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Kia ora everyone,
It was so wonderful today to see the school set off on their walk to the Oruaiti Pã site at Point Dorset today. We have been attempting this for a while but rain and circumstances until now have prevented it. My thanks to Francesca von Lanthen for leading the learning for this. Ka pai to the parents who joined us for the walk - our tamariki are grateful and they had fun learning about their local environment!
Last week saw the final Beach Safety Session for our senior syndicate and what an amazing achievement to watch all our tamariki jump from the wharf. When we started this programme many years ago many of our tamariki did not achieve this final challenge so we have come a long way. Thanks to our great teachers and parents who make this happen by being in the water to ensure our children’s safety! The learning focus is of course to know the safety rules for being on the beach and in the water and to know the power of the ocean. Our final two days gave us one day of calm and then a much rougher experience so our tamariki were challenged to cope with the different conditions.
Local Māori history
Today on the twenty-ninth of February we went on a whole school trip around Seatoun to see and learn some history in our local rohe | area. We were all partnered up with a buddy and walked to Churchill Park. There we talked about Kupe and how he landed in Wellington Harbour and swam out to Steeple Rock - he was washed up against the rocks and badly injured himself. Hence the name he called it is Te Aroaro-ō-kupe | The groin of Kupe. We then journeyed on to a sheltered place where we stopped to eat our fruit break and rest. After that, we walked up the hill to the Oruaiti Pã site at Point Dorset where we talked about the gun emplacements and how it used to be farmland where Kupe worked. We also got an excellent view over the Cook Strait. Then we walked back to Churchill Park to have morning tea and play on the playground for a while. It was a great trip where we learned a lot about our Tūrangawaewae | our place.
By Thomas Monahan and Luka KB
"The Time is Now! Ko Tēnei tonu te Wā!"
Our focus through our Caritas Lenten programme is the time is now and the challenge for our tamariki is to ask themselves, ‘for what?’ The answer is in focusing on the 3 pillars of Lent - Prayer, Almsgiving, and Fasting. So how do we do this in our world today?
- Pause and take time to connect and be with Te Atua. God is always there for us but do we slow down enough to listen?
- Almsgiving - helping those around us who are more vulnerable than ourselves and looking after Creation
- Fasting from those habits that take us away from Te Atua
Lent is a great time to pause and focus on these things - how are you doing with this as a whānau?
We will be running a Baptism programme for any of our tamariki that wish to be baptised. Please email Denise (principal@stants.school.nz) or complete the form that we will send out if you are interested in this for your child/ren.
