Grip Student Leadership Conference 2016

What an amazing time was had by the four Y5 students, who will be leaders for 2017, at the Grip student Leadership Conference in Auckland last week!

Jackson, Seth, Talia and Esther joined with 8 students from Bishop Edward Gaines School, Tokoroa and headed up to Auckland. On arrival at the Mary Mackillop Centre, Mission Bay we checked into our rooms and then made our way downstairs to entertain some of the nuns in the Rest Home by singing a selection of Andrew Chinn songs. Miss McGuigan played the guitar and Josh played the drums. It was lovely to hear from some of the nuns who had worked in Matamata and Tokoroa at various times in their life.







Sister Jill McLoughlin then took us for a retreat in which we learnt about the life of Mary Mackillop. To finish off we had a quiz in the form of "Who wants to be a Millionaire". Everyone did very well and "million dollar" Crunchie bars were the prizes.

We had dinner on the beach with Sister Jill and really enjoyed playing on the playground and enjoying the fun.

The next day we made our way to the Vodafone Events Centre in Manukau for the leadership Conference along with 600 others! The day was interactive with lots of opportunity to reflect and learn about our strengths, weaknesses and leadership style. This was mixed with a few fun challenges. Jackson was the first to offer his services for a random fact challenge. Seth responded to a need by offering to represent our school in the chicken dance competition and Esther did her part by leading us all in a dance finale segment.

Over the Rainbow

We have had so much fun working and presenting our latest whole school production - Over the Rainbow. Thanks Mrs Van Eijk for all your work and patience with us. We had a ball!

Ag Day at Te Poi

Katarina and Baliegh took their kid goats along to the Ag Day at Te Poi on the last day of Term 3. It was their first time with an animal and they had s great time. 

Clean up NZ

This afternoon we put on our rubber gloves and headed out in teams of 3 to clean up the area around the school and down Centennial Drive. We filled two black bags with rubbish and got half a bag of recycling. It's amazing what we found! Come on people - let's think about what we throw out. Put your litter in the bin and keep NZ beautiful!!

Digi Awards 2016

350 - that's the number of entries received from across the Matamata District for this year's Digi Awards. St Joseph's had 4 of our entries make it through to the finals -  Joseph for his photo, Baliegh, Jackson and Oscar for their animations. Check out their entries at the bottom of the post.

The evening was a lot of fun and all of the schools in the District were represented. All of the finalists sat with bated breath awaiting the results of their categories. We were so thrilled and proud to have Oscar win the Y5-6 category for his "First Landing on Mars" animation - but wait, there's more - he then took out the Y5-6 Supreme Award!!

A fantastic effort by all 4 to get into the finals - and a wonderful result for Oscar, rewarding the determination and persistence involved in the creation of his 831 slides! Congratulations to you all.



 Joseph Gallagher - Winter Reflection
  Finalist in the Y3-4 Photo

Baliegh Williamson -
Finalist in the Y3-4 animation

Jackson Donderwinkel -
Finalist in the Y5-6 Animation

And Oscar Donderwinkel -
Finalist and winner of the Y5-6 Animation
plus Y5-6 Supreme Award winner!!
(Make sure you watch it right to the very end)

Digi Awards 2016

350 - that's the number of entries received from across the Matamata District for this year's Digi Awards. St Joseph's had 4 of our entries make it through to the finals -  Joseph for his photo, Baliegh, Jackson and Oscar for their animations. Check out their entries at the bottom of the post.

The evening was a lot of fun and all of the schools in the District were represented. All of the finalists sat with bated breath awaiting the results of their categories. We were so thrilled and proud to have Oscar win the Y5-6 category for his "First Landing on Mars" animation - but wait, there's more - he then took out the Y5-6 Supreme Award!!

A fantastic effort by all 4 to get into the finals - and a wonderful result for Oscar, rewarding the determination and persistence involved in the creation of his 831 slides! Congratulations to you all.



 Joseph Gallagher - Winter Reflection
  Finalist in the Y3-4 Photo

Baliegh Williamson -
Finalist in the Y3-4 animation















Jackson Donderwinkel -
Finalist in the Y5-6 Animation

And Oscar Donderwinkel -
Finalist and winner of the Y5-6 Animation
plus Y5-6 Supreme Award winner!!
(Make sure you watch it right to the very end)

Rotary visit

A huge thank you to David Hulme and Kevin Singh from Rotary. David and Kevin visited us today and explained some of the work that Rotary does here in Matamata and around the world. They then presented 8 of our students with their own special dictionaries. The students are all very pleased with them - and were even browsing through them at lunchtime!!! 👍