Hello, Kia ora, Talofa lava, Hola, Namaste, Mabuhay, Ciao, Kia Orana, Ahalan,  Konnichiwa, Ni hao, Selam,  Xin chao,  Bonjour,  Bula, Dzien/Dobry, Shalom,  Dia duit, Mauri, Halo, Bom dia, Gidday, Guten Tag, Hej   

Mai i te Kopae ki te Urupa, tatou ako tonu ai - From the cradle to the grave, we are forever learning.

Kia ora koutou e te whānau,

Last night the Board of Trustees held our first meeting for 2025.  We welcomed Alice Muollo and Rick Stace as selected board members and thank them both for agreeing to contribute their time and energy to support the work the Board does for all of our tamariki. 

Our School has opted into a new wellbeing-focused initiative lead by the Ministry of Education and Police across the Porirua area.
The purpose of the programme is to notify schools in a timely manner when one of its students has been affected by a family harm episode. The Ministry of Education will manage and monitor alerts from Police and send a notification to the enrolling school or kura with no other detail other than the student's name. As a result of these notifications the school or kura is then aware that a child has experienced an event within the last 24 hours and is then better able to assist these students through more appropriate and sensitive behaviour management and the provision of additional supports when required. This programme fits within our Child Protection policy requirements and supports a small number of selected staff to support tamariki who may require a little extra care. The school has created a process to ensure information is kept private and safely stored. Please speak to me if you have any questions about the process.

We have been approached by the Archdiocese of Wellington (ADW) to consult with our community regarding recapitation of Year 7 and 8.  This would mean that the children could stay at St. Theresa's until the end of Year 8.  This is a lengthy process and involves consultation with the community, other local schools, the Ministry of Education and the NZ Catholic Educatiion Office.  In the first instance we are asking that you complete this very quick survey to gather some initial data.

https://forms.gle/bxUhP97oaaZoptDK7

The children have been enjoying their swimming lessons over the past 3 weeks and we are very grateful to have had such wonderful instructors from EasySwim.  Our thanks to Ella, Elias and Jonathan who have delivered fun learning experiences.

Kia pai tō rā whakatā - Have a great weekend.
Donna McDonald - Principal

This week we welcome:

Beata Thompson, sister of Makin and daughter of Mwea and Erena;
Daniel Francis, brother of Jonty and son of Bradley and Katie;
Avah Britz, sister of Likah and daughter of Riaan and Cherise.

We hope you have a very  happy time here at St. T's and that you make many happy memories.

On behalf of our whole School community, we send lots of love and prayers to Jagger Stace and his family - his parents, Rick and Bree and his sisters Ava and Cleo.  He was baptised earlier this month and we wish him many blessings as he goes along on his faith journey. 

*   If your child is not attending school on any particular day and you notify their teacher via email, PLEASE add the office in.  office@stp.school.nz
     It is still acceptable to leave a message on the Absence line.

*   If you notify your child's classroom teacher about a future absence, please do the same as above.

FEBRUARY
Friday, 21st February - Beach Picnic

MARCH
Wednesday, 5th March - Ash Wednesday
Friday, 14th March - 2p.m. Uniform fittings
Saturday, 22nd March - March Madness Fair
Friday, 28th March - School Photographs
Sunday, 30th March - Whole School/Parish Mass 9.30a.m.

APRIL
Friday, 4th April - 2p.m. Uniform Fittings
Friday, 11th April - End of Term 1

For Term 1:  There will be a total of 7 Fridays that pizza will be available for you to order for - that is for every Friday of the term until we break up.

To order pizza and/or ice blocks for your child, please follow ONE of the two processes below:
1. ORDERS FOR THE TERM: Pizza will be available for 7 WEEKS this term. So if ordering for the term, just multiply by 7. If you decide part way through the term, then calculate how many Fridays are left. Send an email to the team, outlining the following information for each child you are ordering for BUT in one email is fine.

Child’s Name:
Room No.:
Number of pizza slices - please specify if gluten free
Number of ice blocks
Cost: $1.50 per pizza slice and $1 per ice block
Multiply the order total by the number of Fridays.

2. WEEKLY ORDERS: These need to be sent to the same email address, with the same order details as in Option 1 and also paid into the same bank account number.
VERY IMPORTANT: The deadline for weekly orders is at 3p.m. on a Thursday. Unfortunately, no late orders can be accepted.

If you would like to pay in advance for a set number of weeks but not all the weeks in this particular term, please feel free to email these details to the team.
If your child is new to our school and only starts part way through the term, simply adjust the number of weeks for the remainder of the term.
kaiorders@stp.school.nz
Payment by internet banking only to 12 3254 0109325 00 using the reference PIZZA. The team would appreciate a screenshot of your payment, sent to their email address.

Our Hope for Holly Day leaves us speechless because you, our School community, have shown so much support for this cause - the St. T's spirit is alive and well and we're all so lucky to be a part of it. The response was unbelievable, so thank you all for your generosity.  The total to date is $2 316.10 and we will be passing this directly on to Holly's parents, Fraser and Fran. T H A N K  Y O U!
If you would still like to contribute, you can make a deposit into our school bank account (12 3254 0109325 00) using the reference ‘Holly’ or you can visit Holly’s Givealittle page: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/hope-for-holly-support-her-and-her-family.

Term dates for 2025:

Term 1:   Monday, 3rd February - 11th April

Term 2:   Monday, 28th April - Friday, 27th June

Term 3:   Monday, 14th July - Friday, 19th September

Term 4:   Monday, 6th October - Tuesday, 16th December  

Check out our fabulous personalised school hats!  Order form attached.

NEWSLETTER APP
Here is the link to download the Schoolzine App.  At the end of set up, you are asked for a passcode and this is 3025. 

An important update for SZapp has been released to accomodate for iPhones which have been intermittently receiving push notifications.

SZapp is available from the App Store now.

Users with automatic updates enabled on their device will recieve this update automatically.

Community Connections

School Calendar

We're still collecting Yummy stickers which earn us points for sports equipment.  A chart is attached for you to use and copies are also available from the Office.