Greetings, Kia ora, Kia orana, Talofa, Mālō e lelei,  Namaste, Ni Hao, Bula, Hola, Kumusta

Dear Families

Once again, we have raced through another term of busy school life and now find ourselves fast approaching Term 2 but not until after the well deserved April holidays! So as we do go on holiday, we pause to give thanks to God for all that has been achieved as a school community. We give thanks to God for our staff and the dedication they show in working with each child as they grow in their learning and personal development. We give thanks to God for our children who take on the opportunities and challenges of school life with willingness and positive attitudes. We give thanks to God for our families/whānau who continue to support their child and school in the many shared activities and events AND we give thanks to God for all those who lead and support our school through governance (School Board), prayer and spiritual life (our Parish Priests), fundraising and social events (PTFA) – may we all be blessed for the work we do to nurture and grow this special school community in learning ka ako, loving ka aroha and serving ka manaaki.

Thank you PTFA!

Once again, we take this opportunity to THANK and CONGRATULATE our PTFA Team on the successful School Fun Run held last Friday evening at school.  A HUGE THANK YOU to Laura Cooper, Michelle Porter and Fiona Rudsits, our PTFA Team leaders and to our hardworking and committed PTFA team – thanks for all of the pre organisation, the preparation on the day, the support and help with running the event and with the clean up afterwards – you are all “Champions” and we are so proud of you.

Thank you to all the staff and to our school Board members who joined in with the duties AND with the fun to help make the Run a success. A special THANKS to Mr Palisoc for providing the sound system and the music to make it a true party atmosphere! And a special THANKS also to our cooks, “The Winter Family” for providing delicious kai.

THANK YOU to our children and to our families who supported this fundraising event through sponsorship and having super FUN on the night – together we have raised almost $20,000 of which approx $10,000 will be given to school for our Sacred Space – Prayer Garden Project. A mammoth result! THANK YOU ALL!

Thank you for the wonderful community spirit of fun and participation and for the many helping hands that made the School Fun Run a great success.

A note from our PTFA …

What a great day we all had at the School Fun Run! Congratulations to all our students, parents and teachers who got out there and made our day such a blast! And thank you to all our wonderful helpers.

It’s an exciting time as we now get to focus on the prizes you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

All cash money should already have been handed in to the office. After Wednesday 14th April, you will be able to log on to your profile page at schoolfunrun.co.nz to order your prize.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have selected a ‘Goal’ prize on the paper form, this will not be ordered for you – you still need to log on to order your prize.

Laura Cooper and Michelle Porter
PTFA Co-leaders

Welcome to New Staff

We warmly welcome Allwin Shaji to our school staff team. Allwin joins us as a Social Worker in School (SWIS) and is based with The Great Potentials Family Services Agency. We are absolutely delighted to have Allwin working alongside us and with our children and families. This is a wonderful opportunity to provide further programmes, activities and practical help to those in our community who may have a need.

Allwin has already made a big impact at school especially in the playground, where he is getting to know our students and getting to know our school routines, organisation and expectations more and more each day! Relationships are important and we can see already that this is something that Allwin also values highly! Allwin has shared a little of himself below …

My name is Allwin Shaji. I’m a Malayali born in Kerala, Southern India. I came to New Zealand when I was 12 years old and have spent most of my life in New Zealand.
I am the new Social Worker in School (SWIS) at Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School. I am here to advocate for and to support our tamariki and their whānau. I also run programmes in school for our tamariki.  have previous experience working with children, youth and families and working in mental health services. 
My hope and aspiration is to establish a meaningful relationship with our tamariki and their whānau. I want to help empower tamariki to have a voice in their day to day life and in their learning so that they can become the future leaders in our community!
I’m looking forward to meeting with you all!

DRS Report

Easter Celebrations!

Christ is risen! Alleluia! Lent has given way to Easter and during this Easter season, we are surrounded by new beginnings and a fresh sense of optimism. We rejoice in the glory of Jesus and the gift he has given us in his resurrection. The resurrection story forms the essence of our faith; we know that, in Christ, death can be defeated and give way to everlasting life. By remembering this throughout the year, we can find relief from the burden of sin as well as greater joy in the blessings of everyday life. Christ’s resurrection gives us a reason to live not only for today, but to sustain hope in our future, no matter how difficult the circumstances we currently face. Easter is about new life. We rejoice in the new life of Jesus. We rejoice that all; of us are nourished by the life of God whenever we share in the Easter Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Mother’s Day Celebration

On our first week back to school in Term 2, we will be celebrating our wonderful mothers, grandmothers and all our ‘mum figures’ in our lives, on Friday 7 May at 2:15pm in Taamaua. Mr Malele will be working with some of our student Special Character Team to plan, prepare and run a special liturgy to thank all our ‘mothers’ for everything they do for us and our families. We invite ALL our Holy Trinity mums, nanas, aunties, godmothers and those we call our ‘mother’ to come and join us as we celebrate the special gift of you!

Baptism

Father Iosefa Euese of St Mary’s Parish, Papakura has given his blessing and agreed to walk alongside our school, as we offer Baptism preparation class for our children and their whānau/families at school. This is a wonderful way for the family to support their child’s faith development by helping them to encounter Christ on a personal level as they begin their journey of faith through the Sacrament of Baptism. We have a Baptism Preparation class on Wednesday 16 June at 6:00pm at school. We encourage our families to get in touch with Mrs Silva if you’re interested in signing your child up for Baptism this year.
Mrs Silva – asilva@holytrinity.school.nz

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity

Our special Feast Day of the Most Holy Trinity is drawing closer and we look forward to planning exciting events to celebrate our Feast Day here at school. We will be celebrating our Trinity Day at school on Friday 27 May with a whole school mufti in our school colours as well as fun activities planned to showcase our own special Trinity flavour.

Feast Day of the Most Holy Trinity is on Sunday 30 May. Our school will be leading a ministry Mass at St Mary’s Parish Church in Papakura at 10:30am. Our children and staff will be attending and participating in the Mass and we encourage our families to come together to celebrate this wonderful day that highlights our very own Special Character of the Trinity. Save the date and bring the family! Our children will be busy preparing and practising for this special Mass.

Reporting to Parents/Whānau

During this term, teachers/kaitiaki and students have been sharing and posting their learning goals progress and achievement on HERO. If you go the children’s home page, click on their “My Learning Wall” page to see all the great learning that has been happening in reading, writing, maths and in Dance. Please take the time to discuss the learning comments with your child so you can share in and praise their learning successes. You are able to “like” the learning comments by clicking on the relevant icon and you can also write a comment in too. Further reporting will occur in Term 2.

Service to our Community

The Papakura Community Dinners run each week. Our school is involved in setting up, hosting, serving meals and washing dishes and cleaning up duties, on a Tuesday once a month. It is our way of contributing to the Papakura/Takanini Community by being of service to others. It is only for one hour each month and you are able to bring your family to enjoy the meal as well!

Learning Community Maunga Year 5/6 families have been especially asked to volunteer this month – THANK YOU LC Maunga! Please come along and join us these holidays …
Tuesday 27th April 5:45pm -6:45pm @ Crossroads Methodist Church, 25 Broadway, Papakura. 

Footprints in Sand and Time | The Ghari Story“.

Hello Parishioners,

This email is to formally invite you to our wonderful Father Kerry’s (St Anne’s Parish, Manurewa) book launch for “Footprints in Sand and Time | The Ghari Story“. Join with Father Kerry for drinks and nibbles, bring a koha, and get yourself a personalised copy of the book in the St Anne’s, Manurewa Parish Hall on Thursday April 29th, 7.00pm.

Please RSVP by clicking the link below, to give us an idea of numbers attending:

https://forms.gle/nFALNfyeBLMQtg459

See you there!

Community News

Community Meeting – Māori and Pacific Peoples Families

THANK YOU to our wonderful Māori and Pacific Peoples families that were able to join with us for a shared community dinner this week. Although it was a miserable evening outside, there was plenty of warmth and hospitality on the inside! The evening commenced with a shared dinner – a lovely meal that was contributed to by all who were present. This was followed by our senior students – Sam, Trey and Emeliah sharing their views, perspectives and learning about their personal leadership profiles, inspiring people for them and the purpose, role and responsibilities of being on the student Cultural Leadership Team. Our families were then involved in a task, by having a very meaningful korero, discussion and sharing of ideas and activities for the school’s programme in preparation for celebrating our languages, identity and culture through the NZ national Language Weeks happening across Terms 2 & 3. There were some great ideas shared and we look forward to coming together again to ensure that these come to fruition through our sharing of home and school teaching and learning. Ka mau te wehi whānau – you are fantastic!

Auckland Libraries Membership Drive

Takaanini Library is now open and available to all our whānau. On Thursday the 15th, 3 of the Takaanini Librarians visited our school to issue to some of our students their new library cards. They shared all the great things you can do at the new ‘hub’ and how the card will grant them access to 56 other Libraries around Auckland.

It was great to see our students getting excited about getting a card that will allow them to take books home to read and enjoy, as well as engage in some of the great activities that the libraries have to offer.

Your child should have come home with their new card, a holiday program brochure, a book mark for good measure, and a special ‘pizza’ card. The pizza card works like a coffee card – read 7 books, get 7 stamps, receive a free pizza!

Many thanks to Mrs Rhodé for organising this great initiative for our students.

Learning Community News

Learning Community Ngahere – a student’s heartfelt poem …

I don’t know if you’ve seen
Our world here today
But our beautiful nature
Is being swept away.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed
But you’re being really mean
Because our world here today
Is not at all clean.

You may not know what your’e being mean to
But know you know that it’s the plants and our ocean
You’re polluting God’s creation which means our world here today
Will stop moving in motion.

We can show Kaitiakitanga
For God’s beautiful creation
Because all we need
Is just a little motivation.

We can plant more trees
Which would help our Hauora too
Please help our world here today
I know you can, it’s true.

By Mersade T.

Learning Community Awa

Curriculum News

Home Learning Site

HauoraAll of our Learning Communities have holiday learning tasks that are connected to our 2021 overarching concept learning of Kaitiakitanga.

When your child returns in Term 2, they will share their holiday learning tasks with their peers and teachers, and will also, be given the opportunity to use it in class to continue on their learning around Kaitiakitanga and Hauora.

Please click HERE to access the Home Learning Site.

 

Footsteps Dance Company

Our students this term have had an exciting time learning different dance skills and techniques to a variety of music. We have had lots of fun having Footsteps Dance Company who have kept our students fully engaged, active, expressive in movements to a variety of music and dance styles. Thank you Footsteps for challenging our students and for the confidence that they have gained throughout this experience. 

“On Friday after R.E., we went to Taamaua to dance with Footsteps. Dance helps my physical hauora because it makes me fit.My favourite dance was swing punk because it makes me feel great. We were puffed and sweaty, my heart was beating fast. My hips felt weird and sleepy as well.”  By James Santos

“On Friday after R.E., Moana goes to Taamaua. We danced a lot of amazing moves to crazy music. One song was called the Scatman. My body felt a bit weird when the music started. We wanted to dance because it looks after our Hauora. It helps our physical wellbeing.” By Iana Baring

Sports News

The Auckland Basketball Services Limited is running a Basketball tournament for those of you who have children that would like to play basketball. They cater for Year 3 students right to Year 8. There is also a Holiday Programme for those of you who would like to make use of the up and coming holidays. Check the information below based on your child’s age. For more information and to register, click on the images below.

<< Who: Year 3/4 & Year 5/6 >>
When: Term 2 League Start Date 11 May – 29 Jun
Time: 3.30pm – 4.30pm
Where: Bruce Pulman Arena, Walters Road Papakura
Format: PLAY33 (3×3)
Why:

  • Game short and quick – 8 minute games
  • Teams 4 – 5 players
  • No coach required
  • More touches of the ball
  • Minimum number of games 2
  • Parent volunteers to bring team of friends
  • Skill/Rule session before games begin – Game Leader
Cost: $150.00 per team 8 week competition = $30 (5 players)  = $3.75 per game (approximately)
<< Who: Year 7/8 >>
When: Term 2 League Start Date 11 May – 29 June
Time: 4.30pm – 5.30pm
Where: Bruce Pulman Arena, Walters Road Papakura
Format: 5 x 5 game
Cost: $300 per team 8 week competition = $37.50 (8 players) = $5.00 per game (approximately)

3G4G Festival of Cultural Sharing

Next term, Wednesday 12th May, Week 2, our whole school will visit the Buddhist Temple located in East Tamaki. This Open Day for schools is part of the Buddhist Community’s Annual Festival of 3G4G. The visit is to create an understanding about their Three Acts of Goodness & Four Givings. Part of the process in preparation for the visit was that our students wrote on ‘bodhi’ leaves that the organisers are using to decorate their Temple. The students wrote a good deed, a good word or a good thought that they vow to do for themselves, families, teachers or friends. This aligned quite nicely with our Lenten promises.

An example of what the students wrote included the following:
I vow to be a good student and help my mum to do house chores.
I vow to be a good listener and listen to my teacher and friends.
I vow to be kind and support my friends when they are needed.
I vow to be hardworking to achieve my goals
I vow to be grateful for what I have and help those in need.
Closer to the event, a note will come home with more details, but in case you’re free and would like to be a parent helper, save the following date: May the 12th, 9.30 – 12.oopm. The above video is a snippet of some of the things our students will experience on their visit.

Winter Uniform

From Term 2, all students are expected to be in the correct school winter uniform.

Girls Uniform: tartan skort, blue long sleeved monogrammed shirt, navy knee school socks, black school shoe

Boys Uniform: navy shorts, blue long sleeved monogrammed shirt, navy knee school socks, black school shoe

A short sleeved monogrammed shirt may also be worn as long as no other long sleeved item is worn underneath.

The navy woollen monogrammed school jumper or optional school monogrammed waterproof jacket may also be worn during the winter months. The waterproof jackets are outside clothing only.

Students are to wear black school shoes only. These may be purchased from other stockists e.g. The Warehouse, Hannahs, Number 1 Shoes.

Please clearly label all clothing items with your child’s name so all misplaced uniforms can be returned to the correct owners.

Thank you for continuing to support our school uniform guidelines by  ensuring your child/ren wear the correct school uniform with pride and care. This is a fantastic way to demonstrate our school Gospel  value of respect/manaakitia.

NZ Uniforms are the stockists of  our school uniform and are located at Unit 5 20 Lambie Drive, Manukau. NZ Uniform’s phone number and email address  ph: 09 950 6747 and email: manukau@nzuniforms.com.

Reminders …

2021 School Dates

Term One Tuesday 2nd February – Friday 16th April
Term Two Monday 3rd May – Friday 9th July
Term Three Monday 26th July – Friday 1st October
Term Four Monday 18th October – Tuesday 14th December 

School Holidays 2021

EASTER Friday 2nd April to Tuesday 6th April
End Term One – Saturday 17th April – Sunday 2nd May includes ANZAC Day Sun 25th April
End Term Two – Saturday 10th July – Sunday 25th July
End Term Three – Saturday 2nd October – Sunday 17th October

2021 Teacher Only Days – School Closed

As part of the Primary Teachers Collective Agreement, there are days that schools can use for Teacher professional learning and development. This means that schools can close on a day to allow for all teachers to attend various professional development.

In 2021 – Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School will be closed:

Friday 28th May – South Auckland Catholic Schools Community of Learners Seminar Day
Friday 25th June – RE/Health Seminar “Having Life to the Full” Day 3
Monday 23rd August – RE/Health Seminar “Having Life to the Full” Day 4

One further date is still to be confirmed. Further notice of these dates will be given closer to the time.

Upcoming School Events

Term 1 Concludes
Friday 16th April

Papakura Community Service Dinner – Learning Community Maunga and VOLUNTEERS needed!
Tuesday 27th April  5:45 – 6:45pm Crossroads Methodist Church, 25 Broadway, Papakura

Term 2 Commences
Monday 3rd May

Whakatau – Welcome for New Families with School Liturgy and Assembly – led by the Senior Leadership Team
Monday 3rd May 8:50am in Taamaua/School Hall

Mothers Day Liturgy
Friday 7th May 2:15pm in Taamaua/School Hall

RE (Religious Education student books) go home for family comment
Monday 10th May to Friday 14th May

Whole School Trip to the Buddhist Temple
Wednesday 12th May 9:00am -12:00

BOOK WEEK
Monday 17th May to Friday 21st May 

Term 3 Concludes
Friday 9th July

Upcoming Community Events

King’s School Scholarships

Scholarships are available at King’s School for boys entering Year 5 and Year 7 in 2022. Applications for all scholarships close on Friday 7th May 2021.

An information flyer is available here – King’s School Scholarships 2022 – Information for Schools – April 2021

For further information on these scholarships and to obtain application forms, interested parents may contact myself on (09) 520 7784, or application forms can be found on the Scholarships Page of the King’s School website at https://kings.school.nz/scholarships/  

Bruce Pulman Arena Holiday Programme