St Benedict's School Pānui ā-rorohiko (Online Newsletter) Week 8, Term 2

Book of Life - St Francis of Assisi Parish

We have been invited to make a contribution every term to the Book of Life that is shared with the St Francis of Assisi Parish. We are proud to share the Catholic Character teams latest contribution. 

St Benedict’s School Khandallah

Greetings, Kia ora, Kia orana, Talofa, Mālō e lelei, Namaste, Ni Hao, Bula, Hola, Kumusta, Namaskārām, Sat Shri Akaal, Vanakkam and Ayubowan 

Pentecost is the celebration of the birthday of the Catholic Church. To mark this special day on the Church calendar, the Catholic Character Team organised a School Liturgy. All our community and whanau were welcomed to attend and be a part of our special celebration on Monday the 29th of May at 9:15 am.  

The feast of Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter to mark the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. This was the start of their ministry to go forth and make disciples of all nations.

Our students were encouraged to come to school dressed in clothes that show their culture – traditional clothes, clothes that are the colours of their flag, or something to show where their family comes from. 

Digital Technologies Curriculum @St Bens

Over the past four years we have been working with Shona Kelleher from The Learning Architects to develop our teachers Digital Technology skills. This professional development has been delivered online during lockdown, through Teacher Only Days and with 1:1 coaching. The below video and photos give a snap shot of the tools our tamariki are using to enhance their learning.  

Tumuaki Korero - A word from our Principal

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,

Positive Behaviour for Learning 

At St Benedict’s we are embarking on a long-term professional development project delivered by the Ministry of Education to review our process and procedures for supporting Positive Behaviour for Learning. The decision to undertake this professional development for our community has been lead by our school Board and Staff who have identified this as being an area we can strengthen together.  We are at the beginning of this journey which involves clarifying our community’s behaviour expectation and responses to behaviour and includes reflecting on our Catholic Character and our  implementation of the Epic Values and House Points system.

The Positive Behaviour for Learning framework is led by a team made up of teachers, teacher aides and board members who meet termly with the Ministry and other Schools. From these meetings they identify goals for our own school and then work with the whole school community to trial new initiatives and strengthen our current practices.

The theory behind the framework is that expectations for behaviour need to be clear and understood by all in the community, consistently implemented by staff and taught explicitly to our tamariki for them to be successful learners, EPIC school community members and faith leaders.

We will be holding an information and consultation evening to helps us develop our next steps on Monday 31^st July at 6pm. Join us at 5:30pm for a sausage sizzle if you are coming from work. We will be sharing our journey so far including draft behaviour matrix and explanation of responses to behaviour we are considering implementing. Bring your thoughts also about how you would describe an EPIC Year 8 student leaving St Ben’s. We will be capturing these ideas to support further development of our EPIC values. You are welcome to being your tamariki with you.

Upcoming Events from our calendar:

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

Week 9

Parent Teacher Interviews 2pm-6pm Thursday 22nd of June, see booking information below. You will receive an email from your teacher if you have not made a booking as yet. 

Jumping June Friday 23 June we will be running a Jumping June event (formerly Jump Rope for Heart) at 9am. If you'd like to recapture your former skipping glory you are welcome to join us. 

Electives Sharing Friday 23 June at 11am we will be finishing off our Electives focus by sharing our new learning with the wider school. 

Week 10

Open day Tuesday 27 June 11am-12:45pm

Science Fair viewing Tuesday 27 June the Science Fair will be open for viewing all day in Room 10 (room off the library). 6pm-7pm Announcement of winners of the Science Fair  in the School Library. 

Parent Teacher Interviews 2pm-6pm Wednesday 28 June, see booking information below. You will receive an email from your teacher if you have not made a booking as yet. 

St Benedict's Day Thursday 29 June we hope you can join us in celebrating our first Mass at 11:20am at St Francis of Assisi Parish Church. Followed by a fun afternoon of sports activties run by our House Captains and Catholic Character team. The tamariki can wear house colours to school for St Benedict's Day. 

Term 3 

Matariki celebration Wednesday 19 July.

We are delighted to celebrate Matariki with our community. This year we will begin the day with prayers and singing in the morning (Matua Hemī will join us for this), followed by soup making in class/buddy classes. In the middle block, seniors will be at technology and the rest of our classes will complete Matariki activities within class or syndicate organisation. 
In the afternoon, we will have a kite competition with different categories like best use of natural resources, most creative etc. The kites will be built in our Buddy classes. 
Over the week we will also have two big stars in the foyer, Hiwa-I-Te-Rangi and Pōhutukawa, one to write wishes for the year and one to write names of people who have passed.   

Kapa Haka year 3-8 performance Thursday 20 June 5:00pm at Johnsonville Mall. 

School App

We are currently completing testing of our School App with the HoK committee support. We are very grateful for this support as it allows us to ensure it is working well before we launch it. We expect to share your APP access details with you by next Thursday. 

Dental Clinic Changes

Last year we were informed that the Dental Clinic would no longer be able to visit our school. This decsion has been made by the Bee Healthy team as they are unable to approach our driveway from Everest Street and have deemed the approach from Nicholsion Road to be to constricted to bring the Dental Van down. We have been working with them and the Archdiocese of Wellington (ADW) to identify what would be needed to be remedied to allow access again. ADW are committed to finding a long term solution and we will continue to work with them to focus on changes to our lower enterance that will allow the Dental Clinic to visit again. Unfortunately this means for 2023 the Dental Van will not be visiting us and you will be contacted by the Bee Healthy team with an appointment at the Raroa or Newtown based clinics. 

Reminder of Teacher Only Days 

Term 2: Teacher Only Day 30 June Kāhui Ako wide Professional Development with Dr Melinda Webber and Cardinal John Dew including workshops run by kaiako from within our Kāhui Ako. 

Term 3:  Teacher Only Day 25 August Professional Development in Universal Design for Learning  and completion of Safeguarding Children course for all staff. 

Term 4: Teacher Only Day 24 October Curriculum Assessment Professional Development 

Curriculum Refresh Day 17th November 2023

Confirmation of Minstry of Education Curriculum Refresh Day

The School Board have confirmed that St Benedicts School will take the second mandated Curriculum Refresh Professional Development day for 2023 on Friday the 17th of November. This day will focus on the refreshed English and Mathematics curriculum. 

Congratulations to St Patrick's College

This year’s winner of the Prime Minister’s Te Puiaki Kaiwhakaako Pūtaiao Science Teacher prize, Doug Walker, from St Patrick's College,  has a passion for making science more accessible and appealing – at a school, regional and national level. Read more about his award and science at St Pat's here, you might even spot a picture of a former student of St Ben's in the article. 

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

Parent Teacher Child Interviews (PTC)

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

School Elections Nomination round

Our school will be undertaking a parent election for one School Board vacancy. This process will start with the issuing of nomination papers to our caregiver community by Saturday 10th June 2023.  Please contact the school office if you have not received your nomination papers either by email or post.

We have employed CES to undertake the election process on our behalf. This year with legislative change, our nomination form and full instruction on how to place your nomination into our own School’s Election website will be emailed to you if we have your email address in our database or you will receive it by post if we don’t have your email in our database.

Nomination papers will also be available at the school office. The school will send those onto CES for processing upon receipt from candidates. Nominations close on Thursday 29th June at 12noon. We look forward to your participation in this process.

The Proprietor Representative is not an elected position but an appointment by the Archbishop.   If you would like to be considered as a Proprietor Representative please contact Tania Savage.

Thank you to all the members who volunteer their time to assist in the smooth running of our school.

Board Policy Review

Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC)

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”.

Working Bee Organiser Required

We are still seeking a volunteer to run an upcoming whole school Working Bee. If you have experience running events or in the area of construction/landscaping etc, we are in need of your expertise. 

Sokry keeps our school looking amazing, however, there are a few jobs that require the support of many hands.

If you think you may have the skills to support the School Board to organise a Working Bee with our comunity and would like further information of the jobs we hope to accomplish please get in touch with Tania principal@st-benedicts.school.nz 

Congratulations to....

Assembly Certificate Recipients and EPIC Award Lucky Dip Winners

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

Helping Our Kids

The Disco 2023 was a blast!

Thank you to Jo Prince, Amie Peters and Theresa Jimeno from HOK who organised the event including the amazing decorations.  A big thanks also to everyone from the parent and wider St Ben’s community who volunteered on the night and made the event such a success.  We raised around $3,000.

Following on from the basketball hoop upgrade last year, HOK are upgrading the wonky netball hoops this year.

Entertainment Book

'YUMMY STICKERS’

– Now until the end of Term 3.   

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

Thank you to - to families who are collecting stickers 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 four 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. 

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

Wider Community Notices

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

St Anthony's School Centenary

St Anthony’s Catholic School, Seatoun, Wellington are gearing up to celebrate 100 years on 13 /14 OCTOBER 2023.  We invite all past and present students, staff, families and supporters to celebrate this amazing occasion.  Please register by completing the registration form here or you can find it on the St Anthony's School Centenary Facebook Page 

If you have any queries please email us at centenary@stants.school.nz or contact Julie O’Brien on 021 377 192.

If you are planning on travelling to join us, there is accommodation held aside at Brentwood Hotel on a first in first served basis. 

Fill out the accommodation form here.