St Benedict's School Pānui ā-rorohiko (Online Newsletter) Week 9, Term 4

Upcoming Events from our Calendar

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Week 9
Friday 8th December End of Year School Mass Bus leaves school at 11am - Mass begins at 11:30am
Sunday 10th December Kapa Haka perform at Khandallah Fair - 10am

Week 10
Monday 11th December School Picnic at Eastbourne Park
Tuesday 12th December Reports go home
Wednesday 13th December Morning in new classes
                                                          School Picnic PP day 
Thursday 14th December 6:00pm Buddy Class Christmas Carols and Year 8 Prizegiving @ St Francis of                                                             Assisi Ohariu Parish Church
Friday 15th December  House Carols followed by Poroporaki for all leavers - 12pm.

Items found in the School APP
Teacher Messages
Term 4 Syndicate Newsletter
Documents Section
2024 School Dates
Summer Uniform Order form
St Ben's Handbook
Widget link
Newsletter
SchoolDocs (Board Policies) 
Account information
Absences notification and rate of absences. 
School Calendar
MyKindo for lunch orders
HoK Facebook and Instagram
Coming Soon: Road Patrol Roster 

@School App Access on Work phones
We have recently been made aware that some whānau are unable to download the @School APP due to work phone security settings. If this affects you, you can access the @School APP through safari or chrome browsers using the same log on details we have provided. We encourage use of our @School APP as we regularly send out communication through this.

Catholic Character Advent Calendar

Board update

The Board meet on the 1st of December. The Board have set the 15th of February for our Annual Parent meeting. 

An election was held for the Mid-Term positions on the Board. Lucy Woollaston and Shalini Agarwal were successful. Sadly for us Shalini's recent appointmnet to work for the Ministry of Education means she cannot take up this role.  Therefore  casual vacancy has occurred on the school board for an elected parent representative.

The board has decided to fill the vacancy by selection.
If 10% or more of eligible voters on the school roll ask the board, within 28 days of this notice being published,  to hold a by-election to fill the vacancy, then a by-election will be held.
Request for a by-election should be sent to:
Daniel Marks

St Benedict's  School Board

communication@st-benedicts.school.nz  by 4th January. 

Tumuaki Korero - A word from our Principal

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,

Class Organisation

We had hoped to have shared our class organisation for 2024 today however we are still settling on some final details and will share this information as soon as we are able.

Speech competitions

We hope you enjoy viewing our Year 1-6 speeches and results below. We have unfortunately hit an upload limit and our Year 7 and 8 speeches will be in next weeks newsletter.

Reports and Morning in Classes

Next Tuesday we will be sending school reports home along with class allocations for 2024. On Wednesday morning your tamariki will spend time with their new teacher and class. We will be joined by the 23 new students who are beginning with us in 2024 across all year levels.

Uniform

Please support your tamariki to wear the correct uniform over the last week of school.

End of Year School Mass

We hope you will be able to join us tomorrow for our End of Year School Mass at St Francis of  Assisi Ohariu Parish Church.  We have asked students if possible, to bring a can or non-perishable chrismissy item for the food basket tomorrow or if not tomorrow for under our Christmas tree prior to the end of Term.   Mass begins at 11:30am

Phone request

Do you have an old iPhone X or above that you no longer need? We are looking for three iPhones for use by the staff to connect with the community.  If you have one available please drop them off at the school office.

Year 6/7 Retreat

On Monday the Year 6 and 7 students went to the Home of Compassion for their retreat.

We were greeted by a morning tea and a lesson about stewardship. We learned that stewardship is all about compassion, love and care. The lesson included sharing ideas about the meaning of stewardship. We also spent time in the exhibition space and learned about some of the plants that Suzanne Aubert used to cure people, plus more details about her life. We went to the beautiful chapel for a liturgy and we all wrote our own prayers. We had a bible reading from the new testament which included information from athletes about how God has helped them on their journey. We finished the day by visiting Suzanne Aubert’s tomb where we all shared one word about what we had learned.  

Written by Year 6 students in Room 9.

We were all very excited about our retreat, for one thing we weren’t wearing our uniforms and we got to have a day off doing maths!

The day started off with the bus being late, because apparently the bus driver got lost! Our spirits weren’t dampened though.

 45 minutes later when all the Year 7s were finally on the bus we were on our way to our retreat!

 When we got to The Home of Compassion it was so pretty with fountains and flowers everywhere! 

The people there were also very nice and thoughtful, they gave us a very nice morning tea with cookies and milo. It wasn’t all about the food though!

 While we were there we learnt all about Suzanna Aubert and what an amazing woman she was, and how she founded The Home of Compassion.

 Luckily her legacy still lives on, so we could visit the exhibit and walk in her footsteps.

By Ellie Year 7, Room 11

I look forward to seeing you at the many end of year events happening over the next seven days.

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

Regional Athletics

Congratulations to Albert, Harrison, Winston and Lucia who represented St Benedict's at the Regional Athletics competition at Newtown Park.  

Results from live scoring:

Yr 5 boys Vortex - Harrison 4th with best throw of 39.90m,

Yr 5 girls Long Jump - Lucia 3rd equal with best jump of 3.54m

Yr 5 boys 800m - Winston 9th in a time of 2.55mins

Para boys 60m - Albert 1st in a time of 10.50sec, Para boys 100m - Albert 1st in a time of 16.92sec

Para boys Vortex - Albert 2nd with best throw 13.80m, Para boys Long Jump - Albert 1st with a best jump of 3.29m 

On Tuesday 05 December, I went to Regional Athletics.  I did four events, 100m & 60m sprints, Vortex and long jump and then we got hotdogs and ice blocks.  When we got home we then went to running.  By Albert 

While I was at the Regional Athletics everyone was very supportive, kind and helpful.  While I ran my 800m race everyone was cheering.  By Winston

On Tuesday 5 December, I woke up very excited and had a good breakfast to fuel me up for going to Wellington School Regional Athletics. There were kids there from Upper Hutt, Lower Hutt, Wellington and some other places. I was throwing Vortex against about 20 other kids and three of them threw over 40 metres. I came in 4th place after nearly throwing 40 metres. It was a really cool experience and I saw kids from a lot of schools I hadn't seen before. Thanks to Ms Kelly for organising it and I hope to go again next year.      By Harrison

Buddy classes

Buddy classes Room 13 and Room 6 joined up together to have an end of year celebration. Room 6 created cards and gave their buddies melted snow people biscuits. Room 13 had created games for their buddies to learn more about electricity. Lots of fun was had my all.

St Ben's Pre Christmas Holiday Programme

Following the success of our holiday programme in October we have decided to plan another onsite programme from  18 - 21 December 2023.

Again we have capped this at 20 children and will be taking registrations on a first in first served basis. We will need to have enrolments for 20 children to proceed with the programme. At this stage we will also be giving preference to families who would like their children to attend from Monday to Thursday.  However if you would prefer part of the week we will take your name and details and make contact should spaces become available. 

Whilst our schedule is still being drafted, all days of the programme will be onsite. There will be different activities each day, opportunities for free play and a wind down period.  Feliz and I will be working at our programme. Details are as follows:

Time:  8.30 - 5.30pm Monday to Thursday

Cost : $50.00 per child per day 

Timetable for activities to be advised. 

Thank You

Donna Wilson

If you are interested in enrolling your child(ren) in our program please contact Donna by emailing asc@st-benedicts.school.nz no later than 25 November 2023.

Congratulations to....

Bookmark Winners, Assembly Certificate and EPIC Lotto recipients

Helping Our Kids

Lost Property 

Entertainment Book

Holiday Programme Musical

Weet-Bix Kids TRYathlon

The Wellington event will be held on Sunday 17th March at Kilbirnie Park and Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre. If you would like to register your tamariki for this event, please click HERE.  This will take you to the link for the St Benedict's School team.  Please visit the website: https://tryathlon.co.nz/info/ for more details and information. 

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