This week saw our two big choir events happening. The APPA Choir were amazing at the Town Hall on Tuesday night, with our very own Eugenie Middleton playing an oboe solo along with them. Last night, the Kids for Kids Choir performed at the Bruce Mason Theatre which was such a fun evening which our students (and audience) really enjoyed. A huge thank you to Eugenie Middleton (APPA) and Linda Vane (Kids for Kids) for your time and commitment to these events.

I love being able to celebrate success in this newsletter, and while usually it is the students’ achievements, today I would like to acknowledge Mrs Louise Lavulo. Louise, our P.E. teacher, has just competed in the Senior Oceania Tag Tournament for the New Zealand Senior Women’s team. This tournament was an invitational competition involving teams from Australia, Cook Islands, American Samoa, Vietnam, Greece, China, plus others. They played 7 games across three days and won all of them, coming away with a gold medal for the senior women's division! Well done Louise!

Next Tuesday, Milford School is hosting an evening presentation by Gill Connell, a globally recognised child development authority, specialising in the foundations of learning through movement and play. She will talk about fresh, new, innovative thinking about the connection of the body and brain and the connection between movement and learning dispositions, and how risk taking is connected to balance, creativity and coordination. See the attached flyer in this newsletter for more details.

Some of you may remember the lovely initiative, Kids Christmas, that Deanne Rawle (one of our parents) started a few years ago and we have been involved with since then. There are many children in low decile schools in Auckland who don’t receive a Santa present. The idea is that they write their letters to Santa and you opt in (if you wish) to receive one of these letters and buy what they ask for. Then wrap and drop into school so Deanne can collect and distribute. I encourage you to support this as these children don’t have much, and are so grateful for the presents we give. This year you can opt in through their new website which is linked here.

In partnership with iSport Foundation's Pass It Forward programme, Westpac NZ has selected 40 schools across New Zealand to giveaway 1,000 balls, to help build Kiwi kids' character and keep them active. The schools were nominated by members of the public and we are very excited to be one of the winners. We look forward to receiving these balls and thank those who nominated us!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Ngā mihi nui

Sue Cattell

Principal