Sancta Maria College

Our school scarf is now back in stock at the Uniform Shop, which also has payWave. Hours are: 8:00-9:00am Tuesdays & Wednesdays, 2:30 - 6:00pm Thursdays and the first Saturday of the month from 9:00am - 12:00pm.

Our Stage, Big and Concert Bands all performed yesterday at KBB Festival with some real passion and talent – we find out at the Gala Concert on Saturday night whether they have received an award. We hope so.

Thank you, Fr. Larry who led us, in our most wonderful Assumption Mass this morning. It was with grace and modesty that we celebrated Mary in a beautiful Mass – thank you to all those students and staff that made it so.

Muriwai put on stunning weather for our Year 12 Geography students last Friday as they took in the local beach and scenery during their data gathering for their research internal.

Congratulations to our students who participated in the Band Heats of SUSO yesterday at Te Oro in Glen Innes. They sounded amazing and knocked the socks off the judges.

Our Symphonia kicked off KBB Festival on Monday with a symphony of tunes – we find out on Saturday, at the Gala Concert, if they win an award.

The results of the Auckland Secondary Schools Jazz Competiton are in and our Big Band & Peach Mango Pie combo both received Platinum awards after Saturday's performance. Congratulations to all our wonderful musicians.

Tēnā rawa atu koutou, thank you to everyone who supported our St Vincent de Paul M***i Day by donating canned goods - we collected over 1200! Donations will continue to be gratefully received in F block up until Friday 30 August.

We welcomed five more international students from China this week - they will be with us for two weeks. Please make them feel welcome as you see them in and around our school.

Last Saturday, 22 of our Year 11-13 students (split over five teams) participated against 274 other teams from around Aotearoa in the annual University of Auckland Engineering Competition. They worked from 10.00am until 6.00pm trying to solve the problem: “How many airships would be required to replace the Cook Strait Ferries?”. The solution to this problem involves mathematical modelling and requires isolating variables and listing assumptions. It was a great experience for our students.

Congratulations to our Premier, Year 9 and Year 10 netball teams who represented us in the Combined Netball tournament held at Auckland Netball Courts under a beautiful blue sky and sunshine last Wednesday. The tournament draws secondary schools throughout the North Island, so it was a great day of camaraderie for our students. Thank you to all staff and parents who coached and managed our students.

We have a M***i Day tomorrow - please bring in a can or two of food in exchange for wearing your own clothes. Thank you, all donated goods will support St Vincent De Paul.

If you need help or you see someone that does, please find a way, any way, to SAY SOME THING about it. You can tell a responsible adult, ask a friend to come with you to see a teacher about it, talk to your parents/carers or stand up to the nasty behaviours if it is safe. If all else fails, we are here for you in the form of Stymie; a safe and anonymous way for you to report harm. Please know that you are not alone.

We begin the week with Youth Peace Week, celebrating peace icons: Past, Present & Future - recognising those people who are making positive differences in our local, national, and global communities.

Three players make it to the KBB Festival Honours concert - as KBB Festival gets underway, three of our senior musicians have been selected to represent Sancta Maria College at the prestigious Honours Concert: Ryan Ebron will play bass in the jazz band, whilst Cady Lim and Ethan Karl will play organ and double bass (respectively) for the honours orchestra. The concert is on Friday 16 August at 8.30pm in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell and is FREE. We can be very proud of our young players to have been selected to represent our school at such an event.

Join us for a week of marvellous multiplications, Pythagoras' theorem and polynomials during Maths Week (next week) incorporating Mathex for Year's 7-10, Infinity Plus and a school census.

We finish the weekend with outstanding news. After Monday's vocal heats at Stand Up Stand Out (SUSO), in which around 300 singers competed, two of Sancta Maria College's vocalists, Millie Corboy and Sweeney Cahilig, have been selected for the final 30 (for Manukau) to perform in the semi-final, which will take place on Saturday, 31 August at the Auckland Town Hall's Concert Chamber. Congratulations and we wish them well.

A special thank you to our guest David Reily (aka the Reading Warrior) who drew on his skills as a writer to impart words of wisdom to us all at our recent Talanoa Evening – we can’t get better at something without doing it and that includes reading.
Click the following link for his website https://readingwarrior.com/

Congratulations to six students who were awarded for their exemplary service to Special Character at this year’s Caring Mass held at Christ the King Parish in Owairaka, earlier this week.

We have an e-waste collection on Monday 12 August - you are welcome to drop off any e-waste items on the day, before 9am at the shed beside the uniform shop.

Items and equipment for collection include: PCs, laptops, Apple MacBooks, i-phones, tablets, computer LCD monitors, servers, routers, switches and networking equipment, printers, fax machines and scanners, EPOS systems, game consoles, racks, UPS batteries, eyeglasses and batteries.

Thank you to all our parents, students and staff that made the Talanoa evening earlier this week a fantastic environment for sharing, inspiring and learning.

Library Week continued to extend and excite our students as they enjoyed 'Escape from the Library' and solving the mystery of the Golden Pen. Thank you to our library staff who have made this week special.

Beautiful chalk art drawings in the sun during Cook Islands Māori Language Week

Students enjoyed a Kahoot Quiz at lunchtime during Library Week

Congratulations to all our students who participated in this year's Cross Country, thank you also to all staff and students who helped make it another successful day. Congratulations to Hokianga house who took out the overall championship points with 790, second was Waitematā, third was Akaroa and Kororāreka forth.

We are celebrating Cook Islands Māori Language Week in the sunshine with the creation of a banner.

What a wonderful way to kick off Library Week.

Thank you to all the students, coaches, managers and referees who helped shape our Sancta Maria College hosted South Eastern Zone Year 7&8 netball tournament a success last Friday.

Our Year 13 Geography students enjoyed a fantastic trip to Rotorua last week, taking in the sights and experiences of Te Puia, Kiwi Conservation Centre, Geysers, 3D Trick Art Gallery, Redwoods Treewalk at night and the Luge.