St Benedict's School Pānui ā-rorohiko (Online Newsletter) Week `10, Term 2
- Celebrating St Benedict @ St Benedict's
- Tumuaki Korero - A word from our Principal
- Thank you HoK from St Ben's
- Regional Cross Country
- Congratulations to....
- Working Bee Organiser Required
- Message from The Attendance Dues Team
- Helping Our Kids
- 'YUMMY STICKERS’
- Parent Road Patrol Roster
- Wider Community Notices
- SAINTS BASKETBALL TICKETS!!!
- St Anthony's School Centenary
Celebrating St Benedict @ St Benedict's
Saint Benedict was a teenager when he became a monk. St. Scholastica, the founder of the
Benedictine sisters, was St. Benedict's twin sister. Saint Benedict is the patron saint of Europe and schoolchildren. He lived a life of prayer and he also taught and helped those in need. Saint Benedict gave up his rich inheritance to become a follower of Jesus. He preached Jesus message to the poor and to a lot of countries in Europe. Saint Benedict's examples have inspired a lot of people, even to this very day.
Like St Benedict we too, work hard at developing a community amongst the families that make up our school. We celebrate the awesome unity in diversity of our school community with distinct cultures, races, ethnicities, thoughts and beliefs.
At the end of Mass today we were gifted with the Stations of the Cross from St Benedict's church and several candelabra to enhance our Library Liturgy. We feel very blessed to become the caretakers of these taonga.
Tumuaki Korero - A word from our Principal
Tēnā koutou e te whānau,
Successful Open Day
On Tuesday we hosted 17 people at our open day. The visitors were very impressed by the engaged learners; the relationships between teachers and students; The use of digital devices and the Science Fair. We will have another Open day in Week 10 of Term 3.
Science Fair
Kauri Syndicate recently participated in our school Science Fair. Each student dedicated ten weeks to completing a science fair project, and the judging concluded on Monday, June 26th. The Year 7 and 8 students were competing for a spot in the top ten, which would allow them to represent the school at the upcoming NIWA Wellington Regional Science and Technology Fair held next term.
The standard of entrants was immensely high and every student should be very proud of what they have achieved.
Congratulations to Addison Stone (1), Violet Foskett (2), Jack McDougall (3), Xavier Breslin, Rueben Leilua, Louie Blackwood-Newson, Sebastian Davy, Shenaya Pieres, Kathryn Heather Mostert, Eli Benison.
Our School APP has launched
The new @School APP launched last week, and we currently have 99% of our school community logged in. Well done St Ben's!!! The feedback so far is that it is easy to use, has everything you need at your fingertips and sending an absence in is a breeze. I'd like to acknowledge that this is thanks to the testing group made up of the HoK committee who helped to ensure we fixed any major teething points prior to launch. There is one known issue, we have a few siblings that are not showing on the APP. We are working on fixing this and expect it to be completed by the beginning of next term.
Upcoming Events from our calendar:
Term 3
Week 1
Matariki celebration Wednesday 19 July. Celebrate Matariki with our community. Please join us on the turf at 9am. 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. At lunch time, we will be having soup for lunch. On the week before we return to school, we will be sending a notification in the APP requesting vegetables to help us make the soup.
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. During the holidays students might want to gather natural resources like toitoi to add to their kite.
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. We invite you during the first few days of term 3 to add any members of your family who have died to our star Pōhutukawa and your dreams and wishes for the year ahead on Hiwa-i-te-rangi.
Keep an eye out for Matariki and send any photos to nicole.simson@st-benedicts.
Swimming Sports Year 4-8 Thursday 20th July. We will be leaving school at 9am on the bus for Karori Pool and returning to school by 1:30pm. Please make sure you have completed the entry form for your tamariki. You can find it in our school app.
Grandparents Day Mass Friday 21st July. We are delighted to celebrate our Grandparents with a mass at St Francis of Assisi Parish Church. The busses will leave school at 11am for the church. Grandparents can park on the bottom school courts from 10: 45am and travel with the school on the bus to church. On our arrival back at school our classrooms will be open for viewing. At lunch time we will have a light lunch in the library for our grandparents and a ice block for our tamariki.
Week 2
Red Nose Day Friday 28th July - This is a non uniform day fundraising for cure kids, please bring a gold coin donation.
Week 3
PB4L Family meeting Monday 31st July at 6pm. Join us at 5:30pm for a sausage sizzle if you are coming from work. We will be sharing our Positive Behaviour for Learning 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.
Kapa Haka year 3-8 performance Thursday 20 June 5:00pm at Johnsonville Mall.
Reminder of Teacher Only Days
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.
Mā te Atua koutou e manaaki, e tiaki hoki,
May God bless and care for you,
Tania Savage - Principal
Science Fair
Thank you HoK from St Ben's
Regional Cross Country
Congratulations to the following students who qualified and competed Albert O’Brien, Winston O’Brien, Oscar Cakebread, Octavia Burns. Also Jack Robilliard and Joseph Byrne who were support runners.
Our results- Albert 2nd, Octavia 10th, Winston 9th. All making the Inter regionals team.
Congratulations to....
Congratulations to Oscar who competed in the Annual Swimming Wellington Short Course Championship last week winning overall, 5 silver medals and 8 bronze medals, with personal best times for 10 of his events.
1) 200m Butterfly 12 & Under - bronze 2) 200m Backstroke (11 years men) - bronze 3) 100m Freestyle (11 years men) - bronze 4) 100m Backstroke (11 years men) - bronze 5) 100m Breaststroke (11 years men) - bronze 6) 50m Freestyle (11 years men) - bronze 7) 50m Backstroke (11 years men) - bronze 8) 50m Breaststroke (11 years men) - bronze 9) 200m Freestyle (11 years men) - silver 10) 200m Breaststroke (11 years men) - silver 11) 100m Butterfly (11 years men) - silver 12) 100m IM (individual medley) (11 years men) - silver 13) 50m Butterfly (11 years men) - silver
The following 3 months Oscar will continue his trainings to prepare for the Wellington Junior Championship race in Sep 2023. Well done Oscar
Congratulations to Samantha
Congratulations to Samantha who placed 2nd in Musical Theatre with high excellence & lyrical excellence. Samantha had the highest score for her age group qualifying for a spot in Top 5 Dancer for her age category. Samantha also placed 3rd in Jazz with high excellence.
There were over 30 dances competing. Well done Samantha
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
Message from The Attendance Dues Team
The Term 3 statement will be emailed to all families early July. Please check that the invoice has not gone to your Spam/Junk Inbox and that all your children are listed on the statement.
If you are paying by regular instalments, payments should be set up to close the balance by 30th November 2023 or by arrangement with the Dues team. 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: 02108907902
Helping Our Kids
Look out for announcements next term about school photos and the Fathers’ Day Breakfast!
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 2498 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
| Term 2 | 2023 | |
| Thursday | 29 June | O'Shaughnessy family |
| Friday | 30 June | Teacher Only Day - School Closed |
Term 3 Monday | 17 July | O'Styke family |
| Tuesday | 18 July | O'Sullivan family |
| Wednesday | 19 July | Oakenfull family |
| Thursday | 20 July | Olsen family |
| Friday | 21 July | Peet family |
| Monday | 24 July | Pieries family |
Tuesday | 25 July | Pinto family |
Wednesday | 26 July | Pope family |
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
Please note that there is a 5pm night before cut-off to access your tickets to each game, for example, Saturday 8th 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.