Term 2 - Week 8
Message from the Principal
Dear Parents and Carers
This week’s newsletter reflection takes a very different focus in light of the recent tragic bus accident at Greta on Sunday night. Finding the words to express the profound affect this accident has had on communities across the Hunter, has been quite a challenge. The devastation to families and friends of those killed and injured is so profound and unimaginable. There are no words that would justly represent the pain and loss for so many.
As I sit and write this newsletter, reflecting on the week that was, I am so very grateful that those I hold nearest and dearest, including my St Pat’s staff, students and parents, are safe. So, I encourage you to hug tighter and love like there is no tomorrow. On behalf of our community of St Patrick’s, I send our prayers, sympathies and support to the families and friends of those impacted by this tragedy. May they find strength in the days, weeks, months ahead to navigate their deep loss.
Stay safe
Lucy Harvey
Principal
Welcome
Our St Pat’s community continues to grow! We warmly welcome the Barringer family- Ally, Zack, Daisy (Year 1) and Pixie. Thank you for choosing St Pat’s!
Wishing a speedy recovery to Ethan
On Wednesday, little Ethan from Year 2 underwent major surgery to treat a large cyst on his spine at the base of his skull. The surgery went well, and Ethan has begun the recovery process. A very brave little boy! We send Ethan loads of St Pat’s love and wish him a very speedy recovery and a quick return to all his friends.
Upcoming Dates
Week 9
Week 10
Message from RE Coordinator
Sacramental Program
Congratulation to the 8 students who participated in the Sacrament of Penance for the first time.
The Sacrament of Penance is a celebration of God’s love and mercy. It celebrates the call to repentance after a process of conversion of heart.
This includes confessing our mistakes or wrong doings and receiving the forgiveness of God through the ministry of the priest. Through this process, a person is reconciled with the Church and continues to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal
On any given night in Australia 122,000 Australians are experiencing homelessness. Vinnies provides vulnerable people with essential support to rebuild their lives and reconnect with the community, but we couldn’t do it without the support of people like us.
Before COVID-19 hit, more than 25 000 Australian children under the age of 18 were facing homelessness each night. Today, that number will be much higher. Child homelessness is the most painful reminder of the importance of ‘the hand up’ offered by St Vincent de Paul Society. When hardship effects families, whether it be through unemployment, chronic illness or an impossible housing market, they can always turn to Vinnies for help.
St Patrick’s is collecting items to assist the homeless to stay warm this winter. We are asking families to donate any blankets and warm, clean clothing. These warm winter donations can be placed in a plastic bag and returned to the school. The Leaders of Mission will collect them from classrooms and deliver them to the church for collection by the Swansea Conference.
Mr Daniel Lockwood
RE Coordinator
Assistant Principal News
Semester 1 Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews
Semester 1 reports will go live on Compass on Friday 23rd June. The following week (Mon 26th-Fri 30th June) teachers will hold interviews with any parents wishing to discuss their child’s progress. Parent teacher interviews are booked through Compass. These bookings will open on Monday 19th June. We will send a Compass push informing you when the booking cycle is open.
Car Safety for Children
From time-to-time parking inspectors and police officers come to inspect pick up zones around schools during afternoon pick-up time. A reminder that children aged between 4 and 7 years must not sit in the front seat of a vehicle that has two or more rows of seats, unless the available seats in the back row are occupied by other children aged under 7 years. They must use an approved child car seat suitable for their age and size.
4+ years approved forward facing child car seat or booster seat (in the back seat of the vehicle)
145cm or taller, suggested minimum height to use adult lap‑sash seatbelt
NSW Government – Transport for NSW.
Mrs Janine Schneider
Assistant Principal/Pedagogical Mentor
Save the Date
- 26th June Parent/Teacher Interview Week
- 28th June Regional Athletics Carnival
- 30th June Pie Drive Delivery
- 30th June Last day of Term 2
- 17th July Pupil Free Day
- 18th July First day of Term 3
- 28th July Aspire Yrs 4-6
- 7th August P&F Meeting 6pm
- 16th Sep Spring Fair
From the Diverse Learners Team
Gifted Education – Regional Spelling and Maths Bee
Congratulations to our 5 finalists in the Regional Spelling and Maths Bee last week at St Joseph’s, Kilaben Bay. They had some very tough competition from 7 other schools.
Egan went through 6 rounds in the spelling bee, only to get out on one of the trickiest words - ‘furnace’. Cooper lasted in the stage 2 spelling bee until the last 4 contestants, and Jack went through 6 rounds in the stage 3 bee - the most number of rounds in a stage 3 spelling bee to date!
In the stage 1 Maths Bee, Egan lasted through to the division round. Lachlan went through so many rounds before he got out that Mrs. Simes lost count! Ashley was out in round 6, right before the final and faced some very difficult questions including remainders and converting between decimals and percentages.
According to Mr. Borg, the judge, these boys are in the top 2% of the region for spelling or Maths. He emphasised the importance in Maths of building fluency in number facts and using strategies such as the jump strategy and split strategy. Number fluency is something we can build simply through practice, just 10 minutes every day.
Learning Support – Building vocabulary knowledge
This extract is from Branagan and Parsons Word Aware 3.
Mrs Simes
Learning Support Teacher
Wellbeing News
Smiling Mind
Last term, St Patrick’s were accepted into the Smiling Mind Primary School Program funded by the Australian Government Department of Education. This is an evidence-based approach to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children from 5-12 years old, in the classroom, school, and home environments. Over the next two weeks, staff will be undergoing professional learning and training into the implementation of the program. Early next term, we will be holding an information session for parents and will be sharing ways families can support the program and wellbeing practices at home.
Jump Rope for Heart
Throughout this term, students in every class have been getting their hearts pumping by jumping each day to raise awareness of the importance of heart health. Year 6 have been busy planning a ‘Jump Off’ Day to promote creating healthy hearts through exercise, friendships, healthy eating and healthy mindsets for learning. On June 27th, Year 6 will lead a range of activities where students can show off the skipping and jumping skills they have developed over the past ten weeks.
Bricks4Kids After School Workshops
Thank you to those you have expressed an interest and have returned permission notes for your child to attend the Bricks4Kids After School Workshop on Wednesdays next term. Over the coming days a link will be sent out with details for registering and paying online directly through Bricks4Kids. Creative Kids Vouchers can be redeemed upon payment if completed before 30th June.
Fiona Walker
Wellbeing Support Teacher
Year 5 News
It has been a very busy term in Year 5 with many exciting activities and opportunities for learning.
In the past week…
HSIE – We have presented our Tourism Advertisements to persuade visitors from another country to come and experience Australia and discussed our Global Connections with the world.
Science – We have learned about air resistance which is a force that slows down moving objects and is also called ‘drag’. We made parachutes from different materials to test the effects of air resistance.
PDHPE – We have been excited to be learning Martial Arts this term. We can ‘Be STRONG, Be KIND, Be CALM and TRY HARD’ and are learning the importance of this mantra in our everyday lives.
Maths – We have been learning to convert between units of length and how far a kilometre is. We used trundle wheels to plan a school Fun Run that went for exactly 1 kilometre, by creating a 250m circuit.
English – We have linked World Environment Day and Animal Conservation to study the importance of Zoos and can be very persuasive in our arguments!
Year 5 have been amazing buddies for our Kindergarten students. We look forward to continuing our learning together in Term 3!
Mrs Ogden
Year 5 Teacher
Fun at Play
Busy times at St Pat’s! Lately we have enjoyed acknowledging World Environment Day by getting crafty with nature. A big thanks to Leo from Kindy who contributed his handprints to this gorgeous World Environment Day slogan, and Lucy from Year 1 who helped him clean up his hands after! During our breaks, we have been inspired by creating works of art in sustainable ways such as using fallen leaves, twigs and other materials straight from our beautiful playground backyard to create ‘framed’ works of art with our wooden blocks and we even found a moon leaf 😃.
Next stop ...The Googenheim!
Yours in play
Kylie Kearney
Learning Support Assistant/Library Assistant
Sport News
Regional Athletics Carnival
The St Patrick’s Regional Athletics Team will be competing at the Lakes Regional Carnival on Wednesday 28th June at the Hunter Sports Centre in Glendale. We are excited to have a large team of talented athletes attending this year:
Cooper Ballard-Totten, Mia Porter, Skye Porter, Drew Torzillo, Sophie Hill, Aiden Bowmaker, Lukah Thornton, Egan Joyce, Charlie Hill, Kingston Weet, James Stewart, Jaymie Tisdell, Tyla Hope, Chloe Fitzgibbon, William Bevan, Evan Brennan, Khloe Hansen, Angus Teterin, Jude Mulder, Sienna Reddie, Chelsea Wilks, Hudson Brown, Sawyer Davidson, Emily Hill, Toby Thornton, Lara Stuart, Xavier Weet, Layla Watkins, Gwendolen Thornton, Matteo Dawson Angeli, Sophie Dunn, Cooper Brown, Evie Buchanan, Isabella Moldrich, Ashley Newell, Lillian Cook.
We wish them all the best of luck!
Pathways Sport
Congratulations to Skye and Mia Porter on their fantastic results at the Polding Cross Country Championships. Mia placed 4th and Skye 5th, they have both earned a place on the NSW State All Schools Cross Country starting line. We are very proud of them both!
Catholic Schools NSW offers many sporting pathway opportunities for talented athletes. If your child is an aspiring athlete, you might like to familiarise yourself with the CSNSW Sport web page here: https://csnsw.sport/
Sport information specific to our Diocese can be found on the Maitland Newcastle Diocese tile on the CSNSW Sport page https://csnsw.sport/maitland-newcastle/primary/home
Any registrations on these pages must first be approved.
Catholic Schools NSW offers many sporting pathway opportunities for talented athletes. If your child is an aspiring athlete, you might like to familiarise yourself with the CSNSW Sport web page here: https://csnsw.sport/
Sport information specific to our Diocese can be found on the Maitland Newcastle Diocese tile on the CSNSW Sport page https://csnsw.sport/maitland-newcastle/primary/home
Any registrations on these pages must first be approved.
Weekend Sports Stars
Aiden Bowmaker is off to Tasmania to represent his state in the NSW Water Polo Team. What a great achievement, congratulations Aiden!
If your child is a Weekend Sports Star or extra curricular activity, please email details and a photo to claire.browne@mn.catholic.edu.au so we can celebrate their success in our next newsletter.
Mrs Claire Browne
Sports Coordinator
P&F
4 days left to get your Pie Drive orders in! Orders close Tuesday with delivery to our school on Friday the 30th. All money raised goes directly into new items & events we have in the works for our students with the first purchases by our newly formed P&F being announced/installed in term 3!
Our latest snapshot update from our last P&F meeting.
We have so many exciting things in the works for students & families of our school for terms 3 & 4 but a lot of it is not possible without the help of volunteers. If you are able to get involved in any capacity, please join us for our next catch up on Monday August 7th or send us an email stpatrickspf1@gmail.com
Canteen
Uniforms
The uniform shop is open on each Monday during the school term from 2.00pm - 3.00pm.
Orders can be placed on the QKR app. The cut-off for orders is 12pm on Monday.
Leisha and Natalie can be contacted via email at stpatricksuniformshop1@gmail.com to answer any questions or to make alternate fitting arrangements.
Thank you
Leisha & Natalie
Office News
If you have indicated you are settling 2023 fees via a lump sum annual payment - this is due and payable by 30th June 2023. If your circumstances have changed and you cannot meet this due date please contact the school to make alternate payment plan arrangements.
June statements were emailed on 1st June 2023.
For those that have settled their fees in full we thank you for your ongoing support.
Our preferred method of payment is either BPay or direct debit. For Fee Payers wishing to establish a new Direct Debit, or adjust their existing direct debit, please complete the form on the Catholic Development Fund website www.CDFmn.com.au.
For those families experiencing financial hardship, or wishing to discuss other payment arrangements, please contact the school office to arrange an appointment with the Principal.
Schools will now commence the school fee management process if there has been no contact with school office or no initial payment received.
An event for the Diocesan Pastoral Contribution has been created, this is a voluntary fee that assists the Diocesan Pastoral Support Programs, you can elect to pay or decline via the Compass Parent Portal.
Rachelle McKenzie
Senior School Officer
Volunteering at St Patrick's
We have many events still planned for the remainder of the year. Please get in early and register so you won't be dissappointed in missing out.
If you would like to register to volunteer at St Patrick's, can you please complete the "Volunteer Registration Form" by clicking on the link here.
St Patrick's will be notified by the Catholic Schools Office once you are cleared to volunteer.
If you are unsure if you have clearance, please email the office at admin@swansea.catholic.edu.au to enquire.