St Teresa's School Newsletter

Friday 30th August

Kia ora e te whānau

What a busy couple of weeks we have had at St Teresa's. The bursts of sunshine have been so inviting and the rain has had us pull together and use our co-operative skills to play and interact inside our classes.

Today we acknowledge Daffodil Day, to raise awareness of the Cancer Society who support those families affected by cancer in New Zealand.

Well done to our Matharapa teams - Lockie, Emily-Jane and Christopher, and Zaan, James and Valentina. There was some wonderful competition across all the teams and some great strategising and problem solving, with the Year 7 team coming first in the team challenge, and the Year 8 team coming second in the mascot competition.

It's wonderful seeing all the Hands of Christ challenges that are being shared with teachers. Golden tokens are being handed out every day.

Students are enjoying practising for the upcoming Kapa Haka Festival and our school Art Show. Both are at the end of the term. There is lots of singing, dancing, music, and visual art happening across the school.

Some teachers enjoyed attending a Twilight Korero on Catholic Social Teaching at Chanel College last week. This was the second in this series and has been valuable to teacher learning.

Our Year 6s got to enjoy a day at Tech last week. They came back full of stories of new things that they had tried and with creations that they had made. This 'taster' was a great introduction to Tech, which students attend in Year 7 and 8.

We were excited to see some fencing go up at the front of the school yesterday. The front of the building is getting a facelift. It will be interesting for everyone to watch the progress.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend. Happy Father's Day to all of our awesome fathers, step-fathers, grandfathers, and special people in our students' lives, who we can celebrate on Sunday. Let's hope the sun shines for the start of Spring and the Season of Creation.

Ngā mihi nui

Amber Gray

DRS

Term 3 Community Calendar

Weeks 7 and 8

Tuesday 3rd September

Live Wires - Tākitimu

Wednesday 4th September

Tākitimu Technology

Thursday 5th September

Yr 7 Immunisations

Monday 9th September

Social Justice Week

Tuesday 10th September

Class Mass Tauwharenīkau - Join us at 10am in the Hub

Wednesday 11th September

Tākitimu Technology

Thursday 12th September

Onesie Day

Friday 13th September

Remutaka Assembly - Join us in the Hub at 9 am

Junior Trip

Confirmation Practice - St Patrick's Church

Celebrate Good Times!

Values Awards

Our Values Awards celebrate students who have shown our school values of Faith, Justice, Love and Humility.

Waiorongomai - Ocean-Amelia & Kiana

Wairarapa - Ava Marie & Miracle

Tauwharenikau - Elena & Sadie

Remutaka - Soča & Brandon

Takitimu - Honey-Rose & Valentina

Star Award

Our star awards celebrate success, dedication and progress.

Waiorongomai - Ida

Wairarapa - Heath

Tauwharenīkau - Amelia

Remutaka - Sineth

Tākitimu - Lexx

Hands of Christ

Our Hands of Christ programme is aimed at encouraging our students to exemplify the values of Christ in our community. Each student receives a challenge sheet filled with tasks to complete throughout the year. Those who complete all tasks will be awarded a special badge at the end of the year.

This term, we are introducing an exciting new initiative to further engage our tamariki in the Hands of Christ challenges. For every completed activity, students will earn a 'special token' worth 10 house points for their House.

Your support is crucial in making this programme a success. We greatly appreciate your involvement. Please review your child's Hands of Christ challenge sheet and help them earn valuable points!

Building Work

As you may have noticed, the front of our school is getting a facelift. There will be builders on site for the next few months recladding the front of the office block and replacing the joinery. At various times during this period one of the access gates may need to be blocked off, and access to the Office may be via the Staffroom. Please respect the barriers and look out for the signs. We thank you in advance.

Rippa Rugby

On Wednesday 28 August, we attended the South Wairarapa Rippa Rugby Tournament. This year we were able to send 4 teams (39 kids) from Year 4-8 - what an amazing number of keen kids! We all had a fantastic day in the sunshine. The students played hard, played fair, and represented our school with pride. A huge thank you to Koran, Tobin and Russell who helped manage our teams. We could not have gone to this tournament, or taken so many students, without your support.

Tauwharenīkau Poetry

Tauwharenīkau have been working on Poetry this term. Here are two poetry examples from Amelia and Charlie.

My Bike

My bike is blue,

I ride it with my shoes

I go uptown and ride it round.

I ride it to the shops,

I ride it over rocks,

But sometimes it stops.

I like my bike.

By Charlie

Dog

Playful, soft

Cute loving, hunting

Swimming at the beach

Trees pitbull, fights growling

By Amelia

Poetry Competition

Chicken and Frog bookshop recently ran a poetry competition. We had lots of people from our school enter and we had some great results. The poem theme was 'My Town'. Congratulations to William B, Jaden, and Amelia, who all received a Highly Commended award. And a big congratulations to Cooper who came first! What an awesome achievement.

Here is Cooper's winning poem.

My town

I love Featherston

The Skatepark, the pools,

The fish and chip shop rules

I love the way the wax eye flies

And the railway bells chime

Country roads that are long and straight

The happiness here is just so great

Rivers flow and the creeks are slow

So many friendly faces that I know

Booktown is the best

And you just won’t want to miss the rest

Close to Wellington, it's not that far

Over the Rimutaka in your car

I love my town

So come on down!

Cooper

Age 7 yrs

Football Fun!

The sun shone beautifully last Wednesday when some students from South Featherston joined our seniors for football. There were many comments from both sides about the positive sportsmanship. This was a stand out quality that both sides possessed. Tino pai to all the students and teachers involved.

Karawhiua Have a Go Session

Last Thursday, the students in Remutaka and Tākitimu were involved in a Karawhiua Have a Go session, led by Kāhui Ako lead teachers Corey Kennedy and Ken Bailey. The Tākitimu students completed an escape room challenge based on the Zuleika ship sinking, while Remutaka students played some Māori games. Both groups had a great time.