St Benedict's School Pānui ā-rorohiko (Online Newsletter) Week 4, Term 2

Celebrating Pentecost at St Ben's

Celebrating Pentecost 

On Friday 26th of May we encourage all of our tamariki to dress up in their national dress or in clothes that reflect their cultural heritage and bring a non-pershable food item for the Wellington Soup Kitchen. We will be celebrating liturgy in our school library at 9:15am and whānau are welcome to join us. 

Catholic Character 

Pentecost is a special celebration in the Catholic Church which occurs 50 days after Easter Sunday. It's like a big birthday party for the Church! 

During Pentecost, we remember the time when Jesus' friends, the apostles, were gathered together in a room. Suddenly, something amazing happened! The Holy Spirit, who is like a special helper and friend from God, came down upon them. It looked like tongues of fire above their heads! 

When the Holy Spirit came, something incredible took place. The apostles received special gifts and abilities. They were filled with courage, love, and wisdom to share the good news of Jesus with people from different countries and languages.

One of the amazing things about Pentecost is that even though the apostles spoke in their own language, everyone understood them. It was like magic! This reminds us that the message of Jesus is for everyone, no matter where they come from or what language they speak.

Pentecost is a time for us to celebrate the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives too. Just like the apostles, we can receive the Holy Spirit and be filled with God's love, joy, and peace. The Holy Spirit helps us to be kind to others, make good choices, and show love to everyone we meet.

Tumuaki Korero - A word from our Principal

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,
Thank you for all the lovely messages of support we have received as we adapt to the current high levels of illness in our community. We must reiterate that the best way to help us is to keep unwell tamariki home, so they are unable to pass on their illness to others. Our staff are also being affected by illness and keeping unwell tamariki home means you are protecting them. 

Thank you to HoK

Thank you to all the volunteers and donators of gifts for the HoK Mother’s Day Shop. What an amazing time our tamariki had choosing gifts together for their wonderful Mums.  A massive thank you from the staff and students of St Ben's to HoK for providing such a lovely community event. 

Upcoming Events from our calendar:

Electives are well underway. Checkout the photos further down in our newsletter.  Electives finish in Week 9.

Swimming continues for Year 7/8 are on Tuesdays, Years 3-6 on Thursdays and Years 1-2 on Fridays.

Next Week we will be celebrating the different cultures of our school community as we lead up to Pentecost in our churches calendar on the 28^th of May. On Friday 26^th of May we will have a cultural dress day, celebrate a liturgy at school and collect non-perishable items for donation to the Soup Kitchen.

Week 7 we celebrate our first Kings Birthday public holiday and school will be closed on the 5^th of June. Week 7 also signifies the start of Jumping June (formally jump rope for heart) and we will all be learning new skipping skills throughout June.

Week 9 Parent Teacher Interviews 2pm-6pm Thursday 22nd of June, see booking information below. 

Week 10 Parent Teacher Interviews 2pm-6pm Wednesday 28 June, see booking information below. 

Liturgy in the Library

We are delighted to offer regular liturgy experience for our tamariki again. We will be being supported by Challenge 2000 who will lead liturgy with our tamariki in the library from 9:15am. The Liturgy schedule can be found by visiting our school calendar on our website and hovering over the event to see the liturgy timetable. Please feel free to join us. 

Open Day

We will be holding a school open day for prospective whānau on Tuesday 27th of June 11am-12:45pm. There will be an opportunity to see our classes in action and to hear more about our wonderful school and community. If you have friends who are considering St Ben's please do let them know. 

School App

We will be launching our new School App in Week 7 of this term. Through the app you will be able to submit absences, check your accounts and print invoices, find a quick link to our newsletter and school calendar, as well as receive school communications notifications. 

Uniform

We are starting to see an increase in non-uniform jerseys/hoodies and shoes and socks as we move in to wearing the winter uniform for Term 3 and 4. We are also noticing an increase in the wearing of nail polish and earrings that do not follow the guidelines of studs or sleepers. Please support us to ensure your child is wearing the correct uniform as they leave for school each day. Non-uniform clothing will be held in the office for collection at the end of the week.  

Mā te Atua koutou e manaaki, e tiaki hoki,
May God bless and care for you,
Tania Savage - Principal

Message from The Attendance Dues Team

Just a friendly reminder that full payment of the Attendance Dues for 2023 is due
by 31 May 2023.  If you are paying by regular instalments, payments should be set up to close the balance by 30 November 2023 or by arrangement with the Dues team.

The May invoice/statement was emailed or posted to all families on 5  May.  Please check that the invoice has not gone to your Spam/Junk Inbox and that all your children are listed on the statement.

Financial assistance is available to families experiencing financial hardship (loss of income/redundancy, family reasons, etc.). It is a condition of the assistance application that the family has an affordable regular payment in place.

If you have any questions, please contact us:
Phone: 0800 462 725       Email: dues@wn.catholic.org.nz         Text: 021 089 07902

Board Policy Review

Education Outside the Classroom

The Board  follows a three year policy review cycle and each term  aspects of our school policies come up for review. At St Benedict's we use SchoolDocs as a provider to ensure our policies and procedures are robust and created with expert input. This term all SchoolDoc's schools are reviewing the policies for  Education Outside the Classroom. The Board invites you to be part of the review by following the below process: 

Visit SchoolDocs  enter the username (st-benedicts) and password (3000stbens). Click on the policies you wish to review, you may need to scroll down the page to find them. Then: 

1. Read the policy.
2. Click the Start your review button at the top right-hand corner of the page.
3. Select the reviewer type.
4. Enter your name (optional).
5. Follow the prompts to show that you've read the topic and enter your feedback if you'd like to comment.
6. Agree to the privacy statement and click “Submit review”.

Parent Teacher Child Interviews

Our next set of PTC interviews are being held onsite from 2pm-6pm on the 22nd and 28th of June . On theses days your child/children can be picked up early at 2pm. For those who attend ASC or are unable to pick their child up earlier your child will be supervised until the normal school day finish time 2:50pm.  

Bookings are now open and can be accessed on the link button below. This is the same platform our begining of year interviews were booked through and you may already have a saved password for it. Otherwise the below video gives guidance for making your booking. 

Please let us know through the following link whether your child/children will be picked up early or staying at school.  PCT Organisation

Northern Zone Cross Country

Congratulations to the 50 students who represented St Ben's at the Northern Zone Cross Country last week.  Everyone put in a great effort and practiced the EPIC values while out in the community and dealt with the rainy weather well.  The following have made it through to the Interzone Cross Country. Further information will be sent about this closer to the time.  Yr4 - Jonathan, Yr5- Lucia, Poppy, Winston,  Aedan, Yr7 - Zara, Hima, Saxon (standby) Yr7 - Joseph, Seb (standby),  Yr8 - Octavia, Melanie, Skye, Lauren, Sasha, Yr8 - Jack, Charlie, Joseph (standby),  AWS - Albert, Oscar.

Well done to everyone who participated!
Molly Kelly

Teacher/Sports coordinator

Spotlight on Electives

There has been a real buzz in the air as our tamairki try new challenges through the electives programme. Here is a few pictures of the last few weeks in sports elective, picture book art and stop motion. 

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Congratulations to....

Assembly Certificate Recipients and Epic Eddy winners

Congratulations to all our EPIC tamariki who received certificates at our latest assembly. 

Congratulations also to the Epic Eddy winners - our Student Librarians - they have been making a wonderful difference in the library by ensuring the shelving of books is completed and reminding our library users of the rules. 

Congratulations to Alexia who was picked to release a Kiwi into the wild. 

On May 16 I went to Mākara to see kiwis about to be released into the wild. There were so many people like Cameramen and even kids from Mākara School.  

First the man told us that we had to be quiet. Then he said a karakia to the birds outside while we were inside then he came inside. We sang a song, after that two people went outside and brought back two kiwis for us to pat. I had to wait until they were finished to touch the kiwi it was sticky like hair gel but also very soft. 

After they had brought the kiwi outside and back into their boxes a man talked about how he put traps all around New Zealand to catch the predators and also how his group saved so many kiwis from dying. A woman  talked about how the kiwis for kiwis conservation started in the 90s and how they didn't know what their threats were. They didn't know how many were left which was scary for them and how it was pretty rare  and that now some people have kiwis living in their backyard. There was a sausage sizzle and they brought two more kiwis out. They were so cute.

by Alexia

Congratulations to Samantha who placed 1st in the Self Choreography Section for dance, qualifing for the Nationals.  We wish Samantha all the best for the upcoming National competition in Auckland.

SAINTS BASKETBALL TICKETS!!!

This year our school tickets have continued online, please see the links below for each game and your password to login to access is: Benedicts

vs Sharks

vs Rams

vs Nuggets

vs Airs

vs Jets 

Please note that there is a 5pm night before cut-off to access your tickets to each game, for example, Saturday 8^th April vs Hawks, your last chance to access tickets is 5pm Friday. Please only request the tickets you know you will use.  This allows us to better manage people in our games.

Molly Kelly

Teacher/Sports coordinator

Helping Our Kids

The disco is coming!

Mother’s Day ‘Shop’ - A big thank you to everyone who made it happen!
Thank you so much to everyone for your generous donations to stock the shop. There was a great
selection of items to suit every mum, and children were overwhelmed with choice in some cases!
Thanks also to Donna at After School Care for lending us Inez, Emma, Kayla, Jackson, Isla and Eleanor to set up the shop the night before.
Last but not least, thank you to the parents who helped run the shop on the day! It went really
smoothly, the children had fun choosing something small yet special for their mum/mother figure
without worrying about money.

School Disco
The days are getting cooler; the nights are getting longer – what better way to celebrate
this change in seasons than with a disco!

St Ben’s annual (legendary!) disco will be held on 9 June this year – put it in your
calendar.

Pizza and unlimited water is included in the cost of a ticket, with fizzy drinks and treats
for sale on the night. You will also be able to purchase glow-in-the-dark goodies and
have your face painted or photo taken.
We need your help! With any event like this, we rely on volunteers to ensure we run a
safe and fun disco. When you RSVP, please also let us know how you can help on the
night.

All the info you need to know about the evening is in this form, along with the option to
RSVP and volunteer - please respond by Friday 2 June:https://forms.gle/vUZMGpjymXP2ZqX26

 'YUMMY STICKERS’ – Now until the end of Term 3.   

Please remember to save ‘Yummy Stickers’ for your sticker sheet.

Thank you to - Thomas & Ella Campbell and Leo Hartwich for their sticker sheet.

We have 2392 stickers so far.

It’s time to start collecting yummy apple stickers and the cut-out labels on the yummy 1.5kg apple bags.  You will find all your favourite yummy apples at your local New World or Pak’n Save (and some participating 4 Square stores).

Eat ‘Yummy’ and support our school.  Crunch on apples and collect ‘yummy’ sports money. 

Collect the ‘cut out’ labels from the 2kg bags of ‘Yummy’ apples or individual ‘Yummy’ apple

stickers, available from New World and Pak’n Save stores.  Cash them in for Rebel Sports

gear for our school.  Send all your ‘Yummy’ stickers to the office.  

Collect more sticker sheets from the office or visit www.yummyfruit.co.nz.  Lets get munching.

Last year we received $373 worth of Rebel sports equipment for FREE. 

St Mary's College Open Day

Parent Road Patrol Roster

NICHOLSON ROAD
(Mornings and Afternoons)
Parents: Please be present from 8:25am - 9:00am and again from 2:45am - 3:15pm

Are you and your whānau protected from measles?

With people travelling overseas again, there’s a risk that someone with measles could unknowingly bring the disease back to Aotearoa.

Measles spreads easily and quickly, usually between people who are unimmunised or only partially immunised. It can be serious and life threatening. In the 2019 measles outbreak in Aotearoa more than 30% of the people infected had to be admitted to hospital. 

The best protection against measles is the free MMR vaccine. It will protect you and your whānau, and prevent the virus from spreading.

You will be protected against measles if you:

• had 2 doses of the MMR vaccine
• had measles before
• were born before 1 Jan 1969.

If you’re unsure if you or your tamariki have had any or both doses of the MMR vaccine, check by calling your GP or hauora provider. Alternatively, check your Plunket Well Child Tamariki Ora book. If you’re still not sure, be safe and get immunised – there are no safety concerns with having an extra dose. MMR vaccines are free at your local health provider and many pharmacies.

As measles still occurs in many countries, if you’re travelling overseas these holidays it’s especially important to be immunised to prevent the risk of being unknowingly infected and causing an outbreak in Aotearoa on your return.

More information about the measles vaccination can be found here:

Measles vaccination – Ministry of Health

Entertainment Book

Wider Community Notices