The 2024 school year has started off in great fashion this term. This year we welcomed John Gayfer from St Peter’s College onto the Across School Leads team. A huge thank you to both of them for their work for our Kāhui Ako and we look forward to working with John.

We also have to say farewell to Molly Tagaloa at the end of Term 1. We thank her for all her work and wish her well in her new job.

 

The major event of the term was a fantastic Conference held at St Paul’s College. This was a great success bringing together all our schools to celebrate our faith and to learn from each other. Our thanks go to St Paul’s College for all the work that went into hosting this event. We personally want to thank our wonderful Across School Leaders for running such a wonderful event. The time and effort in putting this together was immense and the success of the conference came down to you.

Carolynn Phillips and Michael Mullin

The Kāhui Ako Conference 2024 has come and gone. It was a great day of learning and connection from the warm St Paul's welcome, to the keynote speakers all the way through the workshops and ending with our drinks and nibbles.

The conference theme was based around our Kāhui Ako whakataukī - waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toirua. Let us keep close together, not far apart. It was fantastic how we came together to learn alongside each other building connections.

Our gratitude goes out to numerous people who made the event possible:

Feedback received was very positive. Here are some examples:

Here at St Mary’s Catholic School Avondale our year 7/8 tamariki have used art as a medium to explore their identity. They brought a selection of objects from home that they felt represented their identity and used these to create unique identity sculptures based on the American visual artist Joseph Cornell.

On Sunday morning before the sun had risen, our St Francis’ triathlon team were organising bikes, helmets and running shoes into a transition area with over 3,000 children all excited and ready for the Weetbix Kids Tryathlon– East Auckland event. Unfortunately, due to the rain the day before impacting on the water quality for the swim leg, the event was modified to a run / bike / run event for the tryathlon, and a beach run / park run for the Splash & Dash 6year olds. This amazing sporting event was at full capacity, and is the largest children’s triathlon event in the world– what a special thing to be part of! Our St Francis children all did exceptionally well at the event, and represented our school with pride and showed great sportsmanship as they made their way strongly around the course.

According to Finn Rigby (Rm 8) the aim was to ‘Empty the Tank!’ and give it their absolute best, all while having a great time. All the children crossed the finish line with massive smiles, feeling very proud of their achievement! The families involved enjoyed connecting & celebrating at the school marquee with a fantastic BBQ very kindly arranged by Chris & Angela Franich. A huge congratulations to our fantastic St Francis Triathletes– Eddie, Dominic, Elspeth, Finn, Harry, Micah, Leith, Isla, Declan, Auri, Lochlan, Miles, Cooper, Lily, George, Jack, Evan and Poppy. 

It was a privilege to be invited by St Francis, senior school to share and read some of my favourite picture books and authors. What a fantastic group to read to. They were fully engaged and inquisitive.

Ngā mihi, 
Makerita 

Nau mai, haere mai, Fakalofalahi atu, Malo e lelei and Talofa lava!

Three of our kāhui ako colleges participated in the 49th  ASB Polyfest, performing on the Māori, Niuean, Samoan and Tongan stages. This is one of the biggest Polynesian Secondary school event in the world which took place between the 20-23rd March. The theme this year was -

 

Me anga whakamuri kia koke whakamua (Māori)

Kia mailoga e tau puhala he tau tupuna I ne aho mua – ke kitia e fakatuaga he fenoga oe puhala ki mua (Niuean)

Siofi e Kuohili Ke ne Tataki e ‘apongipongi (Tongan)

Tepa i le tuana’i, e fuafua ai le lumana’i (Samoan)

 

St Paul’s College made history in entering their first ever Niue group. Congratulations on the following results –

3rd Place – Kamataaga Trophy

3rd Place – Fakaotiaga Trophy

2nd = Place – Tame Trophy

2nd = Place – Meke

1st Place – Tauteuteaga Tino Vaha Tuai

1st Place - Takalo

1st Place – All Boys category

3rd Place – Overall

 

St Peter’s College results as follows -

1st Place – Me’etu’upaki

3rd Place – Ulufale

3rd Place – Ulufafo

3rd =Place – Togiga

3rd Place – Fa’ataupati

3rd Place – Overall

 

Marist College results as follows –

Kapa Haka Stage – non-competitive performance

3rd Place – Ulufafo

3rd Place – Pese o le Aso

2nd Place – Fuataimi (Julizah Maoe)

2nd Place – Melenaite Falekaono (Year 13 category)

We are so proud of all our participating students, very thankful to all the tutors, appreciative of all our parent support and grateful to our staff in charge. It truly took a village to raise and praise the cultural values and beliefs of our beautifully and wonderfully made young people.

We began  Holy week with a Palm Sunday Liturgy led by our Disciple leaders. Joshua acted as Jesus and we welcomed him into the school hall waving palms and singing Hosanna. We took this time to remember Jesus' entry into Jerusalem where he was welcomed like a king. The people of Jerusalem were glad to see Jesus but there were some religious leaders who were jealous of him and wanted to get rid of him. Jesus knew what God's plan was and he knew he was going to have to leave and die on the cross soon.

Holy Thursday

On Thursday the children got the opportunity to experience a Passover meal and remember the Last Supper that Jesus had with his Disciples. Jesus knew this was a sad time but he also knew that he would return again after 3 days and people would see the greatest miracle of all time. The children got to taste the piece of lamb on the Seder plate to remind everyone of sacrifice and the Passover lamb. They then had a piece of unleavened bread, called matzoh (MAHT-zuh), because the Israelites left Egypt so quickly in the middle of the night that their bread did not have time to rise. They also had some apple on the Seder plate called charoses (ha-ROW-seez). It represents the bricks the Israelites were forced to make, when they were slaves. It is also sweet to remind us that they had freedom when Moses helped them escape.

They had some parsley to remind us of springtime, new life and hope. Also salt to remind us of the salty tears and the sadness and bitterness of slavery in Egypt. Everyone also drank Ribena with the meal.

Easter Liturgy

When we returned to school after the Easter break we had a school Easter Liturgy to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. This is a happy time in our church calendar and our celebration lasts 50 days until Pentecost.

Happy Easter Everyone!