SWIMMING

The swimming sessions are nearing the end and the staff

have been really impressed with the progress that many

students have made in such a short time. Our swimming

programme is structured by ability and each student is

working hard to share their skills with you on Friday 8th

March.

The swimmers who compete in year 4 to 8 are then able to

qualify for the Central Swimming Zones being held on

Thursday 14th March. Swimming has changed this year

and the central zones will be run in age categories as of

1st January. We will continue to run our swimming sports

by year level as it ties in with our school trophies and

awards. We will monitor how this goes this year and make

a decision if we change the following year.

As with all of our events, we are unable to do this without

extra adult support. We are looking for canteen helpers,

time keepers and supervision of the children as all staff

are on roles during the event. If you think you are able to

give us some time, even for 30 minutes, please let us know.

LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS Next week our students begin learning about Shrove

Tuesday, ASH Wednesday and Lent. You can help your

child by sharing your knowledge about Easter and how this

is special to us as a Catholic School. Lent is such a great

chance to think about what we can do to help others,

become more prayerful and think about “What would

Jesus do?” You are welcome to join us in our liturgical

celebrations at any time.

TEACHER ONLY DAY—MANAIAKALANI Our Teacher Only Day included 10 local schools coming

together to work with Woolf Fisher Research based on

our school data for reading, writing and maths. Part of

our professional learning includes observation of our

classrooms and patterns and trends are reported back. It

was a great chance for our school to make some goals and

share with the others. From here we collaborate and

share best practice around “learn, create, share”. Our

schools are working together to build on our collective

capability. It is extremely exciting and dynamic to

challenge our thinking and teacher practice to enhance

student achievement. Our focus is on creating

opportunities for critical thinking and critical literacy. We

will continue to share these learning examples with you,

whanau.

Have a wonderful and safe weekend.

God bless,

Kathryn Carey (Principal)

Greetings, Kia Ora, Talofa, Bula Vinaka, Konnichi wa, Dobrodošli, Sawa dee, Failte,

Vitejte

Thank you for supporting us with Family Mass on Sunday.

It is always wonderful to see our church brimming with

our school students and their whanau. Although I was

unable to attend, I was so proud to hear the parish, staff

and students chat about the Mass. Particular

acknowledgment to our students taking part in the

ministries of reading, prayer, altar service, OHP, greeting

and singing. So very proud of them. I have farewelled my

son to the Navy and can only say there were tears! Give

your kids a cuddle, they grow up way too fast!!!! As we

approach the middle of the term it is a chance to share

some of the great learning that is going on in the

classrooms.

LEADERSHIP

Our year 8 students have recently returned from their

noho marae leadership trip. They went to Totara Point,

Motuti, learnt about Bishop Pompallier our Patron Saint,

stayed at the beautiful Marae learning tikanga and

protocols to then finish off with Mass at St Mary’s

Church. The noho included rotations where they had

leadership skills, Mass preparation discussions, visited

the museum and learnt about the whaikorero. Our hosts

were Whaea Joan, Sister Magdalen and her wonderful

team. A huge thank you to Mr Gunn, Mrs Dromgool,

Father Carlo and our whanau helpers who supervised this

great group. What a special place to visit. All of our year

8 students shared their highlights at prayer assembly on

Monday morning and our whanau helpers were buzzing

about this wonderful trip too! Congratulations to our

students.

LEARN CREATE SHARE Our classes have been focussing on the learning using

their chromebooks and ipads with the learn, create, share

goal in mind. You will see snippets of technology as our

students have created catapults and slingshots in their

mahi tahi sessions and then taught their peers with

tuakana teina in action. It has been great to see this

transfer through the school and the learning is always at

the forefront!

Special points of interest: • Summer Photo Competition • Reconciliation lessons • PCS Swimming Sports—Friday 8th March • Central Swimming Sports—Thursday 14th March

1 March 2019 Week 5 Term 1

Share your best SUMMER photo

and be in to win!!

A SMART summer caption will make your entry even luckier!

Competition closes on Friday 22nd March

Gold coin entry fee

Anyone can enter – have fun photographers !

5 Categories:

1st, 2

nd and 3

rd place prizes and FAME!

Adult (14yrs+)

Year 7 & 8

Year 5 & 6

Year 3 & 4

Year 0 - 2

Our year 6 to 8 students are very privileged to be part of this wonderful programme “Experiencing Marine

Reserves” for 2018. Their learning includes snorkeling, learning about sealife, sustainability and coming up with

a project that they can run with in our local community, They will snorkel in barren seas and then compare

with seas which are protected by a Rahui or reserve.

These students will have the chance to make a real impact on our local environment by exploring their passions.

Watch this space for the learning that they will share.

Kiwi/

Pukeko

Kea

Tui

Kakapo

Te Kahu

Liam Payne and Keita Smith

Reed Dickinson and Casanita Tuhi

Nathan Smith and Kaycee TeWake

Aprillia Herbert and Hiroshi Newman

Kade TeWake and Senator Herbert

Scott Haines and Emma Mayes

Lent begins...

Ash Wednesday is next week and is always memorable

because ashes are such a tangible symbol. People like

when the spiritual is made physical, when they can

touch and feel something real. The Church gives us

things such as ashes, palms, rosaries, and candles to

help us connect with God, but explaining the meaning

behind these potent symbols is vitally important for us to

understand why we are walking around with dirt on our

foreheads.

The ashes come from burnt palms from the previous

year’s Palm Sunday Mass. Palms are a living plant, and

a symbol of victory and triumph, but they are burned to

dust and become a symbol of sorrow and repentance.

To help us understand the meaning of the ashes, we

can look to the two prayers that are said as the ashes

are marked on the foreheads during Mass.

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall

return.”

This phrase comes from God’s response to Adam

(Genesis 3:19). God reminds Adam of the effects of sin

and of humanity’s dependence on God. Read Genesis

2:4–9, and explain that the breath of God sustains all

living things. Adam and Eve turned away from God

when they ate from the tree of knowledge. When we

mark our foreheads with ashes at the beginning of Lent,

we are indicating that we are turning back to God.

“Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

Wearing ashes on our foreheads is a tradition of repent-

ance that comes from the Old Testament. There are

several stories that mention ashes, but one that is easy

to understand is the story of Jonah. When Jonah

preached repentance to Nineveh, the king covered him-

self in sackcloth and ashes and ordered the people to

do the same (Jonah 3:6–9). Ashes and scratchy clothes

were a way for people to be humble before God and

show that they were willing to make a big change in their

lives. We are marked with ashes for the same reason: to

show that we are willing to change. The ashes remind

us to turn our hearts toward God.

Lent is a time to change, to become a better version of

ourselves, and to become more like Jesus. The ashes

we receive remind us of our call to repent and believe in

the Gospel. The disciplines of Lent—prayer, fasting, and

almsgiving—help us prepare for Christ’s resurrection on

Easter Sunday.

God Bless, Phil.

SACRAMENT

PROGRAMME 2019

Enrolment forms are available for whanau who

wish to enrol their child in the Sacramental

Programme. This will begin in March. A copy of

your child’s Baptism Certificate is required if they

were not baptized in Kaitaia at St Josephs. Any

child in year 3 and above may be

enrolled. The enrolment is for all 3

Sacraments:

• First Reconciliation

• Confirmation

• First Holy Communion

Please see Father Carlo, Mrs Carey or Mr Gunn if

you would like an enrolment form.

Lessons take place on a Friday after school in the

Church. Whanau welcome to attend too.

Our year 8 students took part in the “Year 8 leadership noho” recently. Their focus was tikanga,

visiting Totara Point where Bishop Pompallier said the first Mass in NZ and planning and taking part in

Mass. The Motuti team with Whaea Joan showed huge awhi and aroha to our group. The highlights

from the students included learning about the marae, the museum, running their own Mass and learn-

ing more about leadership. They are now going to use their skills at school to help others. Tuakana

teina in action!

PLEASE NOTE!! A friendly reminder to all drivers to STOP at the bottom of the hill when leaving our school drive into Eden Terrace. Also turn left only out of Dominion Road as the bus blocks the view. Thank you for your co-operation with this.

This calendar gives you an idea of what is coming up during the term. Put the dates somewhere important to remember them. Dates can change at times, so please check this calendar each newsletter. If there are last minute changes we will notify you by text, and add comments onto our school Facebook page. Make sure you contact Helen in the office to ensure you are part of our “phone tree”. Term one is certainly a

busy and exciting term!

A reminder, for safety of our children,

please remain in the carpark until 3pm to

enable our children to depart safely. Please

drive slowly in the carpark. No child is to

leave the gate area unsupervised. Please

do not park in the yellow lines for safety.

Whanau, let us always remember to show whanaungatanga at Pompallier. We R.I.S.E (respect, inspire, service, excellence) to be disciples of Jesus. Lets make our new families feel welcome at PCS—share a smile, say “Hello” or introduce yourself when you are chatting in the playground. How can we teach each other to be respectful? How can we inspire each other?

Have we encouraged someone else this week? Have a great term!!

March/April 2019 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

newsletter

2

3

Wk 6

4

Swimming

5

Shrove Tuesday

6

Swimming

ASH Wednes-

day

7

No

Swimming

8

PCS SWIMMING

help needed

(no assembly)

9

10

wk7

11

BOT meeting

12 13 14

Central Zones

Swimming

Help needed

15

Reconciliation

lessons

newsletter

16

17

Wk 8

18 19

St Josephs Day

20

Far North Zones

Swimming

21 22

Summer photo

comp finishes

23

Whanau

Triathlon

24

PCS Mass

Wk 9

25 26 27 28 29

newsletter

30

31

Wk 10

1

Yr 8 imm

2 3 4 5

assembly

6

7

Wk 11

Weetbix Tri

8 9

EASTER PLAY

10 11 12

End of term

Mass

newsletter

13

Our students are loving the STEM opportunities that are happening throughout the school. Here are some snip-

pets of our junior school. They are investigating scientific concepts with catapults, balance and measurement.

Through the arts there is lots of reading, writing and maths that is generated. The students are problem solving

and challenging their thinking.