Talofa lava and kia ora e te whānau,

This week, I want to share some great news about our strong attendance results, as well as give you a clear picture of our behaviour expectations and the kind of culture we’re building together at Holy Cross. 

One key lesson I learnt during teacher training was this: behaviour is learnt. If our tamariki aren't behaving in the way we expect, it’s our shared responsibility as teachers, parents, and whānau to support them and guide them in the right direction.

Our Behaviour Management Process - PB4L

We work hard to understand the behaviour patterns of our tamariki. When we see behaviour that isn’t okay, we respond to it and track it using PB4L (Positive Behaviour for Learning) entries. Each entry is a quick summary of who, what, where, when, and why the behaviour happened. This helps us spot any patterns through specific evidence and understand what might be going on beneath the surface. 

Major Vs Minor Behaviours

Events are put into one of two categories; a major or minor event.  

• Major incidents compromise the safety of others and are usually referred straight to the Senior Leadership Team.

• Minor incidents are still important, but can usually be handled by the classroom or duty teacher at the time.

What Happens Next?

After an incident is dealt with, the next step is to consider how the teacher responded. This is about helping our tamariki reflect, reset, and move forward. These are the most common teacher responses, based on PB4L practice:

• Student conversation
• Teaching/modelling expected behaviours
• Time out/cooling down, 
• Restorative justice conversations, 
• Reflection sheet, 
• Taken to Syndicate Leader, 
• Parent contact, 
• Mutually agreed consequence (e.g., drop rubbish = pick up rubbish)

What We’re Focusing on Now

One area we’re placing more focus on is repeated minor behaviours. These often signal that a child is struggling with something deeper, emotional regulation, social skills, or even just needing clearer boundaries.

A child who can manage their emotions is far less likely to get into fights, lash out, or feel overwhelmed. That’s why we’re using the Zones of Regulation more across our school. The Zones help tamariki name and understand their emotions, and learn ways to return to a calm, focused space. This is not about avoiding consequences, but about helping our kids grow the tools to make better choices.

How We’re Responding – Our Draft 2025 Behaviour Plan

Over the past year, I’ve been working on a model that weaves together:

• Our school values – Whānau, Aroha, and YES! (Be inclusive, be kind, be brave)
• PB4L strategies
• Zones of regulation
• Informal feedback from staff and whānau and, 
• What we’ve seen actually works in our school context

This Behaviour Response Plan is still a draft and will continue to evolve, but I want to share what it looks like so far:

This model is about helping, not punishing our tamariki to grow into kind, respectful and brave learners. Thanks for your continued support, and please feel free to come and kōrero if you have any thoughts or ideas.

Term 1 - Attendance 2025

I wanted to take a moment to share some great news around our school attendance. It’s something we’ve been working hard on with families and the results show. Each week, we send off reports to the Ministry of Education who then take the data and use it for a regional and national picture. Here are key findings from the report sent at the end of T1, 2025. 

Regular Attendance (90% or more): 81% of students – 134 tamariki
(Up from 74% in 2024 – ka rawe!)
This means the vast majority of our students are at school regularly, which is the single biggest factor in their learning success.

Irregular Absence (80–89%): 13% of students – 22 tamariki
(Down from 21% in 2024 – great progress)
We're seeing a clear improvement here. The fewer students in this category, the better.

Moderate Absence (70–79%): 4% of students – 6 tamariki
(Slight increase from 3% in 2024 – still small numbers, but we’re keeping a close eye)

Chronic Absence (less than 70%): 2% of students – 3 tamariki
(Same as 2024 – holding steady, but still a concern we’re actively working on)

We also looked at the reasons behind the absences and here’s what we found:

• Medical – 54%
• Holiday – 15%
• Unjustified – 15%
• Explained (other family reasons) – 9%
• Unknown – 5%

We’re proud of the improvements and momentum so far, and we’ll keep working alongside you to lift attendance even further. A big thank you to all of you who make sure your tamariki are here each day, ready to learn and connect.

Let’s keep going! Every day really does count. If you need any support, please reach out. We’re here to help. 

Final Words

This week, we also take time to celebrate Catholic Schools Day, a reminder of the faith, love, and purpose that guide our kura. At Holy Cross, our special character is seen in the way we care, include, and uplift one another every day.

As Scripture reminds us: “Let all that you do be done in love.” – 1 Corinthians 16:14

Thank you for helping us build a school community where every child is known, valued, and supported to thrive.

Ngā mihi nui, 

Arohanui,

Sacrament of Confirmation

Last Sunday Holy Trinity Parish celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Congratulations to the 18 students from Holy Cross School who got confirmed on that day.

Archbishop Paul Martin presided over the mass and spoke about “words and actions”. As a Catholic, consistency between words and actions is key. Catholics are called to not only speak about their faith, but also to live it out in their daily lives, reflecting God's love through their choices and behaviors. This includes actively participating in the Church, praying, and demonstrating love and service to others. 

Ascension Sunday

The 40th day after Easter was the final day when Jesus was seen. On this day, he visited his disciples. This is the day he was taken to heaven and is called Ascension Day. The day is also known as the Feast of Ascension or Holy Thursday, as it always falls on this day of the week.

1. Jesus ascended, but we don’t stand around looking after him. How and where do we see/encounter him? (Acts 1:1-11)
   After Jesus' ascension, believers can encounter him through the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the sacraments, and in the lives and actions of others, especially the marginalized.
   
   
2. What hope and riches have we (the church) inherited as disciples of God? (Eph 1:15-23)
   We are also part of God's glorious inheritance, and God's power is shown through us.

Kia ora!

We have had a busy terms so far with weekly swimming sessions at KIlbirnie Pool where we are learning water safety skills as well as swimming skills.

We were lucky enough to visit Te Papa where we got to do coding using Scratch as well as creating circuits using a tool called Makey Makey. We then combined both things and create our own Mauri Activators. It was lots of fun as well as being really interesting to learn about. 

We have been working on our Structured Literacy approach in Literacy and improving our Multiplication and Division skills in Maths. We are now moving on to Rational Numbers (or Fractions and Decimals).

Some of us took part in the Easter Zone Cross Country at Scots College in Week 4, all tried really hard with some great results. 

We are having a Garden to Table bake sale to raise funds for camp 2026 later this term (Week 9) and will be baking goods in Garden to Table over the next few weeks. We are hoping to raise lots of money to support Camp 2026!

Room 8 has had a wonderful start to the term.

Our routines have settled into a lovely rhythm across the week. 

We have been enjoying reading The Wild Robot together and sharing the highs and lows of life on a tiny island as Roz the robot finds her inner wild, all the while learning about friendship.

In maths, we started the term building on our multiplication and division skills and have moved into learning about repeating and growing patterns. We are collating the pattern information into tables to figure out the rule and make predictions.

In Science, we have learned about the Light and Buoyancy and Density. Conducting experiments; predicting, observing and thinking.

We are excited for our class trip next week to continue our learning about Kaitiakitanga. We are visiting Parliament to learn about How Parliament Works (leadership in action) and The City Gallery to view our whenua (land) through the literal lens of photography. Thank you to those whānau who have given permission for tamariki to come and for those whānau who are joining us on the day.

Educators from The City Gallery visited us at school today. They introduced us to the idea of making cyanotype photographs of plants grown in our whenua. 

These are just some highlights of the term. Our Garden to Table programme is eagerly anticipated by ākonga as is the current swimming sessions.

As usual, we welcome whānau to pop in and have a chat!

Mauri ora

Sonya and Lyn

Today in the garden before we did the garden task, we were in the GTT classroom learning about Maramataka.

Olivia asked us to go outside to look at the changes in our garden. We did that because it is almost winter and we need to know what the signs are for winter in our garden.

We wrote about winter and what we noticed in the garden.

Nikki and Rory planted a kale seedling and created a 'nest' of mulch around it to keep it warm and protected through the winter. 

Why did the flowers stop growing? Because the sun stopped coming.

By Gabriella 

What are School Boards?

All of New Zealand's state and state-integrated schools have a school board which is the Crown entity responsible for the governance of the school.

The board:

• ensures every student can reach their highest possible standard in student achievement
• is the employer of all staff in the school
• sets the school's strategic direction in consultation with parents, whānau, staff, students and the wider school community
• is responsible for overseeing the management of personnel, curriculum, property, finance and administration

School board members are active leaders in our schools. They have an important role of supporting strong professional leadership and ensuring effective teaching for all students through informed governance.

Parents/caregivers and people in the wider community can be parent representatives. School boards need to represent the diversity of their school communities to ensure a bright future for all our children.

The school board elections are the opportunity to vote for candidates who will make a positive difference for children’s education. We need more people willing to use their skills and experiences for the benefit of students!

You can view our Policies and Procedures, please click on the following link.  

https://www.schooldocs.co.nz/Home/SchoolLogin.aspx

Our username is :hcm and password : schooldocs

Current review

To start reviewing, click on a topic name below, then click the Start your review button. If a link is inactive, our school doesn't have the topic.

In term 2 we are reviewing policies in the Health, Safety, and Welfare Policy section.

These are the topics specified on the review schedule. You can also review any topic that has a review button.

Reviewers who are not able to use the online review tool can use the Policy review form .

Kia Ora Holy Cross Whanau 

Term 2 is flying by! The start to our term has been a busy one with the Parents’ Group helping to organise and host two fundraising events. 

Book Week 

Book week has become an annual celebration at Holy Cross whereby we combine our fundraising efforts with helping to bring the love of reading alive for our children.  An important focus in our new curriculum is reading for pleasure so what better way to support that by making sure our library has beautiful books for our children to read.

One of the commitments that the Parents’ Group has made is making sure we help to provide fun and engaging experiences for our children. During book week the Parents’ Group helped fund an award winning author Steve Mushin to visit our school.  He spent the whole day with our children taking workshops and having inspiring conversations.  There has been amazing feedback from students saying  how much fun they had and he has inspired students to think deeper about innovation and our environment.  As a bonus Steve has even donated a copy of his award winning book, Ultrawild, to our school! 

With your help we raised $820.13 which means that our lovely librarian Sophie will be able to buy lots of brand new books for our library.  In fact she has already picked out lots of lovely books already! 

Nathan Wallis Evening 

As part of book week the Parents Group organised an event with the incredible Nathan Wallis.  Not only was this an opportunity for us to offer books to buy for our wider community, it was a chance for us to host a community event. The Parents’ Group made beautiful food, offered barista style coffee and tea and a delicious apple crumble made by our GTT team.  We made $283.96 in the evening.  These funds help us to be able to fund events such as the authors visit.  We had amazing feedback from people that attended the talk and Nathan Wallis himself said “what a lovely, warm community you have, you can feel how close you all are”.  

Thank you all for being that lovely, warm community and supporting your Parents Group to help fundraise for important initiatives that help both our school and students. 

Next Parents’ Group meeting will be held on Wednesday 3rd June at 7pm in the staff room.  You are all welcome. 

The fun is being dialled up to the max this term at sKids! From explosive experiments at Science Academy to fantastic fundraising, there’s something for everyone at sKids.
sKids programs are sticky, messy, gooey and LOUD in the best way possible. Kids are encouraged to be kids and where they can lead their own way in play in a safe, supportive and caring environment, and the best part is parents don’t have to clean up the mess!
Book today to unlock your child’s potential through play!

SKIDS adventure programme