Principal’s Message, Week 7

Principal’s Message: 29th August, 2023

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

One of our school values is ‘celebration’ and, over the past two weeks, we have certainly had a lot to celebrate.

Our gymnastics teams competed in the HPPA competition and were amazing, winning gold, silver, and bronze, for both teams and individuals across years 3-6. 

Overall our school placed 2nd at the HPPA cross country. 

We wish our netball teams all the very best for their competition this coming week.

Last week, year 5 and Year 6 hosted their team speech finals with 8 talented students making it to the school speech finals this week. Congratulations to all the senior school students who wrote and presented a speech on the topic ‘Kaitiakitanga’ (Guardians) and to our first place winner Zion, second place Abbey and, third equal place, Ruby and Archie.

Each year we offer our students the opportunity to enter the ICAS exams, which is a chance for students to engage and compete with students from around Australia and New Zealand across a range of disciplines. The ICAS exams have been completed by students in years 3-6: Digital Technology, Science, Writing and English. The final exam, Mathematics, will be held this week. Results from these exams should be available early next term.

Thank you to all of the parents who completed our Health Consultation. We hope to share the results of these in our next newsletter. We value feedback from our community and enjoy hearing about what we are doing well, and what we can do even better.

Each week, we have a Positive Behaviour for Learning (P.B.4.L.) focus that is shared at our Monday morning whole school assembly. Students then work all week to learn about and practise that behaviour, and the teacher awards a certificate the following week, to a student who has worked extra hard to demonstrate this focus. This week, the P.B.4.L. focus is to ‘give everything a go and use growth mindset language‘. You might like to ask your child/ren what they are doing to peresevere, or to share something that they are using a growth mindset for at home.

We have really good attendance at Cockle Bay school, and our students are keen to learn and be at school. Regular attendance at school will help your child to build and maintain friendships and grow academically. At the same time, it is common in the winter terms for students to catch coughs and colds so, when this happens, we thank parents for keeping their children home until they are well enough to return to school. 

This coming weekend is Fathers’ Day and we would like to wish all the dads, uncles, granddads and significant others who play a special role in our students’ lives, a wonderful day.

Best regards,

Phebe Rossiter (Acting Principal)

A message from our school leaders: School Ambassadors

Since the start of the year one of our responsibilities has been to set up and pack up each assembly. We hand out shout outs to the well-behaved classes and make sure classes walk around the school correctly. We also help organize and run clubs and sports during lunch times. In term two the School Ambassadors took part in the annual National Young Leaders Day. We were inspired on our journey to become great leaders by an exciting lineup of speakers including Brad Smeele (Former Pro Wakeboarder / Quadriplegic), Julia Grace (Mental Wellness Communicator), Graci Kim (Diplomat Turned Bestselling Author) and Georgia Lines (Singer/Songwriter). We had a fantastic day and we were empowered and challenged to reach our own personal goals. We are looking forward to leading the school in our last two terms at Cockle Bay.

By Alicia, Lexie, and Charlize

HPPA Gymnastics 2023

Our amazing gymnastics team had the privilege of representing Cockle Bay School at the HPPA Gymnastics Competition on Friday 18 August. Cockle Bay entered a group of 72 students including gymnasts from Year 3 all the way to Year 6. Everyone was impressed with the students fantastic manners, sportsmanship and beautiful new leotards. 

Team Results

Year 3: girls team placed first, boys team placed second

Year 4: girls team placed thrid, Boys teams placed first and second

Year 5: girls team placed first and second, boys team placed first and second

Year 6: girls team placed first, boys team placed second

Students were lucky to be supported by parents and teachers and finished the day with a wonderful group of gymnasts qualifying for Champ of Champs – the Auckland-wide championship. 

On Thursday 7 September, we will take all qualifying gymnasts all the way to Tri-Star to represent our school. 

We would like to thank all of the teachers and parents for their time and effort in supporting our gymnasts.