Newsletter 30 November 2011

Dear Parents / Guardians

[The full newsletter is available for download below]

The field playground looks wonderful and absolutely enhances our school grounds, blending beautifully with the contour of the field and trees.  It looks as if it has always been there.  It’s so good to see the efforts of many coming to fruition.  Congratulations to everyone involved – especially Jett Gannaway and Cecilia Edmond for the design, Cecilia Edmond for project management, Kate Gillespie for the major fundraising, our PTA for the rest of the fundraising, James Morrow for supervising the installation and the parent helpers who worked on the build and Sue Bedford from the Board who liaised with the PTA. 

Swimming lessons for each student in our school are underway.  Living in New Zealand surrounded by water we know how important it is for our students to develop water skills prior to the summer holidays.  A big thank you to the Lion Foundation for once again sponsoring the cost of lessons and bus transport to and from the pool. 

Since 2000 we have been successful 11 times out of 12 applications for funding of this programme and 9 out of 11 times has been the Lion Foundation. 

We are very appreciative of their ongoing support.  Thank you to Mrs Sharon Menezes for her organisation of our swimming programme – every year it runs like clockwork.

Our students performed outstandingly well at the Suzanne Prentice Kids for Kids Concert.  Congratulations to Zachary O’Meagher on being selected as a soloist and big congratulations to Mrs Sharon Menezes for preparing out students to such a high standard.  I’m sorry to have missed it.

Data on our students’ achievements against National Standards in Reading, Writing and Maths was presented to the Board of Trustees at last week’s meeting.  We can be very proud of the results and our school community can be assured that our teaching and learning programmes are engaging our students and meeting their needs.  These results should be celebrated:

Reading 95% of students at or above N.S.
Writing 96% of students at or above N.S.
Maths 98% of students at or above N.S.

Our 2011 targets to raise student achievement have been successfully met (numbers are provided in the attached document).

Classes and cultural groups are hard at work practising their music and moves for our end of year concert.  Thank you to Mrs Helen Stowers for tutoring our Samoan Group, to Mrs Ota Valu for tutoring our Tongan group and Mrs Eddy Jesus for tutoring a Peruvian dance group.  The annual concert on 9th December starts at 1.00pm.  Please parents do not park on the grass areas inside St Mary’s College as this caused concern last year.  At the conclusion of the concert children will go home with their parents.  If you are unable to take your child home after the concert please let the school office know and arrangements can be made to bring these students back to school. 

We still have some Marist CD’s “Thank you for the Music” available at the school office.  Cost only $10.00 and they make lovely Christmas gifts for grandparents and friends.

Thank you to the school community for the kind prayers, words, cards and flowers I have received. Your pastoral care is truly appreciated.

Kind regards & God Bless

Robyn Pivac, Principal