received an email from AskYourTeam. It contained a link to our Community Involvement Survey. We would really appreciate it if you could complete the survey in the coming week. The information we receive from the survey will assist with our planning for 2024. Thank you.

What an amazing game the NZ Women’s Football Ferns played last night at Eden Park, in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. They played with such passion and skill – it was an AWESOME win. To celebrate their success, (as well as celebrating this highly regarded international women’s sporting competition, played here in New Zealand), we will have an “international sports wear day” on Tuesday, July 25th. Students can come dressed in the colours of one of the women’s teams that are playing in this competition. Tuesday evening will see NZ vs Philippines, taking place in Wellington at 5.30 pm.

GO NZ FOOTBALL FERNS!!!

Take care

Ka manaakitia e te Atua.

Alister Bridgman
Principal

The Principal’s Message will cover the following topics:

• Welcome
• Te Reo Maori Phrase of the Week
• Cultural Afternoons
• Life Education
• PFTA
• Community Notices

A very warm welcome to our new students, starting at St Joseph’s in Term 3:

Cyruse, Doran, Henok, Maggi, Sylvester, Wiz & Yvaine

We hope you and your families enjoy our wonderful school community.

Honour, acknowledge and welcome in Matariki

We would love your help with our Cultural Afternoons starting 31st July this term! We are looking for whānau that can support our teachers to lead a group of students (around 30) learning about the different cultures and cultural backgrounds in our community. Do you have time on a Monday afternoon from 1:30 – 2:45 pm? This could be a group of people that could take turns or you could give some time outside these hours to meet with a teacher to support their understanding.

We are learning:

• basic greetings and everyday words in another language
• names for everyday items
• to make connections between other languages and English
• ways that we are the same and different to people in other countries

Could you help us with groups learning about:

• French
• Filipino
• Indian
• Korean
• Chinese
• Indonesian
• German
• Samoan
• Latin America
• Irish
• Tongan
• Or any other ideas/areas of expertise that you have.

Please email annettew@sj.school.nz if you are available to help by Wednesday 26th July

Thank you for your continued support! 🙂 

Life Education

Reported by Aaron, HG1

At Life Education we learnt about our body and how it works. We also learned about how our emotions, brain and how it works. It turns out that we have many parts to our brains.

Your reptilian part helps with balance, movement and coordination. An interesting part of the brain is the amygdala – it is important for survival and this is where we get: fight, flight or freeze responses.

We also learnt about neurons which are communication cells. Neurons help your brain learn and remember things and if you practise, the neurons grow stronger so you can remember faster.

We met Harold the giraffe puppet and we did a little disco at the end. The clapping echo game was fun too.

We look forward to next week’s lesson.

EMOTIONS:

Please check out the latest community notices  which you can find on our school website.