Celebrating The Holy Cross Way

This year, one area upon which we are focusing is, the agreed way we do things at our school; we call this “The Holy Cross Way”.

We look forward to sharing thoughts, photographs and examples that will help us all develop our understanding and experience of this.

Two examples from the current week:

A Year 3 student came up to me at the end of the day and proudly shared the fact that he had seen a parent walking toward the gate pushing a pram and had gone over and opened it for her. 

– Living The Holy Cross Way means we notice when people need help and act on

    this.

A parent commented to me that he had observed a group of junior students taking turns when playing on the flying fox.

-Living the Holy Cross Way is about playing fairly and sharing our resources.

Sharing the Journey

What: Community Consultation and Picnic Evening

When:   Thursday  March 6 

                5:00pm – 7:00pm

Where:  School Hall 5:00pm – sharing of ideas and information

                Picnic   6:00pm

Come along, meet the staff and families; share your ideas and have a fun relaxed evening together .

Nau mai, haere mai, piki mai, kake mai. 

The Team

Tim Carson Room 3 Year 4/5 

Nik Solia Room 5 Year 5/6 

Ashleigh Walsh Room 6 Year 3/4 

Olivia Boyd Garden Coordinator

Aleksandra Alagh Kitchen Coordinator

Margaret Guldborg Music Specialist

We congratulate Olivia Boyd who is now the Wellington Regional Coordinator for the Garden to Table Trust and we are so lucky to have her leadership and expertise for our program. We are also very excited to welcome Aleksandra Alagh as our new Kitchen Coordinator and it sounds as though there will be lots of new flavours coming from the GTT Kitchen this year!

Our focus for this term is exploring 

Whānau

Aroha

Yes!

This is the Holy Cross WAY.

We will be exploring what this looks like in the Garden to Table program by;

• connecting with others in our school, parish and community (Whānau)
• showing respect for the facilities, equipment, people and the many gifts we are given that support our learning (Aroha)
• using a growth mindset when faced with challenges in our learning (Yes!)

We will also be exploring;

• How does our pepeha help us make connections with others?
• How can we pray and prepare for Holy Week?
• How can we be good digital citizens?

It was wonderful to see many of you at the Learning Conferences and work out ways to set your child up for a successful year and thank you so much to those who were able to accompany us on our Beach Education Day. 

We would love to share more of our learning with you this term and we are always delighted to have volunteers in the garden and kitchen, even if it is just for one Tuesday morning during the term or perhaps you may even be able to commit to more? 

The Arohanui Strings programme led by Margaret Guldborg are also very happy for help on Tuesday afternoons with the strings program (you do not have to teach violin!) -  please contact the school office if this is a possibility for you.

REMINDERS

Students are required to bring their PE gear every day of the week so they can comfortably participate in physical activity, including Bikes in Schools, morning fitness and the Garden to Table program for which they must also have closed in shoes. 

This term, Rooms 1,2,3 & 5 will be participating in swimming lessons on Wednesday afternoons and all students will return to school by 2:55pm. We ask that you please check that your child has their togs and towel ready for their lessons.

Rooms 7,11 and 12 have had a wonderful start to the year getting to know each other in their classes. Week 3 has gone with a splash with all the students attending swimming lessons at Kilbirnie pool. Everyone was very excited and well prepared for learning. The sessions will run for 6 weeks and will include water safety, key skills and lots of fun! If you have any questions about the lessons please contact your child’s teacher.

In Years 0-2 the main focus for our learning is through the Think, Talk and Create programme. In Think, Talk and Create we are learning to be clever thinkers and clever talkers.  Our overarching concept for 2020 is “Achieving more than we ever dreamed possible!”.  Each of the 4 topics have a specific subject focus and the children in R7, R11 and R12 will spend two weeks learning the language and concepts from each topic. For the last 3 weeks of this term we will all be learning about Easter. 

Term 1 Topics-

Jack and the Beanstalk is a Maths Measurement Topic

We are going to be learning to:

• Name and describe items from the story

• Retell the story through role play, pictures and writing

• Order and compare the lengths of objects

• Use handspans, feet and other non- standard units to measure length 

• Measure using centimeters and metres 

Bikes is a Technology Topic

We are going to be learning to:

• Name and describe parts of a bike (including the materials used, how it feels, how it looks)

• Explain the purpose and function of each part of the bike

• Identify ways to keep ourselves safe on and around bikes

Simple Machines is a Technology Topic

We are going to be learning to:

• Name and describe  simple machines and tools

• Identify the tools we use in school or at home that are simple machines 

• Sort each ‘tool’ under the six headings of the simple machines and say why

Holy Week is  a Religious Education Topic about Easter 

We are going to be learning to:

• Understand the important events in Jesus’ life

• Talk about and describe what happened on each day of Holy Week

• Say, in order, the events of Holy Week

• Understand the importance of Easter in our Catholic Community

Please let your class teacher know if you have resources or ideas you would like to share for any of the topics. Remember to share and talk about the topics when your child brings home their Think, Talk and  Create stories from school. This will help them to learn even more about the language and concepts from each topic. 

Thank you for attending the Learning Conferences in Week 1, we enjoyed meeting with you and getting to know your child. The next time we formally meet will be to set learning goals for your child in week 8. If you have any questions, please contact your class teacher. A great way to support your child for learning each day is to help them to pack their own bag with their reading folder, a healthy lunch box, a hat and a water bottle. 

We look forward to learning with you this term!

Ngā Mihi!

Susie Sumner, Virginia Blewman, Patsy Wooles, Corrie Skells, Lucy Wooles and Brenda O’Hare

 Last Sunday a large group of students, whānau, staff and friends of Holy Cross participated in the 6.5km Around the Bays run and walk thanks to the amazing support provided by Sport Wellington and the ‘Run and Become’ programme. 

We are extremely proud of the achievement of each and every person who took part; it was fun and a positive way to begin the year.  All students who took part walked proudly away with medals to mark their achievement.

Thank you Sport Wellington for making this possible and thank you Susie Sumner for working so hard to make it the great success it was.

As we all continue to follow the news about Coronavirus and its impact across the world, I thought it would be timely to remind our families about some of the ways we safeguard health, safety and wellbeing at Holy Cross School.

Firstly I can confirm that this is our greatest priority at Holy Cross, not only for our children but our staff and families also.   If at any time you have any concerns or questions about health, safety or wellbeing or think it would be useful to discuss something relating to your child, then we welcome you making contact with your classroom teacher or myself.  Conversely, if there is ever anything that happens at school that could impact on your child’s health, safety and wellbeing you can be assured we will contact you.

As health, safety and wellbeing filters through many different aspects of school life, over the coming weeks I thought it might be useful to touch on a few topics under these headings. Today I will discuss our response to coronavirus, while over coming weeks I will touch on other topics such as cyber safety, Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS), behaviour management and hazard identification.

As you may be aware schools are being updated by the Ministries of Education and Health about our response to coronavirus.  While as a school we are not directly impacted by the virus we are using it as a good opportunity to promote our usual messages around good hygiene practices, including reminders about washing hands well after visiting the bathroom and good cough etiquette.  This should also support everyone’s health particularly through the winter cold and flu season.

Although there are many other ways we keep our children healthy, safety and well at Holy Cross School, we find the key to maintaining a great environment for our children is through clear expectations, appropriate action and great communication links between parents and the school.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, concerns or feedback at any time about this or any other aspect of our school.

Online Safety

Staying safe on line-check out this Netsafe quick reference guide.

Car Parking

A reminder to please park carefully around the school grounds. The safest place to pick up your child after school is on the back netball courts. You can drive onto the courts when the gates are open. Please be mindful of our neighbours and don't park over driveways and avoid pulling into the school driveway by the office. Our main focus is on keeping all our children safe. 

Uniform 

Please make sure all student uniforms are named. We have a lot of jerseys in the lost property that have no name on them. Thank you for your support.

Miramar & Maupuia Community Centre

Seeds to Feeds Festival: Rourou Dinner Tuesday 17^th March 6-9pm. We have been growing food in Te Motu Kairangi over the last few months - now it’s time to come and celebrate the beauty of the people and gardens in our community! This will be a relaxed dinner where you can experience live music, conversations with your community, local beer from Double Vision and our local produce crafted into a delicious three-course meal, by chef Shepherd. Join the kōrero about local community and local food! Tickets are selling out, check out Seeds to Feeds online, facebook or email saskia@mmcc.org.nz