Shoutout to our wonderful Student Council who organised and led the senior class to hold the school disco last Friday night. The children had a ball and the Student Council raised over $500 for FOSA. Ka pai Zoe, Estelle, Peter, Marita, Nina, and Nadia - you were fantastic!

Our grateful thanks to the small but mighty FOSA team who have run a very successful bake sale this past weekend raised over $600. Ka pai to all of those who helped by providing the baking. Special thanks to Claire St Just who led this fundraiser. Now FOSA is turning its focus to the movie night which is next Wednesday so please see the details below. If you can’t make it but are happy to support the fundraiser by buying raffle tickets, the team would be thrilled!

We have been delighted over this past week to bring the children’s Māori legends/stories to life by screenprinting their chosen symbols onto the boards. Celebrating the installation of these boards was a milestone after the journey of learning from the stories shared by Ray Ahipene-Mercer about our local history, especially Oruaiti Reserve, unpacking Māori legends, learning the skills of screen printing and being inspired by the work of Richard Killeen and his idea of creating art that reflects the ‘story we tell ourselves.’

The boards are now up and we invite you to come and view this wonderful work. We are developing a QR code and linking the actual stories to our website so that you will be able to read about each class' story and thinking about their piece.

Te Ākau presents... Te Iwa O Matariki

Te Moana presents... Ngake and Whātaitai the Taniwha of Wellington Harbour

Te Maunga presents... the story of our iwi settling at Oruaiti Reserve

Kei whea mai | it was outstanding and our grateful thanks to our tamariki, whānau, and kaimahi | staff who worked tirelessly to achieve all our wonderful artworks. 

Working Bee Saturday 19 November from 1 pm to 4 pm

Ma tini ma mano ka rapa te whai | Many hands make light work. 

It’s time for our last working bee of 2022 and this time our focus is on staining the fences around the junior playground, tidying up the gardens, water blasting, and sanding away graffiti.

In case you’re wondering what a working bee is, this is an occasion where a group of volunteers comes together to do work for a common purpose.  In our school, it’s a great opportunity to get to know other whānau and serve the school through an hour or two of your time and some physical effort!

Please wear old clothes and bring any paintbrushes or drop sheets. If anyone has a couple of rakes for the bark that would be handy too. We’ll supply some of the brushes and stains like last time too. 

Ngā mihi nui to Craig and Janine Smith for organising this working bee.

Increase of swimming fees 2023

Learning to Swim is part of  The New Zealand Curriculum, which states that ‘all students will have had opportunities to learn basic aquatic skills by the end of Year 6’ and that students will have access to learning about water safety and developing aquatic skills.

St Anthony’s takes part in water safety swimming lessons one term each year. There is a charge of $50 per child for the term’s swimming lessons but the true cost is $70 which reflects significantly increased transportation costs this year.   From 2023, the charge will increase to $60 per child.  The charge for swimming lessons is included at the beginning of school invoices.  The additional cost will be subsidised through savings to the school operating budget.

Mahau app - te reo Māori language app

A new Māori language app hopes to welcome Wellington locals and visitors alike to te reo Māori.​

The free app is called Mahau and was developed by Wellington City Council alongside Taranaki Whānui and Ngāti Toa.   The app helps beginners with te Reo Māori words and pronunciation, coming equipped with translations for a long list of Wellington destinations and place names. The app also helps you build your own pepeha and mihimihi.

During the app development,, St Anthony’s students took part in a survey about what words and phrases they wanted to say in te reo Māori.  Our students were also fortunate to be part of the cast of the introduction video.

Download the app to learn more:

Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwamedia.android.qbook.WCC0001

Apple Store https://apps.apple.com/vn/app/mahau/id1641809742 

Creatives in School Week 

On Monday evening, we formally recognised the Creatives in School achievements with our school whānau and community gathering to hear about, see and praise the new playground panels.  

Congratulations Mrs. Revill, staff, and children for the creative, thought-provoking, and beautiful artwork that celebrates our local history and adds life to our playground.  Thank you to Craig Smith for installing the panels in time for our celebration.

Compost project grant

Congratulations to Sophie Smyth who applied for and successfully gained a grant of $800.90 for the compost project.  This project is about reducing the amount of food waste that our school creates by improving our composting system. 

We have received funding from the Wellington City Council's Waste Minimisation Seed Fund for new equipment to ensure that our compost is safe to use and is helpful more than harmful.

We will know that our project has been successful by having healthy compost that is safe to use in our gardens. It will achieve waste minimisation by making use of our food scraps which we have identified as an issue through our waste audit. 

Our composting programme is run by the students, so with these new improvements, they will be learning about how to identify safe-to-use compost and see the direct benefits of composting. This is also an opportunity to educate students about creating a circular waste reduction cycle by using the food waste we create to help grow new food which we would then compost and start the cycle again.

ePro 8 Competition

Te Aroha (our senior syndicate) recently competed in teams over two days for the internal Epro 8 challenge. The school hired extra kits so our tamariki could work in teams and compete. Their tasks ranged from building a scarecrow, a decision maker so great for focusing on probability, and a concrete truck. The best thing about this competition is that while it challenges our students in their Science Technology Electronics and Maths (STEM) thinking, it really challenges them in the skills of teamwork. Our students then graded their teammates on their ability to negotiate, compromise, collaborate and share their thinking. These marks then helped determine the 2 teams that will be representing our school at the interschool competition. Our kaiako | teachers assure us that it was no easy task to select these teams as a number of students only missed out by 1 point. So our congratulations to everyone for such a wonderful event. Pai katoa | Well done.

 

Faith News

November is a great month to pause and think of all our loved ones who have passed. We have a wonderful tradition in our parish of adding the names of our loved ones to a banner that sits on the altar and then everyone who takes time to pray in the church or joins in the masses then focuses on remembering our loved ones who have died.  Te Aroha, the senior syndicate took time to add names to the banner and we invite you all to pop in to do the same or pause for a moment in prayer. The church will be open from our side door each afternoon from 2:24 until 3:15 pm for you to take a moment and think of your loved ones.

I share with you a story that GPBS eNews recently shared:- 

 All My Children

There are times when the sceptic in me refuses to give rational assent to religious doctrines, like the Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Resurrection. Thankfully, pure rationality is not the only, and certainly not the best, means of coming to understand deep spiritual truths. And sometimes my most effective teachers are faithful people who reveal great truths simply by the way they live their lives.

 That happened years ago when a new family moved into our parish, and after Mass, a long-time parishioner, extending his welcome, asked the parents, “How many kids do you have?”

 “We have four children,” they said.

 Doing a quick count, the welcoming parishioner said, “I only see three. Where’s the other one?”

 “Robbie’s in heaven,” answered the wife, gently. Her husband added, “He died when he was 2 years old”.

 The parishioner was about to say, “So then, now you have just the three children,” but caught himself just in time. The gospel that morning said, “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ... is not God of the dead but of the living, for to him all are alive”. Clearly so was Robbie alive to his family. Now when I have trouble giving rational assent to the notion of the Resurrection, I think of Robbie and his family, and belief comes easy.

Visiting the School of Architecture and Design Innovation

During our Friday excursions to the city, Te Maunga visited the School of Architecture and Design Innovation, one of the faculties of Victoria University of Wellington. We got a tour of the Te Aro campus and were lucky enough to see some of the amazing projects the students have been working on. Some children also got to watch 3D printing in action. It was a great experience and a wonderful opportunity for children to get a sneak peek into life at university.

The School Disco by Nina

The student council decided to organise a disco to fundraise for the school! Estelle designed posters and we hung them up around the school. We held it on Friday,  4th of November. Te Maunga started setting up after lunch. We hung up fabric over the windows, put up CDs, and blew up balloons. Some of us stayed after school to help. Then the DJ came to set up. We set out the drinks and we were all ready. The rest of the students arrived at 5:00 pm. We had lots of activities like face painting and tattoos. Everyone had a lot of fun dancing.  Overall it was a great night and we raised over $400 for our school! Ka pai everyone!

Narrative Writing

The tamariki in Te Maunga is reading adventure-themed novels this term. Cuz and Hatchet both explore the subject of survival. The former is set in Fiordland, New Zealand, and the latter in the Canadian wilderness. Both authors draw us into the stories through their descriptions of the places in which the protagonists find themselves. We have been working on the importance of ‘place’ in our own narrative writing and also having awesome openings to grip the reader’s attention. 

Here are some excerpts from our work.:

“Attention!” our commander bellowed and I snapped into the bone-breaking position. It’s officially the worst here. The conditions in the trenches are atrocious: the ghastly smell and the bottomless mud puddles infected with hideous diseases. No wonder tens of thousands of soldiers die in the trenches each year. Gunfire, grenades, shells exploding everywhere, always feared being attacked. It’s a misery.

By William

My body was moving faster than it ever had as I sprinted down the dark street. Panting hard, every breath sent a searing pain down my lungs. But I can’t stop now. Not when I’m being chased by four heavily armed policemen. Okay, it’s not as bad as it looks...Although, that depends on your point of view. Look, I may be on the most wanted list, but I’m not going to jail! Have you seen that place? Cracked walls with spiders crawling out and spying on you; food that resembles wet cardboard; small cupboard-sized rooms that reek of sweat….It’s torture!

By Alina 

We are offering 2023 Art Calendars for the price of $10 each again this year. This is a wonderful opportunity to purchase a piece of your child's treasured art. They are perfect for Christmas presents for friends and family. You can order as many calendars as you wish using the same piece of your child's art.

The calendars are A4 size when closed, spiral-bound, lightweight, and easy to post.

For an extra $5 you can add up to 5 important dates to your calendars. For example, you advise the date and text and the following would be added (e.g. 5 November - "Nana's Birthday" or 31 October - "Mum & Dad's Anniversary")

Your child's art is now ready for viewing via your child/ren's Hero ePortfolio.
Orders will be accepted via the link below until Sunday 13th November.

To order click on the link below.

2023 Calendar Order Form

Payment can be made via internet banking into the FOSA account:

12-3140-0317046-00 (please note the calendar as the reference) or you can bring cash to the office.

Seatoun Arts & Crafts 2022

F_F_LN_Nov_22.pdf

F_F_LN_Nov_22 _pdf 2.43 MB

Wellington Harriers Children's Athletics 

Is on Saturdays,11.30am at Newtown Park

Something for everyone! 

If you like running, throwing or jumping, come along and give it a go!

For more information check out whac.org.nz

Contact:

Julie Richards

Children's Manager

juliemaerdy@yahoo.co.uk

0212959026 

Kura_Whanau_KidsCan_Schools_Event_Flyer.pdf

Kura_Whanau_KidsCan_Schools_Event_Flyer _pdf 1.59 MB