Tawatawa News

31 July 2026

He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa
Bonjour à toutes nos familles

New basketball hoops for our court - exciting news! 

We are very excited to be getting brand new hoops for our outdoor basketball court! With a quarter of our school now playing basketball every week, it’s great to be able to encourage this by having awesome hoops outside. We’ll keep you posted on the install date!

News from the library

Term 3 is off to a great start in the library. As our librarians shared at the end of term assembly before the holidays, a huge amount of books were borrowed from our school library in the first half of the year. Such awesome reading - ka mau te wehi, e te whānau! Thanks for supporting this at home. Here are a few quick library notices:

Overdue Books

Please email lucy@ridgway.school.nz if a book is misplaced so we can do a check on the shelves at school. Students are also able to renew their books if they need more time. Please encourage them to do so!

Book Week coming up

Week 5 (17 August - 21 August) of this term is Aotearoa NZ Children's Book Week. Our kura will celebrate Book Week with some fun activities. The main one for whānau to note is that on Thursday 20th August, tamariki can dress up as a favourite book character for the whole school day. We'll have a Book Week dress-up parade at 2:15pm in Kahikatea. Please note that costumes must be from book characters. Please help keep it school-appropriate by making sure the costume doesn't include weapons (eg plastic guns or knives), though a cardboard pirate sword or equivalent is fine. If your child is stuck for ideas, there's always the old faithful 'muggle' costume!

Covering books

We recently received some awesome donations and purchases (including the complete set of Tintin comics!). We have three boxes of books in the office that we would love covered, if anyone is willing to help out with this. Please email lucy@ridgway.school.nz if you're happy to help. It is much appreciated.

Gloves for road patrol - thanks Bunnings!

Some of our students have been in touch with Bunnings Lyall Bay to ask if they would donate thermal gloves to school so our road patrollers’ hands don’t freeze off when they’re out in the cold. 

They came through this week! So great to see our children demonstrate initiative and work out a way to solve a problem!

Reminder - Southern Zones Swimming - 1 September 12.30 - 2.30 

This is open to all Year 4 - 8 swimmers and will be held at the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre in Kilbirnie. The events are 25 metre freestyle, 25 metre breaststroke and 25 metre backstroke, 25 metre butterfly and 50 metre freestyle. Your child needs to be a competent swimmer in order to compete in this event.  We will need parent support for this event. Please fill out the form if your child would like to compete. 

Reminder - Tennis Tournament - Renouf Tennis Centre
Tournament Dates

Primary School (Year 6 & Under) – Boys and Girls

• Date: Tuesday, 22 September 2026 - Time: 8:30 am

• Backup Day: Friday, 25 September 2026

Intermediate School (Years 7 & 8 "Open") – Boys and Girls

• Date: Wednesday, 23 September 2026 - Time: 8:30 am

• Backup Day: Thursday, 24 September 2026

Please email Julie if your child would like to take part. 

Upcoming Events:

• 7 August - Kapa Haka Event at Wellington High

• 17 - 21 August - Book Week

• 20 August - Book Week Dress Up Day

• 21 August - Mid term hui at 9.15am

• 25 September - End of term hui at 9.15am

• 23 - 26 November - Year 7 & 8 at Camp Makihika

• Noho marae for Year 5 - 8:  3 - 5 November

Community Notices

Sarah Patterson
Principal/Tumuaki
Te Kura o Tawatawa - Ridgway School