Principal's Message

Kia ora koutou katoa,

It was a great pleasure to see so many parents attending our first formation event this week. Fr Michael Smith led the event and provided an interactive and engaging session with a takeaway for how to grow the church at home. Initial feedback has been very good in terms of supporting families and also around community building. It is an important part of our mission to enable families to grow in faith and spirituality; from the newly converted to the lifelong Catholic. Please look out for further events coming up next term.

As a college, we are aware that families are keen to see their child(ren) in action at school and we have a wonderful opportunity for this coming up. On 9th April, parents and caregivers are warmly invited to attend our inaugural House Parade Competition, where each school house will be educating the others about their patron saints. The event commences at 1:30pm and all are welcome to arrive from 1:15pm. This is a sign-up event and a link to register will be in next week's newsletter - save the date.

For all families who may not attend church regularly or thinking about going back, or even beginning to go, this Sunday, which is Palm Sunday, is a good opportunity to do this. It is a reminder of the joy of welcoming Jesus, it turns to a solemnity and despair with a reading of his passion, yet we leave the Mass with our palms; a symbol that despair will turn into joy and that we may live in the promises of Christ and hope of an eternal life in Heaven. Let this Sunday's mass be a real opportunity for you to find God through our faith and to find God through the hope that our faith brings.

Finding God in all things.
Inveniens Deum in omnibus.

Dean Wearmouth

College Life

Opportunities for further learning
Ākonga / students at St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College are provided with multiple opportunities for further learning. As well as structured lessons within subject areas, ākonga/students are provided with a range of tasks, including Education Perfect, Google Classroom assignments, research projects, and designing portfolios showcasing their work. 
Ākonga / students are not assigned homework as busy work or as a regular scheduled event, but as an additional opportunity to learn and to grow. 
All achievement objectives within subject areas are covered in class time, homework should be used to contribute to but not replace class time. Any homework tasks that are set will be of a reasonable length and difficulty, with a reasonable time frame for completion.

Length:  Should be able to be completed in 20-30 minutes (or longer if the task is over a week or more).

Difficulty: Students should be able to complete the task without additional help, or know where to access help or explanation if needed.

Meaningful: The purpose of a homework task should be clear to students and connected to what they are learning in class

Time frame: Students should be allowed 2-3 days to complete homework as they may have commitments that make overnight homework difficult.  A maximum of one task per week allows for student balance.

Optional: Some homework tasks may be made optional to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate Magis or investigate areas of interest.

Follow up: Homework is followed up in line with ākonga/ student expectations.

Sport
Athletics was hugely successful for our school with the whole school in attendance and the weather turning around. See News below for more information.

Rugby skills with Counties Rugby Football Union have continued every Tuesday and seen many of our ākonga participating and learning new skills through fun games.

Netball teams have been confirmed. We are pleased to be entering 5 teams into both the Counties Secondary School Tournament at Papakura and Pukekohe Saturday Winter Competitions.

St Ignatius falls under the Franklin North Zone, so over the next two weeks we will be sending teams to the Franklin Cricket festival Day and Franklin Year 7 & 8 Franklin Ultra Rippa Tournament.  We will be aligning with both Franklin Zone and College Sport to provide multiple opportunities for our ākonga to represent our school.

We have had a number of students represent our school in various events already this year and congratulate the following students on their successes:

-Hannah Mackintosh, who came first in her class at the North Island Secondary School's Dressage Carnival. Not only was this her first time representing her school, but her first time competing in a dressage competition.

-Annabelle Shields swam at the Auckland Regional Long Course swimming champs. This was her first senior meet and was a prep meet for the New Zealand National Age Group Champs that she is swimming in during the school holidays in Hawkes Bay. She competed in the 50m and 200m breaststroke and got through to the finals in the both events. She achieved a very close 4th place in the 50m breaststroke, and 3rd place in the 200m breaststroke.

-Elysia Rollo participated in the Harlequin Cross Auckland Secondary School Open Water Swimming Championships in Auckland's Waitematā Harbour. This event required her to swim a massive 2.6 kilometres, which she did in an incredible time of only 52.50 minutes. Congratulations Elysia on achieving 3rd place in this event.

Drama 
Drama classes across all year levels have been fully engaged in creative and imaginative group work these past few weeks. They are learning the fundamental skills of Drama and producing some high quality performances as a result.

Year 7 ākonga are rehearsing scenes from Roald Dahl's play James and the Giant Peach and are having an enjoyable time bringing these fantastical characters to life whilst learning the skills involved with learning lines.

Year 8’s are noticing how Drama and English complement each other as subjects and are working exceptionally well using drama techniques to perform comedic poems.

Year 9 ākonga are learning how to use their bodies and movement skills as actors to create physical theatre performances based on well known fairy tales.

It is wonderful to see our Drama students immersing themselves into the subject, working with all members of the class and stepping out of their comfort zones.

Year 7 - James and the Giant Peach

Year 8 - Comedic Poetry

Year 9 - Physical Theatre

Math
Students in Year 8 have been learning about patterns in Algebra. They made shapes out of matchsticks and described their patterns in words and algebraic symbols.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Celebrating Ākonga
During our school assembly this week our Manutaki award went to the following ākonga:

Year 7 - Andy Nguyen
Year 8 - Joslyn Allan
Year 9 - Pippa Wilson

These ākonga received a stand out Weekly Excellence Review.  We celebrate these ākonga being more fully alive and reflecting the greater glory of God through their work and actions.   

Cura Personalis

Weekly Excellence Reviews
We have received some very positive feedback regarding the Weekly Excellence Reviews from our families and hope that you are finding them a useful form of communication from college. Next week we will share with you some important tools for discussing these reviews with your child so that they can be supported at school and at home on their journey towards personal excellence. 

Please note that as the  last three weeks of term are all shorter weeks there will be some gaps in the Weekly Excellence Reviews.  The gaps will occur when ākonga have lessons on the days when College is closed.  These subjects  will be indicated on the review with an N/A. 

Bus Update
We met with the Ministry earlier this week to discuss potential Bus route amendments. They are currently reviewing our feedback and will let us know the outcome shortly, with a view to any changes being implemented for the beginning of Term 2.We will share any relevant information regarding these amendments as soon as we receive it.

The Hungry Wolf

Here is the trial menu for the Hungry Wolf. All items are freshly made and can be purchased using cash, EFTPOS and payWave. Students purchasing from The Hungry Wolf must line up in single file and have their payment ready. We are looking forward to seeing you from 3rd April onwards!

Upcoming Events

Important Dates to Remember:
Community Open Day - Saturday April 6th - 9:30pm - 12:30pm
House Parades - Tuesday April 9th - 1:30pm - 3:00pm
Parent / Ākonga / Kaiako Interviews - Wednesday / Thursday 10th-11th April - 2:00pm - 7:00pm
Teacher Only Day - Friday April 12th - All Day

Catholic Character

Live simply so that others may simply live
Our more and more commercialised world has bombarded us with unlimited choices and options. From a young age, we have been conditioned to get more and to want more. We are made to become fearful for not having enough. However, that view is not entirely true. For example, religious people like the Jesuits - though not always successful, have been trained to live more simply. The rationale is that the more things they have, the more things they have to manage, the less mobile and available they are for God’s mission. This makes simplicity not only a matter of poverty of the spirit, a solidarity with Christ-poor,  but also a matter of practical convenience.

A simpler life may allow us to reflect more on the reality of our world, where many of our brothers and sisters still live under the poverty line; some frequently struggle to make ends meet; some are barely able to feed themselves and their families. There is a saying, often attributed to either Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa, that we can “live simply so that others may simply live.” This may resonate with us as a Catholic community, especially in this Lenten season. Lent is a time for us to do some prayerful reflections, an interior “cleaning” of unnecessary and unhelpful things that get in our deeper relationship with God. However,  it is also time to launch ourselves into real practical actions of love, as suggested by Pope Francis. We are "to pause in the presence of God beside the flesh of our neighbour. For this reason, prayer, almsgiving, and fasting are not three unrelated acts, but a single movement of openness and self-emptying.” 

This is what the path to true freedom may look like. This is the view which we uphold and promote at the College. Our students have been invited to pray and reflect daily, to know that God cares for them and loves them unconditionally. In those reflections, they are also encouraged to discover God working in themselves through their service of others, in practical actions of love for one another and for all of God’s creation, including in living more simply so that others may simply live.

Young Vinnies Food Drive
In the spirit of Lent, the college is engaging in a food drive to support the efforts of our local parish, St Patrick's Pukekohe, who tends to the needs of our community. As we consider what to gift, let us reflect on 2 Corinthians 9:7: "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

To streamline the donations, we've categorized goods by the year levels as follows:
Year 7 - Dinner ingredients: Pasta, rice, noodles, sauces, and tin cans.
Year 8 - Morning tea ingredients: Biscuits, tea, coffee, sugar and spreads.
Year 9 - Toiletries & hygiene: Paper towels, toilet paper and soaps.

Please deposit your donations in Room 36 by this coming Monday at the latest. Thank you for your support & God bless.

Holy Week Liturgies:
All parents / whanau of the College community are welcome to celebrate  the most important week in the Catholic calendar with the local parish communities.

St Patrick's Church, Pukekohe 
Palm Sunday - 9am Mass, one Mass only, with a procession starting in the back carpark.
Holy Thursday - 7pm Mass
Good Friday - 3pm Service
Easter Vigil Saturday - 7pm Mass
Easter Sunday - 9am Mass, one Mass only

St Mary's Church, Papakura
Palm Sunday - as normal times, Saturday 5pm, Sunday 8.30am and 10.30am
Holy Thursday Mass - 7pm 
Good Friday Service - 3pm 
Easter Vigil Mass - 7:30pm 
Easter Sunday Mass - 8:30am & 10am

Free Catholic Apps for your iPhone or Android
Now that your son or daughter is enrolled at St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College, you might want to deepen your knowledge of Catholicism, the Mass, the Catechism, different ways of praying, the Saints, the Sacraments, and so on. There are free apps which have excellent resources and are easily downloaded from your App Store or Google Play. Today we share the second of these :

Amen The Amen App (Free) on Apple | Android   devices is designed to help you encounter God through meditative prayer from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep.

The Amen App (Free) on Apple | Android   devices is designed to help you encounter God through meditative prayer from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. The Amen App includes a soothing meditative experience in prayer, complete with a variety of sleep aids designed to calm your mind and body. The Amen App is primarily in audio format, so you can pray/meditate with your eyes closed. This includes audio meditations and bedtime stories read to you in a soothing delivery by a trained voice actor on a variety of topics with a selection of background music or sound effect options.
The Amen App also comes packed with other valuable Catholic audio/text resources to help inspire your daily conversation with God through Christian meditation on Sacred Scripture.
Among resources, you get audio/text versions of:
 Daily Mass readings and audio reflections.
 Meditations on a variety of topics by top Catholic theologians and speakers (like Chris Stefanick and Dr. Tim Gray).
 Stories for children including Bible stories and the popular Brother Francis cartoon (just the audio, no video).
 Catholic devotions including a variety of audio rosaries.
 Truth & Life Audio Bible: Enter into a fully dramatized reading of a new book from the New Testament each month.
 Read-the-Bible-in-a-year audio program.
 Sermons by saints and Fathers of the Church.
 Morning and Evening psalms/prayers.
 Season-specific resources targeting Lent, Easter, Advent and Christmas.

Community Notices

News