What an AWESOME final week for Term 2

The week began with our Matariki breakfast, and last night we had our Matariki disco. A big thank you to the parents who organised and ran both these celebrations. It is through your support of such events that we are able to come together as a community. The BBQ breakfast was a great hit and the children really enjoyed the disco. They certainly had some stylish moves and cut some great shapes on the dance floor.

It was wonderful to see so many parents arriving on the first three mornings of the week, taking up the opportunity to hear from their child about their learning for the Term. This is a lovely opportunity for the children to share their learning with their parents and for parents and children to celebrate the term’s progress.

This evening you will be receiving your child’s report by email. This shares with you their learning achievements for the first half of the year and their next learning steps. As mentioned in the report we are unable to record where you child is achieving in relation to the new English and, Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum. These curriculums were introduced at the beginning of this year. The Ministry of Education will be providing schools with assessments for the new curriculum at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. Erica Stanford, the Minister of Education has provided this statement, which is to accompany school reports this year. When we receive the assessments we will be in a position to assess the children against the new curriculums. 

The mid year progress report has three parts to it; Sharing the Learning, Written Report and Whanau Meeting. You will be receiving an email with a link that will allow you to book a time to meet with your child’s teacher on Thursday 24 July. This will be an opportunity for you to have a chat with their teacher to discuss you child’s learning progress to date and their next learning steps.

Not only did we have Matariki breakfast on Monday, but we also had our book character parade to celebrate the beginning of book week. What an amazing array of book characters that the children came dressed as. It was a brilliant parade and thank you to the many parents who came along to support the children. It was lovely to see the children both at the parade and through the day enjoying being their book character.

Thank you to the many parents who supported the book fair through the week. It is through your support that we will be able to get new books for the library. Thank you to the parents who helped run the book fair.

Thank you also to the many parents who have been involved this term supporting the many children involved in out-of-school school team sports. The coaches managers and supporters. The teams have had a great term and a number were involved in finals. We will be publishing a sports newsletter at the beginning of the new term.

At school prayers this morning we blessed and farewelled Father Mark Napa. This is his last week in our parish as he is heading to the Whangarei parish. It has been wonderful to have him in our parish for four years over which time he was ordained as Deacon and as a Priest. We wish him all God’s blessings in Whangarei and look forward to his return to our Parish one day.

Our school prayers were opened by our kapa haka group. They were amazing. Our thanks to the parents that were present for following the tikanga and not clapping when they completed their performance. Thank you also to our choir for their performance. This was their first performance and they sang beautifully. It was nice to acknowledge both performances at the end of the event.

The week and term has ended with YCC weekend wear day. This is a national Catholic schools day that raises funds for a school in the South Pacific. These schools are not resourced as NZ schools are. This is a way in which the the NZ Catholic school community can support them by providing cash to purchase resources they would otherwise not have. This year the school is St Leo’s Secondary School, Kiribati. Thank you for allowing your child to come to school in weekend wear with a gold coin to support this school. We raised over $700.

This brings an end to an amazing week and term.

Take care

Ka manaakitia koutou e te Atua

Alister Bridgman
Tumuaki

Monday 14 July to Friday 19 September 2025

Later this year we will be having our triennial Board Election. This sees a parent election and staff election for representatives on the Board. The Board is made up of;

• 4 x Proprietor representatives (Proprietor selects them)
• 5 x elected parent representatives
• 1 x elected staff representative
• Principal

This link provides some information about the elections and being on the Board. We will be sending out more information in the coming term. These are the Election dates for our school;

• St Joseph’s Camp – Francilla, Etienne & Sophia
• Year 5 EOTC Week – Micah & Matthew
• Catholic Schools Day – Sophia

Latest News from St Josephs Church Takapuna

Please check out the latest community notices which you can find on our school website.