Heron Herald Term 3 Week 7

1 week ago

Kia ora kou tou

This week we celebrated ‘Multicultural Matua’, where we spent the day learning about the range of cultures present in our classrooms and around the school. What a celebration we had! Thank you to all the families that supported children in sharing some of the treasures connected to their culture. We saw traditional dress, a range of foods, artefacts, music, dancing and language shared across the kura. We also came together as a school to see a number of groups and individuals share something special from their family and cultural backgrounds. From Irish dancing to Mexican songs to Pacifica dance groups, kapa haka and a Scottish pipe band, it was a wonderful time that even brought a few to tears.

Below is a short video that captures a little of what happened around the classrooms.

The new fence is nearly complete! As previously mentioned, we anticipate a few challenges as we get used to having gates at each entrance. Children are able to enter the school without an adult however, they won’t be able to leave so easily. We have lots of parents picking up and dropping off each day. Please feel free to support children leaving the school if they need your help. You can be assured that we have systems in place to support any children who shouldn’t be left alone on the grounds at the end of the day.

IMPORTANT: One challenge we are aware of is weekend access. We love that the community uses the school grounds on weekends and holidays, and we want that to continue. It is important to note that due to the accessible latches on the outside of the gates, children can enter the grounds without parent support, but won’t be able to exit. Please consider this if your children visit the school unsupervised.

If you have any observations that will support us in establishing our systems, please complete this survey: LINK TO SURVEY

This week, I am travelling to South Korea to meet with families interested in bringing their children to NZ schools. I always enjoy meeting with these families and sharing about the wonderful place we live in. There is so much to be proud of about our kura, so it’s easy to talk about!

Ngā mihi nui

Marcus Norrish
Principal

SCHOOL CALENDAR

The school calendar is also available in Hero. Please use this calendar to stay in touch with upcoming events.

The Ministry of Education has included two Teacher Only Days in the 2026 school year. Please take note of these dates. They are on Friday, 20th March, and Friday, 29th May. They are listed on the school calendar.

Helen is Matua School’s Premium Sponsor

Want to buy or sell a house? Give her a call – she’s really nice!

ROLL GROWTH CLASS

We are in the process of looking at our roll growth classes.

If you have a child who is turning 5 within the next 12 months, please can you complete an Intention To Enrol Form by clicking on the following link.

https://www.matua.school.nz/enrolment/

SICKNESS & ATTENDANCE

As you will know, communities across New Zealand are experiencing high rates of winter illnesses. We understand that some parents have been finding it tricky to know when their child is well enough to attend school and when an unwell child should be at home.

Click on the link here for guidance provided by Health New Zealand:

CERTIFICATES AND SPOTLIGHTS

Our proud Matua Learner certificate winners, CBA draw winners, and Jump Jam athletes acknowledged at our week 4 assembly.

RAKAU NEWS

Rakau Speech Finals

What an inspiring morning last Thursday for our Rākau speech finals. The standard of speeches was outstanding and every contestant spoke with confidence, creativity and mana.

A huge congratulations to our winners:
Year 5 – Lexi
Year 6 – Jetta

You represented yourselves and Rākau beautifully. Thank you to all our speakers, whānau who came to support, and to our judges. We are very proud of you.

MAHURI NEWS

Warmest congratulations to these outstanding Māhuri students who were awarded with certificates at our team assembly last week. They are working hard to make connections in their learning and communicating their understandings clearly. We are proud of you!

LIBRARY NEWS

Welcome to our new team of school librarians! School librarians are on duty during lunchtimes (except Fridays) to run the library programme. Our school librarians take turns running the issue/returns desk, the colouring station as well as tidying and helping around the library. Most days they read to our younger library-goers and join in with card games, chess and jigsaws. One of the biggest draw cards of being a librarian is getting to check out three books at a time!

A big thank you is to Room 24 for their part in the library display about wolves. Popular library books that reference wolves include Anh Do’s series Wolf Girl, The Wolf Wilder (by Katherine Rundell), The Wolf Road (by Anna Roberts) as well as the senior read Two Wolves (a gritty book written by Australian Tristan Bansks). The classic The Call of the Wild (by Jack London) remains popular. And lastly, a powerful story suitable for mature readers (10 year to 14 years) is We Are Wolves (by Katrina Nannestad) which follows the Wolf Family as they flee the Red Army when it invades East Prussia at the end of World War 11. This book respectfully introduces the story about the 20 000 – 25 000 orphaned children, Wolfkinder (Wolf Children) who fled from East Prussia into Lithuania to escape extreme poverty and hunger.

SPORTS NEWS

The Matua Mini Blues have just finished their first ever Basketball competition. Our amazing little year 1 and 2 team have had a fantastic first year. Thanks so much to all the parent support and coach Marc for getting the team humming along. They have enjoyed it so much they have been telling everyone and we have kids lining up to join a Basketball team. Look out 2027. Here they are looking sharp in their uniforms!!

WBOP Year 3 and 4 Hockey Tournament

Another sunny day at hockey for our year 3 and 4 hockey players. We had 4 teams, The Eagles, Turf Titans, Tui’s and Falcons all turn up for an action packed day of funa and hockey. Big Thanks to Mr Hull, Gaz and Katy, Jenna and Kyle and the awesome combo of Anna and Seth!

So cool to have all of the whānau support out there cheering our kids along. The kids ran themselves to a standstill, they scored lots of goals and represented themselves and Matua school so well.

WBOP Year 5 and 6 Hockey Tournament

What an epic day out at the turf. Matua school had a huge turnout with 4 teams entered to have a fun day in the sun. The teams were well supported with parent help, having 2 ex students umpiring and our fantastic coaches Royden, Mr E, Anna, and Leigh bringing the best vibes.

The kids gave it heaps! They tried some new skills, improved their play and made new friends over the 5 games they played throughout the day. What a cool experience .

After weeks of training, our Year 5 and 6 Boys rugby played in the Kakahu Pekepeke Tournament held at Mitchell Park. The children tackled and ran hard all day. They should be very proud of themselves as for many this was their first time playing.

WINTER SPORTS TOURNAMENT

It was great to see so many kids out there enjoying the Winter Tournament last Friday at various locations. Between Fergusson Park, Otumoetai Primary and Te Kura o Manunui there were excellent vibes from everyone and we had a great representation from Matua School around the place. A big thanks to the Teachers in charge of each sport and Matua Bev for organising. Also thanks to the parents who volunteered to manage/coach teams. We had some excellent results and most importantly…a fun day playing sport!

SCHOOL UNIFORM

Thank you for ensuring your children are in the correct school uniform at the start of the year. We are coming to the end of a three-year transition to our new uniform, and so at the start of 2027 the expectation is that all children will be wearing the new items. Old designs and fabrics will not be acceptable from then.

For this year the older style polos, hats and pants are fine. However, we want to ensure that children are wearing one version of the school’s uniform set. At the start of the year, teachers will ask children to speak with their parents if they are wearing the incorrect uniform. We often see children with dangly earrings, socks with big brands on the side, bike shorts that are for weekend sport rather than school or hats in the wrong colour or style. New uniforms can be purchased from NZ UNIFORMS and some secondhand uniforms are available through the PTA.

MATUA SCHOOL PTA SOCIAL EVENT

Registrations are NOW OPEN for our 2026 Social Event – The PTA Golf Day!

See attached for all details, and remember there are options available for Golfers, Sponsors, and Revellers alike.

All options are available via the link below. Please register here to secure your spot!

GUITAR AND UKULELE LESSONS

Click on the link here for more information:

JUNIOR TEE-BALL AND SOFTBALL

FUN FIRST FOOTBALL

The extremely popular Fun First Football are back with their energetic fun Programme on our School Field in Term 4 every Thursday after school for kids aged 4-9yrs old. Book early as they are 50% Full already!

Book @ https://funfirstfootball.co.nz/ before they fill up – Free Trials available 🙂

BRICKS 4 KIDZ

Junior Robotics classes are held at Matua Hall on Monday evenings. Children make use of technics Lego to build various models which they then code.

Click on the link for more details www.bricks4kidz.co.nz/tauranga/after-school-classes/

SWIMMING LESSONS

SCHOOL HOURS

A friendly reminder that school is not open until 8.30am. If you require childcare before these hours, please contact SKIDS either by email – matua@skids.co.nz, phone – 027 586 0408, or book online – www.skids.co.nz/Matua.

SCHOOL INFORMATION

LUNCH ORDERS – EVERY FRIDAY

Lunch orders are available for delivery to Matua School each Friday.

SUBWAY

Simply order your SUBWAY lunch online through you myKindo account by CLICKING HERE

Order (or cancel) any time before 9:00am on the day or schedule in advance.

Help? Visit support.mykindo.co.nz or call 09-869 5200 Mon-Fri, 8:00am to 4:00pm.

TERM DATES 2026

Term 1, 2026 – Wednesday 4th February – Thursday 2nd April

Teacher Only Day – Friday 20th March (MoE Curriculum Training Day)

Term 2 – Monday 20th April – Friday 3rd July

Teacher Only Day – Friday 29th May (MoE Curriculum Training Day)

King’s Birthday Public Holiday – Monday 1st June

Matariki Public Holiday – Falls in school holidays

Term 3 – Monday 20th July – Friday 25th September

Term 4 – Monday 12th October – 16th December

Labour Day Public Holiday – Monday 26th October

Last Day of School – Wednesday 16th December

SETTING UP KINDO

Setting up with Kindo

Kindo is our prefered payments system. To help you learn how it works, we’ve added their new help sheet and video. We hope it helps.

Kindo Help