Welcome Message

Feelings of gratitude and satisfaction rise up as I think of the year which has been. We have reached our maximum roll of 300 students. God has been faithfully at work in our classrooms and sports fields. We have had some significant firsts, fielding our own team of 32 students at Sports Camp, going on our first Missions trip to Samoa and hosting our first international student group for two weeks. Our first chess team competed against 32 schools in the West Auckland division.

New families have been welcomed appropriately into the JCS community through mihi whakatau accompanied by our kapa haka group. Early on we had a compulsory Cyber Safety Parent Meeting to ensure that our students were well protected before device use at school.

As the leaders of the school Tīwai students spent a day at Tree Adventures and Operation Mindfall to strengthen team building and leadership. House Captains and Sports Captains led and served the student body through the year in various ways.

Inquiry has covered many topics with trips to enhance learning to the Howick Historical Village, the Auckland Memorial Museum and Waitākere Transfer Station. St. Johns along with a number of parents in the health industry taught about various aspects of the human body. We had parents come in and take Daily Discipleship lessons. Sea Cleaners came in to do a presentation to Manu around conservation. Both Ika and Tīwai went on camps where students had heaps of fun learning to shoot with a cross bow, paddle a raft, get a team across a river with a rope, whizz down a water slide, perform in a talent quest and so much more. Ika wowed their audience with superb speeches covering a wider variety of topics. They were well researched and carefully crafted.

A number of students have benefitted from and participated in itinerant music lessons, learning to play the piano, lunch time chess, after school art, Mandarin, and soccer lessons.

Our grandparents were honoured at our annual Grandparents Day and the Manu team brought Christmas cheer to the people of New Lynn as they sang and gave out cards in the community. We continue to support our TEAR Fund student Benimana Raphael from Rwanda through Mufti Days. The Year 5 cohort learnt about what it might be like as a missionary to a closed land through the Missionary Minded Kids programme run by Asian Outreach. The Children’s Bible Mission came and gave a series of lessons to Ika students.

The Parents’ Association has been busy again organising a Family Fun BBQ, Walkathon, Movie Night, Calendar Art and to celebrate the year, we ended with a very well attended and yummy Cultural Food Stalls feast. We have held Talanoa Fono and Korero groups for our Pasifika and Māori whānau. We celebrated a number of language weeks with the highlight being the fire dancers for Samoan Language Week.

In the sporting arena teams competed in the local Whau cluster. Teams of tee ball, cricket and basketball players took to the field to represent JCS. The Auckland Christian Sports days provided soccer, cross-country and netball Days. Students had swimming and gymnastics lessons. Tīwai students took to the climbing walls at Clip n Climb. Athletics Day had our students, jumping, throwing, running, and sprinting. The Manu team held a Mini Olympics.

Two Parent/Teacher conferences were held, and reports were issued in Term 2. The end of year progress reports will be live on Friday from 5pm for you to view and download.

The Year 8 students attended a formal Graduation dinner to send them on their way into the next exciting chapter of their learning journey. Our prayer is that the seeds sewn at JCS will bare much fruit as they inter the turbulent waters of college. We end the year with a whole school Awards Ceremony to celebrate, hard work, excellent character, and academic achievement.

As another year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to extend a sincere thank you to you, the parents of JCS for your unwavering support in partnering with us to educate, mould and nurture your tamariki to be all that God has intended them to be.

Thank you too to the JCS Board for all the dedication and hard work ensuring that our school remains focussed, runs smoothly and is a safe, happy learning environment.