What’s in store for 2022.

Our strategic and annual plan are tools that give us a sense of direction as a school. At Holy Cross, Celeste took the school community through a process of developing a strategic direction in 2019, that would direct our path for the next three years (2020-2022).

Part of my job has been to look at the 9 themes that have guided our direction and set a plan to develop some of these themes to help progress Holy Cross School and the community for 2022. Over the next few weeks in our newsletter I will showcase some of our plans and initiatives that we will be putting into place to help support your tamariki as they learn in community together.

Strategic_plan.pdf

Strategic_plan _pdf 898.71 KB

Today in the Lenten calendar is the World Day of Prayer for Family Life. Pope Francis shared these insightful and hope filled words about family.

“I thank God that many families, which are far from considering themselves perfect, live in love, fulfil their calling and keep moving forward, even if they fall many times along the way. The Synod’s reflections show us that there is no stereotype of the ideal family, but rather a challenging mosaic made up of many different realities, with all their joys, hopes and problems.”

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia (On Love in the Family), 57.

As a new grandparent of Jane (my second moko), I am treasuring that my whanau is moving forward. Jane’s birth was fraught with some problems and circumstances around her first few days on this earth were less than ideal. I am grateful that, despite troubled beginnings, my whanau is doing well and there is much to enjoy and look forward to.

As parents it is not about doing things perfectly and it is not about always being or looking right- it is enough to love, to focus on all that is a blessing about your family and to keep moving forward. May you and your family be blessed over this Lenten season.

Leya from Room 5 shared her acrostic poem titled FAITHFULNESS

Faith is strength

Always keep your faith

It will never let you down

Though it is invisible you can feel it

Helps you in difficult times

Fun times will come in the future

Unafraid of people who are unkind

Love God and God loves you back

No people in his kingdom with no faith

Eliminate people with evil spirit

So no more fighting and viruses

Spread stories about faith and love

Wednesday’s announcements by the Government around changes to mandates has some impact on our school function. We have also had no new cases of Covid in our school for the past few days- attendance is nearly back to normal. This is a good time to review our Red traffic light settings through performing a health and safety risk assessment.

The following is a summary of some of the changes that will take place from the 5th April. These mostly relate to how staff are functioning.

Staff will resume using the staff room for breaks but continue to wear masks inside unless eating or drinking.
Staff will resume face to face meetings- currently all whole staff meetings have been conducted via zoom.
Support staff will resume working across bubbles to support children including our ORRs students.
QR codes will no longer be required. Visitors to our school just need to sign in at the office.
Office staff will return to their normal hours in the office.

The following Red Setting procedures are still in place and will be reviewed when we move to Orange.

Mask use- all adults and children in Year 4-8 are to wear masks inside.
Syndicate bubbles- students will continue to have playtimes in their bubbles and eat lunch in designated bubble areas.
Whole school gatherings can take place outside with social distancing between bubbles.
Drop offs and staggered pickups will continue. Parents to drop off and pick up children from the gates or courts.

Good hygiene practice around washing hands, sneezing and coughing and cleaning surfaces will continue. Ventilation of classrooms and monitoring of this will also continue, especially as the colder weather happens.

One of the greatest changes the Government announced was dropping the mandate around vaccination status for staff. The Board of Trustees (BOT) is working through a process around how we proceed from here especially when we are hiring new staff members. We currently have two positions available- the Assistant Principal and Director of Religious Studies. This will provide us with an opportunity to work out our position and processes from here. As the BOT represents you as parents, if you have any questions or thoughts around this, please do not hesitate to contact Lyn- she would value your input.

Date: Term 1, Wednesday, 30 March 2022

From: 6pm to 7pm.

Venue: Holy Cross School - School Hall or online via Zoom (details below)

Nau mai, haere mai! Welcome. We are looking forward to re-establishing our Whānau Māori Group in 2022. Aroha mai! Our proposed hui had to be shifted due to Covid Red setting.

The focus for our hui will be whakawhananungatanga - building connections.- finding connections and establishing relationships.

“Nākau te rourou nau te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi.

With your basket and my basket, the people will thrive.”

Our protocols under Covid Red settings for this meeting will be:

Adults only,
Masks to be worn during hui,
Sign-in with Covid Tracer app,
No shared kai this time,
Hui will also be available via Zoom.

Please email Ethel and Lyn to confirm your attendance either in person or via Zoom by Tuesday, 29th March 2022 so we know how many people will be attending.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/91782668767?pwd=dnlmTDFxNmVEZDdSaHZ5bkZPaTNBZz09

Meeting ID: 917 8266 8767
Passcode: 7f6fi5

Nā mātou noa, nā,

Ethel & Lyn

ethel.renata@hcm.school.nz

principal@hcm.school.nz

This week our school had the privelege of viewing the works of Hilma af Klint - the secret paintings via zoom. We were so lucky to be able to have a virtual lesson with the help of the City Gallery to explore Hilma af Klint's work and look at different animations. Seeing these beautiful images inspired our students to create their own amazing images Thank you City Gallery Wellington

We have just under two more weeks of Movin March. Please encourage your child to walk, cycle or scooter to school, if that is possible. Already I have had the pleasure of giving several children prizes who have completed their passports by getting ten stamps on this.

Gardener of the day

Alicia

On Tuesday, Room 6 does Garden to Table, we do gardening and cooking. My name is Alicia and I am in Room 6. I am the Gardener of the day and these are some of the things I do in the garden. Sometimes I plant fruit and vegetables in the ground and we have a lot of plants. When we plant a fruit or vegetable we have to do it very carefully. I'm going to tell you how to plant a carrot, one of my favourite vegetables ok.

First you plant the seed in the soil, then you water it. After a few weeks the plant will start to grow. When it is ready you will not see the carrot because it grows underground, so does radich, potatoes and many other vegetables. Some vegetables grow on top of the ground like lettuces, cabbage, tomato and broccolli. We use the fruits and vegetables in the kitchen.

Chef of the day

Alex

On Tuesday Room 6 does Garden to Table. We do gardening and cooking. My name is Alex, I am seven years old. At Garden to Table I was the Chef in the kitchen. We were making apple and rhubarb crumble- the fruit came from our garden.

Step 1 Cut the apples and rhubarb

Step 2 Put the apples and rhubarb in a bowl

step 3 Put 3 teaspoons of ginger in a separate bowl

step 4 Put 2 cups of sugar in the second bowl

step 5 Put the apple and rhubarb in a tin and mix the ginger and sugar

step 6 Put the sugar and ginger on top of the fruit

step 7 Cook in the oven for 10-20 minutes

step 8 Take the crumble out of the oven, set the table,get some drinks and enjoy!!!

Room 2 Garden to Table

Sunflowers

Lily’s thoughts and ideas: sunflower, plant, dry, big - giant, seeds inside, big leaves too, petals light yellow, curling in, dark on the inside, felt spikey on the stem bit, Take out the seeds, you eat the seeds and plant them, they have a peanut buttery taste.

Yesterday I held the sunflower in my hands. It felt kind of spiky and dry on the whole plant but mainly it felt spiky on the stem. Inside the sunflower it had seeds that taste good to eat and kind of like a thick peanut butter taste and texture.

The sunflower had big green leaves with some holes and rips. The petals were a medium size with light yellow petals curling in. The inside felt spiky but not as spiky as the stem and a dark colour.

We are going to take out the seeds, dry them so we can eat them and plant some in the garden.

Apples

Ting’s thoughts and ideas.

The apple is red and it has a bit of green and white. It was sweet and juicy. I saw that it had ants crawling around on the inside. I think the ants liked the apple because of its smell and juicy liquid.

The apples grow in an apple tree with other apples. I got this apple from the peace garden and there were other apples on the apple tree. We got the seeds from the apple and decided to plant them.

Green Vegetable Bug

Sarkis

Yesterday I saw a little bug in the garden. It then jumped onto my arm. It was a little bit ticklish. Sometimes it flew away and I found it again.

I wonder what it eats in the garden. Is it good for the garden?

I also saw the pumpkin flowers. They were yellow with big petals. I saw a little pumpkin as well. I wonder if the little vegetable bug would eat the pumpkin?

Ledayna

I saw a lot of plants in the garden, sunflowers, pumpkins and tomatoes. Yesterday we also sorted out and planted seeds. We got some seeds from the kitchen and planted them as well.

We planted coriander, fennel, peas, mung beans, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds.

We sorted out the seeds and put them into little pods with soil as well. I think the seeds will grow into plants and then we will put them into the garden when they are bigger and then we can use them in our cooking.

Meisha

Yesterday in the garden we planted mustard, cumin and other seeds. They got put into small containers and we want them to grow a bit bigger so they can go into the garden.

When I held the sunflower it was spiky and the texture felt rough. It was heavy to hold. The petals were going into the middle and curly. The colour of the petals were a light neon yellow colour. I think the sunflower was a little fresh. There are seeds in the sunflower. I think we might plant the seeds from the sunflower in the future.

On Monday we celebrated World Down Syndrome day and we wanted to share some beautiful photos of Olani. We are blessed every day Olani comes to school and Olani always 'Lets Her Light Shine'.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week - a celebration of all kinds of different minds.

NCWeek_March_2022_Primary_School_.pdf

NCWeek_March_2022_Primary_School pdf 1.75 MB

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Happy Birthday to Margaux, Daniel, Alex, Isabel, Hope, Hawi, Jack, Nadia and Cleo. We hope your birthday is spent celebrating with whānau and friends.

Welcome to school Michael, Hope and Isabel.

We welcome you and hope you have made some new friends at Holy Cross School.

Please note the cost of a 6 inch Subway has increased to $5.50.

A 4 inch Subway is still $4.00 and 12 inch Subway is $10.00

No cookies or flavoured drinks to be ordered in line with our healthy eating policy

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