Mud slide heaven!

A wet drizzly morning tea meant that we were all stuck inside. Lunchtime came and the rain had lifted. What can we do? Wet playground, wet grass, puddles. Let's have a mud slide!!!
Great fun in fact "the best day ever" was how one student described it.
Apologies to our Mums and Dads - our PE uniforms will need quite a soaking tonight!

Wig Wednesday for Child Cancer

St Joseph's Catholic School held a Wig Wednesday today  to help raise funds for The Child Cancer Foundation. Everyone wore the craziest wigs they could find which made for a very colourful day indeed!
Thank you to Rexine from the Matamata Chronicle who came down and took these photos of us and our stunning hairdos. Don't we look wacky!

Matamata Community of Learning / Kaahui Ako Survey

This survey is an opportunity to find out about your perceptions and views of your child's/children's experiences in the school. 

The survey should only take about 10 minutes to complete. Your participation in this survey is voluntary and your responses are anonymous. The responses will be collated and used to provide evidence to inform decision making about next steps with regard to professional development in your school.

Please click on the link below to complete the survey:

WhanauStJS-M-2017

Staff and students click on the appropriate link below please:

StudentStJS-M-2017

TeacherStJS-M-2017

Many thanks

Parent Interviews

If you wish to make a time to meet with your child's teacher to discuss their progress and learning please make an appointment by using the link to our Google Sheet or by clicking on the picture below. Simply add your child's name in the time-slot you require, then press enter. No need to save or share.

Please ensure that your Year 2-6 student attends the interview so that they can discuss their goals with you. You will also have the opportunity to ask any questions you may have about their learning, academic progress or social needs.




If neither of these dates work for you, or you feel you may need a longer time to discuss your child's learning please speak directly to the teacher concerned to organise an alternative time.

Preschool Tabloids

What a fun afternoon of activities we had today! A group of children from Kid's corner - and a few of our younger whanau came along to our school for our tabloids. The weather didn't stop us  - we just moved the games into the hall!
The Year 4-6 students organised a series of simple games and guided our younger students and our little visitors through the various activities - three legged race, ball over and under, follow the leader, throw the bean bag into the hoop, "noughts and crosses" relay and a feijoa and spoon race. We then finished with a relay tag race.

It was so lovely to see the caring way that the older students assisted the younger ones - and everyone spoke about having made new friends! A true example of tuakana-teina in action!

Palm Sunday 2017

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the final Sunday of Lent, the beginning of Holy Week, and it commemorates the triumphant arrival of Christ in Jerusalem, days before he was crucified. 
Palm Sunday is known as such because we receive palm fronds to participate in the reenactment of Christ's arrival in Jerusalem. In the Gospels, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a young donkey, and to the lavish praise of the townspeople who threw clothes, or possibly palms or small branches, in front of him as a sign of homage. This was a customary practice for people of great respect.
Palm branches are widely recognized symbol of peace and victory, which is why they are used on this day. The use of a donkey instead of a horse is highly symbolic, it represents the humble arrival of someone in peace, as opposed to arriving on a steed in war.
The colors of the Mass on Palm Sunday are red and white, symbolizing the redemption in blood that Christ paid for the world.

PAL's - Physical Activity Leaders

On Wednesday we played games as teams and it was super comic. There was one were we had to make the duck fall out of the bucket. We had to use the pipes we got given to make the duck fall out the bucket.

Jack