Talofa lava 

Despite some restrictions with Covid19, we had a brilliant time celebrating Samoan Language Week - everyone embraced the learning and it was wonderful to see our fanau (children) of Samoan heritage sharing their knowledge and culture as well. A special thanks to the aiga (families) who came in to support the learning and sharing. Take some time to read all about our Samoan Language Week celebrations in this newsletter, we hope that next year we can invite everyone in our community to join in the learning. 

Thank you to all those wonderful students and families who have sent in their Readathon forms and sponsor money. Although very disrupted due to Lockdown, it has been wonderful to see the great volume and range of reading that our tamariki have completed and of course the sponsorship has been fantastic. So far 13 families have contributed $1503 so a huge thanks to you! We look forward to seeing all forms and monies back by Monday so that the winning class and individual can be named. Please note that money needs to be paid into the FOSA account. 12 3140 0317046 00  

Movin’ March became Movin April and then Movin’ May with the final day being today - Well done to the many who have walked or ridden to school - an impressive effort one and all. 

Ka pai to the parents who have supported us to clean and reshelve our books and tidy up the library - we are incredibly grateful for your help with this. 

Online learning – One good change that has come out of Lockdown is that many professional development opportunities are now running online which means less cost for our school. Amy and Helen attended a Mathematics workshop on Mathematical reasoning with a focus on spatial reasoning while Francesca and I attended a Minecraft workshop to explore learning tools that are relevant within this ‘digital world’. Both opportunities have been a wonderful experience and we look forward to using our learning with our tamariki. 

Ever since Facebook completed an update we have been unable to load videos to our page which is so disappointing. If you have some knowledge or expertise to help us fix this problem we’d love to hear from you as so far none of our efforts have been successful. 

Important Date: The final day of Term 2 will be Friday, July 3. This is a school day now as our Kāhui Ako Super Hui with our fellow Catholic colleges and schools has been postponed until July 2021. 

Finally, it seems strange to not have gathered together for the important Feast of Pentecost however we hope the children have been sharing their learning and understanding of Te Wairua Tapu over these past weeks. It was wonderful to hear one of the students make the connection that Pente in Greek means 50 and yes, Pentecost was originally celebrated 50 days after Easter. This Pentecost, a key message to discuss at home is that we are the face and hands of Te Wairua Tapu and when we use the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we make our world a better place. This message seems very appropriate right now as we all should be challenging ourselves to listen and to learn from other people’s perspectives, to help bring peace and harmony to our world. 

Faamanuia le Atua

Denise