We have recently welcomed Ayrin (Room 8), Anthony (AJ - Room 6), and Keiden (Room 2), to our St Bernadette's School Community. AJ and Keiden have moved into our area from North Dunedin, where they went to Sacred Heart School and Ayrin has freshly graduated from 'Bernie's Beginners'. We pray that they and their whānau have happy schooldays with us.

Back Row: Bailey, Jerry, Arlo, Clare, Maakea, Lau-ó-vea
Middle Row: Īrena, Natalia, Tilly, Alaiyah, Maggie, Roman
Front Row: Esther, Leo, Murphy, Noah B, Sophie, Otile

Back row: Vaha, Serah, Ben, Penny
Front row: Oakley, Moungaone, Zuri, River

St Bernadette’s and St Brigid’s schools are having their combined school mass this Sunday at 9:30am, St Patrick’s Basilica. The children will be involved in all the readings, prayers, offertory and singing. The theme for the Mass is Jesus’ new commandment “Love one another, just as I have loved you”. We would love to see you there, the children can come and sit together and be part of our amazing choir.

The children who will be receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time will also get a special blessing during this Mass.

After the family Mass the children who will be making their first Reconciliation will go over to the Parish Centre for a morning tea and meeting with Fr Michael. Please bring something easy to share for morning tea.

We were thrilled to have a special ceremony today, to celebrate the completion of the new sandpit in the upper playground. Our special guests were the Gdanitz family, as Oscar's dad was instrumental in organising the design, contractors and sand, and also gave a very generous donation towards materials and labour. Ms Fitz and our Room 1 tamariki blessed, and said thanksgiving prayers, finishing off with a lovely waiata. I can report the tamariki all loved the special cutting of the ribbon, which was done by Henry (our oldest pupil), Aryin (our youngest pupil) and Oscar. We celebrated with a very loud cheer.
I think the few pictures we are sharing, show how much fun we had testing out the new sandpit. Next week I'm sure we will have some stories to share with you, about all different ways we are using our imaginations in our sandpit play. Thanks also to Stewart Construction, who supported this project, to the people who have donated toys and to our Home & School committee who will be providing a storage unit.

Earlier this week eight Year 6 children attended the National Young Leaders’ Day in the Town Hall. NYLD events are held annually throughout the country and aim to develop student leadership for students in New Zealand primary and intermediate schools. The leaders’ day include motivational talks from great New Zealand leaders, question times, videos, music and interactive activities. This morning the children shared their experience with the senior school about their experience at the event. Here are some of their thoughts about the day.
Serah - ‘I really enjoyed the day. I learnt lots and had a great time.’
Frank - ‘I like listening to the inspiring people, such as Cam Calkoen who has a disability and achieved amazing things. He even climbed the second highest mountain in the world.’
Kulaea - ‘A great opportunity for us to experience listening to these amazing young people.’ 
Poppy - ‘The theme of the day was 'Together We Are Stronger’. We learned that we achieve more when we have the same goals.’ 
Kobey – ‘I really like listening to Elisa Harley who started her own business when she was only eighteen. It was also great to travel there and back in the school van.’ 
Maggie - ‘The message that I got from the experience was that we should never give up. It’s important to keep following your goals.’ 
Koby - ‘I had an amazing time and I’d like to thank the school for giving me this opportunity.’
Jeremiah – ‘We had a wonderful day and it will help me in the future.’

We were very excited to take all our netball players down to Queens High School for a practice session this Tuesday. A group of amazing students from Queens played games and led us through some drills as part of a leadership experience  in Physical Education. How fortunate we were to be invited to participate. We will be doing this for the next three Tuesdays (possibly more) from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. If there are any netball parents who might be available to help supervise when we walk to and from the gym can you please let either Debbie or Sally know.