Our Lady

of the Rosary

School

Wainui Road, Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt, 5010

Phone: (04) 566 3258

Fax: (04) 566 3159

Email: admin@olr.school.nz

Web: www.olr.school.nz

Newsletter - Week 9, Term Four (11th December 2019)

OUR SCHOOL VIRTUES: Faith – Whakapono Hope – Tūmanako Love – Aroha Charity – Manaakitanga

Malo ni, Taloha ni and welcome. The End of Year Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary Church this morning was very special, a time to reflect and give thanks for our 2019 school year and a time to celebrate the year as a community. Thank you to Jane Carter, our Director of Religious Studies, for organising the Mass and to Fr Michael for officiating the Mass and to our wonderful musicians for leading our singing.

We welcome you all to our End of Year Prizegiving on Tuesday evening, 17th December, it will be held at St Bernard’s College Gym, starting at 5.30pm. We ask that all students attending wear the correct school uniform please.

Thank you to the Wednesday music groups who entertained us last week with an array of musical performances. It is wonderful to see the Performing Arts alive and well at OLRS! A big thank you to Lucy Ryan for her work within our school running our music programme.

IMPORTANT DATE Teachers only Day Friday 7th February Next year the staff are required to renew their First Aid Certificates. This takes place every 2 years. In previous years staff have taken the course on Saturday during the term. Next year this will take place on Friday 7th February. Please note school will not be open for instruction on Friday 7th February. This date has been chosen to enable families to take advantage of the Friday after Waitangi Day to maximise your weekend.

LEAVERS DINNER On Thursday evening our Year 8 students celebrate their final year at OLR with a “LEAVERS DINNER”. Thank you to Jacqui Brown and Bernita Bennett for orgainsing the evening for our students.

END OF YEAR SCHOOL PICNIC You are most welcome to join us next week on Monday 16th December for the school picnic at Harcourt Park in Upper Hutt. We leave school on the bus at 9.30am and return at 2pm. If you are coming and would like to take your child/ren home from the park with you at the end of the day, please ensure you sign them out as having left with their classroom teachers.

Last Thursday we had our Award’s ceremony to celebrate children's learning in the following areas: Home Learning Awards for Yrs 0 to 6, Rosary Leadership Awards for Yrs 7 and 8, Musical Leadership Awards, Cultural Awards, Enviro Awards, Reading Eggs Medals, Mathletics Medals and support programme awards. Thank you to Caro for organising the ceremony and our councillors for hosting the event. Congratulations to all of you for your hard work and excellent efforts throughout the year.

NEWSLETTERS 2019: We will have one more newsletter for 2019. This will be sent out early next week.

Junior Kapa Tipu Award

Winners 2019

God Bless, Whakapaingia te Atua Karolina Surynt-Tapiki Principal

12 Dec Road Patrollers pool party, Mckenzie pool,10am 12 Dec Yr 8 Leavers Dinner, 6pm– 7.45pm, school hall 16 Dec School Picnic, Harcourt Park, 10-2pm 17 Dec Prize-giving @ St Bernard’s College Gym, 5.30pm 18 Dec Poroporoaki 18 Dec End of Term 4, 12.30pm 30 Jan School uniform shop open 9.30—10.30am 4 Feb Term 1 begins, Powhiri, 9am 6 Feb Waitangi Day - School Closed 7 Feb Teacher Only Day - School Closed

Well done to the children who showed the school virtue of FAITH last week

Rm 8 - Dawn McCarthy Rm 9 - Hazel Zgomba Rm 10 - Lagimaina Pritchard-Dominic Rm 11 - Christopher Porter Rm 12 - Estella Rumble Rm 0 - Maria Fernandez Jones Rm 1 - Brooklynne Hughes Rm 2 - Archie Maher Rm 3 - Juno Holden Rm 4 - Ajay Leitch Rm 6 - Kathryn Chapman Rm 7 - Brooke Mahy

Congratulations to: Janet, Malakai, Maria and Charlie-Rose

Well done to Keilani and Jonathan who competed at the Regional Athletics on Wednesday 4 December. Keilani came 4th in Vortex and Jonathan came 7th in Discuss and 8th in the 1500m. A top effort from you both.

Thank you to all our families who contributed grocery items/gifts for our St Vincent de Paul Christmas Giving.

This Friday is the Last day for the FOS after school Ice-block sales. $1 each and trumpets $2. Lolly bags for $1 will also be for sale.

Update from the Board of Trustees

On Monday we had our last meeting for the year. We had the end of year student achievement data presented and we are so blessed at Our Lady of the Rosary School to have such dedicated teachers and teacher aides led by a passionate senior management team. The results for this year are fantastic and showcase the efforts of all our students. We can all be proud.

Earlier in the year, we had a request from students in the enviro group to consider going rubbish-free in our children's lunch boxes after they had been surveying the rubbish collected and looking at our next steps as we work towards our silver enviroschool level. From next year food scraps from lunchboxes that can be composted, or put into the worm farms will be, and packaging that can be recycled will be and all other rubbish will be sent back home to dispose of. To the parents who also supported this initiative in the recent Health Consultation we did, we thank you.

Thank you to all the parents who responded to the recent Health Consultation. The consultation is a legal requirement for us to do as a school every two years. The questions are developed to be open-ended enough that we can gather as much information from people as they want to share because in the past the questions were more narrowly defined and the information was of limited use to the Board and management. We looked at all the responses on Monday and the feedback where possible will be looked at for next year. Information about the health initiatives at our school can be found in our school newsletters throughout the year.

We have also signed up to be a water-only school from next year. This means that the only drinks able to be sent into school will be water. This will include Subway orders. All drink bottles can be refilled during the day as needed. We thank you in advance for your support in regards to this initiative.

It has been a very full year and as we have begun to look ahead to 2020 in our planning, we would like to acknowledge what a busy and sometimes tough year this has been for our staff, students and school community. We on the Board, are very grateful for you all and the contributions our whole community contribute to the wairua of our school and we wish you a happy and safe summer holiday. To those leaving we thank you for everything you have done and wish you well on your next adventures.

God bless Natasha Watson Board Chair

Rabbitohs

Knights

Warriors

Tigers

Titans

OLRS Comets OLRS Flyers

Sport

OLRS Stars OLRS Jets

Floorball

OLRS Rockets

Flo

orb

all

Eels

Tou

ch R

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y Touch Rugby: OLRS Titans - Hera and Sally OLRS Canes - Linda OLRS Warriors - Irma Faamanu OLRS Roosters - Grant OLRS Rabbitohs - Barry OLRS Knights - Maeli OLRS Storm - Tia OLRS Tigers - Jodie Floorball: OLRS Flyers - Smitha and Shailesh OLRS Stars - Giovanni OLRS Jets - Liz OLRS Rockets - Angela OLRS Comets - Jo

Storm

Canes

Roosters

A big THANK YOU to the coaches/manager of our touch rugby and floorball teams this term.

On Monday 9 December, Room 3 went to visit some new friends at the Woburn Retirement Village

I went into the hospital part of the retirement village. Some people in there were unable to talk with us but loved our visit. I met a man named Neil, he was not able to hear in one ear. He had no legs and he used to be a farmer. We talked for a while about Spud (my dog) and stuff like that. The person next to me was sad because nobody was visiting with him, so I gave him a card and he started laughing. Then he fell asleep, I wasn’t expecting that but I kept talking to him. Then went to the day room and we sang Mary Did You Know, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Away in a Manger and Feliz Navidad. Neil couldn’t come down to that room as it was too hard for the hospital residents. Then we went on the bus back to school. I really enjoyed talking to Neil. By Brendan Egan

On Monday the ninth of December Rm 3 went to the Woburn Retirement village. I was in the Strand Room finishing a talk to a nice lady, when Ms Greaney told me to go to a man who couldn’t come into the room because he had trouble walking. When I got to the door of the man’s room I saw my Great Grandad's pictures! I knew that it was my Great Grandad and when I came in, we were very happy to see each other. Ms Greaney was so surprised that she went and got Minami. Then Ms Greaney took a photo and we talked before we went to the concert. That was a Christmas miracle! By Minami and Mio Hoffman

On the 9th of December we went to Woburn Retirement village and I was talking to this super nice person, she was in the Strand Room. I was talking to her husband, he visits every day and he was saying he comes from Wainuiomata. She was telling me about what she did when was a kid, she was born before World War 2 and she lived on a farm. She has a sister up North and her sister has a lot of kids and she is coming down for Christmas. I enjoyed going because I used to visit my Nana quite a bit in a retirement village and it made me think of her. By Jovan Bell

On Thursday the 5th December the Cultural Group Kaea (leaders) from years 3-8 took a trip into Wellington City, as a reward for their leadership this year. They checked out the four special Wellington Waka housed in the Wharewaka before heading to Te Papa where they enjoyed a variety of spaces including Toi Art, and Taonga Māori. The highlight was definitely their time in Rongomaraeroa (Te Marae) where they performed an outstanding set of waiata and haka to visiting international tourists who were delighted with the show.

Bay Shoes have donated these fabulous children’s shoes to our school. Please come into the office or email if you would like a pair. There is no cost. Thank you to Bay Shoes, Lower Hutt

2 pairs 1x size 30 and 1x size 33

2 pairs 2x size 34’s

1 pair 1x size 33

Term Dates for 2020 Term 1 Tuesday 4th February to Thursday 9th April Term 2 Tuesday 28th April to Friday 3rd July Term 3 Monday 20th July to Friday 25th September Term 4 Monday 12th Oct to Wednes 16th December

Congratulations to Marietta and Lucia. They competed at the NZ Irish dance Championships and Marietta was placed 4th in NZ and Lucia was one of six dancers to qualify to compete at the Irish dance World Championships being held in Dublin next April.

On Monday night George and Henry had their Ngati Poneke Kapa Haka Prizegiving. Both boys were awarded the Akonga Tino Pai Mo Te Kapa Haka award, which was awarded by their Koro Bill & Nanny Donas. Kia mau te wehi!

Harrison’s Creation Every year I do a big model as a part of my home learning challenge. This year I thought it would be cool to make an overrun dinosaur laboratory.

The inspiration for this model came partially from the Jurassic Park movies, but a lot of the small details and features were planned out way in advance. The main island was made up of lots of layers; first I laid down the base and built up the main island with boxes and sheets of cardboard. Then I had to make it look more natural by layering paper mache and painting it. Finally I had to do all the detailing and painstaking gluing, this entire process took 4 months.

I originally planned to have other islands with military bases and places to hold the dinosaurs, with the T-rex trying to leave the island.

By Harrison Bardell, Intermediate Hub