Kia ora e hoa

It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Francesca von Lanthen as our Deputy Principal. As you know, Francesca has been in this role as acting Deputy Principal and we have been impressed with her expertise and professionalism. Francesca’s wisdom and pragmatism are assets for our leadership team and I look forward to continuing working together to ensure that St Anthony’s thrives as a centre of excellence and learning.

We have been so delighted with everyone’s effort with the Readathon - some amazing reading has happened which is impressive! Young ones completed 12 - 35 hours of extra reading, using a range of different texts while the seniors ranged from 20 up to a whopping 76 hours of focus!  We loved seeing that students played scrabble, read maps, novels, comics, magazines, and even their sacramental programme as a way of reading mileage so well done to all our wonderful children. 

Each teacher has selected one or two readers that Excelled in terms of maintaining their reading log (over a very disrupted Lockdown period) and/or for the sheer volume that was read. These children will be acknowledged at our assembly which is to be held before the end of the term. The children did their part too in gaining sponsorship for this extra effort and we raised a total of $2525.00. Well done all!

We congratulate the following:-
The winner for the most raised individually was: Sophia Bradley $200
The class with the largest average raised was Te Maunga and they will enjoy a pizza lunch for their upcoming R.E.A.L day. 

It has been wonderful to see all the classes nearly to the point of gaining their R.E.A.L days. To remind you of the system, each time an individual/ or class behaves in a way that is Respectful, Excelling, Aware or as a Learner beyond the norm they are awarded a point (represented by a small ball). Once 60 points are collected by the class, they come over to me with their full jar of balls to exchange it for a ping pong ball. Once there are 20 of the ping pong balls in the containers displayed in the office then the class has earnt a R.E.A.L day. The students determine what is the specific activity that they want to indulge in for two hours and this is also supported by the choice to wear mufti, having a shared lunch activity or similar choice as well. So when your child says that they have earned their R.E.A.L day, please celebrate this achievement with them as it has been a collective class effort to achieve it!

We are thrilled to see the safety aspect of the senior playground underway over this past week and of course our Mouse House which I am sure you will all hear about once the bark is in place and the students can play in it. As mentioned in the Board news below, we are planning to move the bark. We are doing some today as the weather lifts and then tomorrow - Saturday. We would love to see you all so we can make quick work of it. 

Over the past week, the Year 3 - 8 students have sat Reading and Mathematics tests, and from the data I have seen so far, our children have made progress. So congratulate yourselves as your commitment to your child’s learning over Lockdown has supported their progress. 

Over the past week, I have had the privilege of meeting with Paul Prestidge from Miramar Uniting Church and Chris Dodds, Vicar for  St Aidans. They are part of the ecumenical team who have created the wonderful initiative Mid Winter Christmas: 12 Days of Light in the Darkness. There are daily ideas for family fun and then the ultimate goal to light up our front windows just as Christ lights up our world. Please see below for further details and I ask you to take the time to look at the website as there are some great ideas.  I look forward to all our families participating in this wonderful initiative as it brightens people's lives, especially with these winter days.

Stay warm and dry and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning. 

Until then

Ngā manaakitanga

Denise

On Monday we celebrated St Anthony's Feast Day. Through a life of preaching and prayer, St Anthony expressed and witnessed his faith in God. Many people turn to St Anthony when something is missing or someone is lost. 

Celebration for Principal and Deputy Principal

Now that we are in Alert Level 1, we are very pleased to be able to celebrate Denise Johnson as our new Principal and Francesca von Lanthen as our new Deputy-Principal. 

An invitation will be sent to all our families but in the meantime, please book Friday 3rd July 1.30pm to 3pm for a special school assembly and afternoon tea - a fantastic opportunity for us to be together.

Deputy Chair appointment

We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Anne Dowden as our new deputy chair of the Board of Trustees.  Anne has been a dedicated member of the Board since 2013. She and her husband Nick have had all three of their children at St Anthony's.  

Working bee for playground bark

As mentioned last week, work has started on the safety and surfacing of our senior school playground and we would like your help please.  The bark has been delivered and today, the children have enjoyed spending a short time moving some bucket loads into the new space as we had a break in the weather. This way they are included in the community spirit of creating our senior playground.  We are then holding a working bee on tomorrow, Saturday 20 June from 9am to 1 pm and there will be jobs for young and old, including spreading the final loads of wood chip surfacing, so please come along.  

Please bring along the following if you have them: work gloves, buckets, wheelbarrows, and shovels.

Junior toilet block refurbishment project

The good news is the toilet block refurbishment project for Te Aroha junior block has gone out to tender.  We will let you know dates for when the work is planned following approval of a successful tender and contracted start date.

Our thanks and appreciation

We would like to show our appreciation and gratitude for the fantastic and enormous effort our teachers made to ensure our tamariki/children had materials and online access to learning both prior to and during the Covid-lockdown. We have put a thank you card in the school office which we would love all our families to sign. There is also the opportunity to contribute to a special morning tea for our teachers and staff to say thank you. A donations box is next to the card in the school office. Thank you in advance.

On Tuesday we did an activity using micro bits. What is a micro bit? Micro bits are pocket-sized computers but 70 times smaller like a mini-computer. We used them to make a game called frustration and using other equipment. The aim of the game was to get through the wire without touching it, sort of like the game “Hot wire”.We programmed them to tell us when we touched it and made an ‘x’ on it’s LED lights. And also it put the number of how many times you touched the wire. The things we used were playdough crocodile clips, Plus a metal wire.

Then the next Tuesday we programmed micro bits to use scratch and made our own creation and project. It was really fun and you can make so many things and program it on a micro bit. Microbit’s have these things on it.

This is the back of the micro bit  and the black button is for switching it off and resetting it. The green one is the front the two buttons are for switching it on.

By Estelle & Zoe

Yummy Stickers

Collect the Yummy cut-out labels from bags (each cut-out label is worth 10 stickers) and individual Yummy apple stickers for your school’s share of the $200,000 free DG Sport sports gear prize pool. Yummy apples are available from New World, PAK’nSAVE and participating Four Square stores. The more you collect, the more sports gear we get so get going and start collecting your Yummy cut-out labels and stickers now!

Entertainment Books

Just a reminder that we are promoting the Entertainment Book again this year.  The good news is that it is a digital membership only this year so no hard copy will come home.

If you would like to support us by purchasing a digital membership then follow the link below. Our school receives 20% from each sale.

St Anthony's Entertainment Book Fundraiser

Thanks once again for your support.

FOSA