Room 3 today led prayers focusing on the Feast of the Holy Cross. Often our feast days are times when many threads of school life and life in our community  can be pulled together under the banner of God’s love. We celebrated the importance of Te Reo Maori as a focus on our worship at Holy Cross is to incorporate Maori into our prayers and to sing waiata- songs in Maori. 

We also paused and remembered Queen Elizabeth II- her life was built on a foundation of faith in God as can be seen in her words below. 

“I know just how much I rely on my faith to guide me through the good times and the bad. Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God…I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian gospel.”

In remembering Queen Elizabeth we are honouring her as a worthy role model for our tamariki to remember and be inspired by. 

Something you might like to do as a whanau is to share the sign of the cross together in Maori- this is a regular part of our worship as a school community. Your tamariki are great teachers and can help you to learn this together. 

Date- Thursday 29th September, 

Time- 1pm

You are invited to join us for a celebration! Our new pump track is now complete and we want to show our skills in negotiating this revamped part of our playground space. Father Bill is going to bless our pump track too and there will be other invited guests who have been involved with this project. 

We have also worked hard this term,  thinking about our values and trying to make our actions match what we know is important- sometimes we succeed and sometimes we make mistakes and need some help but we have made some great progress in showing Aroha- love, care and kindness, Whanau- cooperation and inclusion and Yes- courage and willingness to give things a go in our learning. Because of our hard work, students will get a free sausage sizzle. Parents can join us for lunch too. Sausages for parents will be $2. We will send out an order form next week for parent sausages. 

Following lunch and  the celebration of the pump track, children would love to show you their learning that they have been involved in this term. Parents are welcome to stay and spend time in the classes. This is our last celebration of learning for the year. After 2.30pm, when all the sharing is complete, students can go home with their parents early.

We wonder if there is anyone you may know who could be interested in being our new caretaker? The job is part time for 13 hours a week. Duties include gardening, maintenance, odd jobs and safety checks. Please contact the office if you know of someone.  

One thing we would like you to do as part of celebrating your child’s learning  is to fill out the parent questionnaire about our uniform. If your child is in R6,5,3,2, or 1 we will post this questionnaire on your child’s google classroom which you can complete with the expert support of your child in class. 

If your child is in the junior classes, we will have a paper questionnaire available for you to fill out and leave with your child’s teacher. 

A Connective Drawing - Personal Narrative
30.08.2022
This place was stunning. I slowly followed my group as they were walking towards this huge statue, it seemed to look like a type of shell.

Steve (our teacher for this part of Pukeahu) brought us down to sit and listen to the story that is behind this historical shell. You might be thinking that I’m going to share the whole story with you right now, well I don’t remember most of it but I am going to tell you what happened.

 As Steve was talking, I was astonished of how the statue looked…the “Conch Shell” he said. The story was being told emotionally by his sorrowful words. Everyone's eyes were glued onto the Conch Shell, but mine were looking directly at my book, sketching the outlines of the statue. 

The story was telling me all these thoughts that came into my head like a spiral, they were connective things from the past that had something to do with my culture. Like how people from the pacific were brought down to New Zealand to fight for the war, it was very upsetting for me as a kid. I understandably felt how horrible it would’ve been for those soldiers.

Even racism was pushed towards them, because some people believed that brown or black people couldn’t fight in the war and had to go through punishments instead! So instead of writing words, I explained the story by drawing the Conch shell.

Y’know, there is a saying that pictures can actually explain things a lot deeper than words, and that is what my drawing was meant to represent…the Conch Shell.
by Vianna 

Ricky’s Visit with Rm 2            

After we had finished our second report about Pukeahu, we had this amazing person come to visit us, he was Ricky our educator, from Pukeahu. He was so cool and he inspired me. People had to present to him their history reports and Pukeahu reports. I got to talk about my learning and reports with him as well. 

 Ricky brought Rm 2 a gift of clay and taught us how to make a ukutangi and it was so fun working with clay. It’s a little traditional Māori flute! I reckon it was amazing and it can make this sound exactly like a beautiful bird. Like a tui, it whistled. This had made me extremely happy for what we had made. 

So this is what you had to do.We had to get a handful of clay.Then we put it into two balls. After that we had to make both of them into a birds nest but don't make the walls too small, and then you put them together, and slide the edges down. Next we put our pinky onto the top and drill it by twisting your finger gently. 

 

I had loved the process of this session and I reckon it was extremely cool. This was one of the coolest days ever. It was fun to play with clay and make a ukutangi from Māori culture. And I really enjoyed. It was so cool to do this. I do hope that we can do this again. Thank you Ricky.

By Jake, Year 7, Rm 2

The next meeting for the PSG is on Monday 19th September @ 7.30 pm, in the staffroom. All are welcome. 

sKids October School Holiday Programme

Kilbirnie Recreation Halloween Roller Disco

The Rock Academy School Holiday Programme

Wellington School of Cricket Holiday Programme