Term 3 - Week 4

Message from the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to this week’s newsletter. What a huge day we have had today. Book Week, Grandparents Day and Science Week all rolled into one fantastic community event. Congratulations to all the students and staff for getting into the spirit of Book Week and dazzling everyone with creative costumes. A BIG thank you to Mrs Devlin for her enthusiasm and organisation of our Book Week activities and for inspiring us all to celebrate reading.

We are so thankful for the number of grandparents who were able to join our celebrations today. We believe that some of our grandparents have travelled long distances, even as far as MacKay Queensland, to share today with their grandchildren. We hope you have all had a memorable day.

Gathering together for a liturgy is an important part of belonging to a Catholic community. Today’s liturgy to celebrate and give thanks for our grandparents was a truly beautiful gathering. Through their reverent behaviour, the students always show that they know they are in a sacred space when in the Church. Many thanks to Mrs Ogden and Year 5, Mrs Browne and Kinder, Mr Lockwood, Mrs Walker and the talented ukulele and guitar group for organising our most attended liturgy to date. To our grandparents, you are our sunshine!

Thank you to our marvellous canteen coordinator Alysha Greer for the super organisation of morning tea and over a 100 picnic lunch boxes. Elise, Alyssa, Cassandra, Ally and Mary-Grace worked tirelessly to prepare and serve for our huge crowd. Job well done, ladies!

Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the staff of St Patrick’s who make everyday a pleasure to come to work. They have a huge workload ensuring the teaching and wellbeing of our students is their priority and continue to go the extra mile to help prepare and organise special days like today. The positive spirit of our entire community should never be taken for granted and should be celebrated. As our school songs says, we are extraordinary!

Lucy Harvey
Principal

Annual School Visit

Throughout this year, each school across the Diocese will participate in an annual visit from a small Diocesan team including Lisa Tierney Chief Operating Officer, Steve Lemos Head of Catholic Schools, Linda McNeil our Regional Service Advisor and relevant CSO and Shared Services staff.  The purpose of the visit to St Pat’s on 23^rd August is to build a shared understanding of our particular context. Conversations will identify our school strengths, challenges and the next steps to be taken based on data and evidence. The visit is designed to gain a clear understanding of our improvement journey together and to ensure alignment of all support services provided to schools. The visit will also be an opportunity to further build relationships across all Diocesan teams. 

Bishop Michael Visit

On Friday 25^th August at 1:30pm we will warmly welcome our new bishop, Bishop Michael Kennedy, to St Patrick’s. Bishop Michael wishes to meet as many staff and students as possible during his visit to classrooms and our beautiful setting.

Advance Notice Reminder

A reminder that the 8th September is a PUPIL FREE DAY. Staff to attend faith formation.

St Pat’s students continue to shine.

We love to celebrate the achievements of our students. If you would like us to acknowledge and share your child’s extra curricula achievements in the newsletter, please send us a photo.

Sienna in Year 6 dazzled audiences as Donkey in the recent musical Shrek presented by Hive Studios.

This week we also celebrate our St Pat’s netball team participating in the Schools Cup, the success of our Dio athletics squad and all the classes for participating in the school public speaking competition. Read on for more information in the newsletter.

ATTENDANCE - EVERY DAY IN SCHOOL MEANS SO MUCH MORE 

Regular attendance at school is essential for students to achieve quality life outcomes.  Everyday counts, as regular attendance helps students: 

• Develop a sense of belonging 
• Develop and maintain friendships 
• Be more engaged at school 
• Progress with their learning 
• Be more aware of career and life options. 

Supporting positive school attendance is a shared responsibility - everyone has a role to play in promoting the regular attendance of students. 

Going Green – 100% GreenPower

We're proud to announce that from July 2023 all of our Catholic Schools Office sites, including St Patrick’s, are powered by GreenPower – 100% clean renewable energy.

Run by the NSW Office of Energy and Climate Change, GreenPower is the only government accreditation program that guarantees electricity use is matched with power from renewable electricity sources.

The purchase of GreenPower guarantees the electricity is coming from renewable energy sources that meet strict environmental criteria. This ensures that the grid electricity we use has net-zero emissions.

The transition to GreenPower is just one of the actions Catholic Schools Maitland-Newcastle is undertaking as part of the Diocesan Sustainability Plan 2022-2025, to positively influence sustainability across our region. Another is to reduce electricity consumption across schools. New LED lighting is progressively being installed in all schools and at one primary school alone, there has been a 26% reduction in electricity.

With 58 schools, the impact of the lighting project is quite significant and combined with the installation of PV solar across all Catholic Diocese schools, further efficiencies will be gained. Reducing our demand on the grid is good for the environment but helps students too, with potential reduced operating cost savings being channelled to additional programs.

Spring Fair

Our Spring Fair will be the major community event for the year. Make sure you have Saturday 16^th September marked on your calendar. The Spring Fair Committee are working tirelessly behind the scenes to make this an event to remember. We would greatly appreciate your support in any way that you can. A survey will be posted soon on Facebook and Compass where you can nominate a way to show your support. Let the community spirit of St Pat’s shine!!

School Photos

Our 2023 professional school photos will be taken on Monday 28^th August. Students must be in full winter uniform. Please avoid taking holidays around this time. It is important to us to have all students present for their class photo.

Ordering Photos

Your 2023 school photos are now ready to order through the Compass Portal. To place your order, make sure you have your login details handy!

If you're unsure of your login details, please contact the school for assistance.

Click here to get started!

Once you've logged in, you'll need to follow a few easy steps!

Click here for our simple, online ordering guide.

Once you have placed your Individual Photo order you can place your Sibling photo order, these MUST be ordered before midnight prior to photo day.

Please remind your child that they are having their photos taken. If they are having a sibling photo, all siblings will need to be ready for their photo at the allocated time set by the school.

Please note that after 11/09/2023 an archive fee of $20.00 will apply.

If you have any questions regarding the photography service or packages available for purchase, please contact our friendly team on 02 4966 8292 or by email orders.hcc@msp.com.au

Get your smiles ready!

Term 3 Week 5

Term 3 Week 6

Message from RE Coordinator

Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop

This week we celebrated the Feast of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop.  On Tuesday the 8th August, we remembered and celebrated the life and achievements of Mary MacKillop.  Mary MacKillop holds a special part in our hearts, as she is Australia’s first saint and the founder of the Sisters of St Joseph.  Who in turn were the founders of our school, St Patrick's in 1952. 

Mary MacKillop lived by the saying’ “Never see a need without doing something about it.” (1871) Today, Mary MacKillop’s legacy continues with the Sister of Joseph. They continue their work worldwide, tending to the needs of the poor, sick and elderly and we thank them for all the work they do.

Mary MacKillop challenges us to identify how God speaks to us in our everyday life.  God is to be found in the everyday, ordinary workings of our lives and is never far away.

To celebrate St Mary MacKillop, we held a special reflection opportunity for the students and staff.  Each class participated in a viso divina (sacred seeing) in the MacKillop Room led by the Year 6 students.  Thank you to the Year 6 students for demonstrating their leadership, assisting the younger students in their faith formation.

Feast of Joachim and Anne

Today we celebrated Grandparent’s Day.  As a focus of our liturgy today we acknowledged Joachim and Anne, and the contributions that they would have made in Jesus’ up bring.  Joachim and Anne were the parents of Mary and grandparents of Jesus.  Together they nurtured their daughter Mary and brought her up to be a worthy mother of God.  It was their example of parenting that Mary then followed as she brought up her own son Jesus.  It was their faith that laid the foundation of courage and strength that allowed Mary to stand by the cross as her son was crucified and still believe.

Sacrament Program

Fr Gerard continues to run the Sacramental Program at school for all those students that have enrolled in the program.  If you are enrolled in the program, can you please ensure you have a copy of the YouCat Book.  Copies are available for purchase from the School Office ($35).

Mr Daniel Lockwood
RE Coordinator

Assistant Principal News

Mathematics K-2

Mathematical key concepts are often aligned to a set of big ideas. The term ‘big ideas’ refers to how mathematical information can be organised in different ways. Big ideas highlight the developmental connections and how concepts are used in the real world. Charles (2005:10) states that ‘big ideas’ link numerous mathematical understandings into a coherent whole.

With the implementation of the new K-2 Mathematics Syllabus this year, our Infants classes have been teaching concepts as ‘big ideas’. Year 2 have been investigating the ‘big idea’ that sometimes things change and move location, through learning about different perspectives of objects, creating a map of our school, building a mini model of the classrooms, and finding the most efficient way to take new parents on a tour of our school! We have linked the concepts of position, length, area, and volume and connected our learning to the real world. Lots of hands-on mathematical learning, and lots of fun!

Peter Sullivan (2023) teaches the importance of a balanced approach to teaching mathematics incorporating structured games, practical investigations, and active teaching to foster inclusion, agency and the building of connections. In Year 2 we have been playing the card game “Garbage” during our lesson warm-up to build student understanding of number lines by sequencing numbers. This game has increased student engagement by adding some fun competition and has connected beautifully to our understanding of position in our ‘big idea’.

Mrs Janine Schneider
Assistant Principal/Pedagogical Mentor

Save the Date

From the Diverse Learners Team

Gifted Education – Public Speaking

Mrs Turner and I had the pleasure of judging the St Patrick’s Public Speaking Competition on Tuesday.  Two finalists from each class competed against the others in their stage, leaving us with the very difficult job of selecting one winner from each stage to go to the regional finals next week at St Joseph’s, Kilaben Bay.  The students spent up to an hour preparing their speeches on the topics of ‘Birthdays’ (Stage 1) and ‘Junk food’ (Stages 2 and 3).  This included brainstorming ideas; structuring a speech with an introduction, key points and a conclusion; making palm cards; and practicing their delivery to ensure it was entertaining and of the correct length.  All the competitors showed great perseverance and bravely delivered their speeches in the hall to an audience of teachers, classmates and judges.  The winners were Jude (Stage 1), Imogen (Stage 2) and Blake (Stage 3).  Congratulations and good luck at the next round!

Learning Support – What is reading fluency?

Fluency is where students become increasingly faster, smoother, more accurate and expressive in their reading aloud of print texts.

Fluency is an essential component of early reading instruction because of its strong relationship with reading comprehension.  When they are reading fluently, children are better able to understand what they are reading.

For fluency to be strong, students must have

- Highly accurate word level reading

- Prosody (appropriate phrasing and expression)

- Appropriate rate (or speed)

In the early stages of reading, letter-sound correspondence is developed and students can say each sound quickly and accurately when shown a letter.  The process of blending is where children ‘sound out the words’ to decode them, which with repeated practice becomes an automatic process. Automatic word reading is important because it allows the reader to pay attention to the meaning of the text rather than decoding the words.

At school, we often begin to build fluency by reading word lists, then short sentences and passages. Texts gradually become more complex, requiring knowledge of multi-syllable words and punctuation.  Building fluency and then reading stamina (being able to read for gradually longer sustained periods of time) can be strongly supported at home through daily reading practice.  Please ask your child’s teacher if you would like more information about this.

Mrs Simes
Learning Support Teacher

Aboriginal Education

St Patrick's NAIDOC rock art creations, honouring our elders and the most special people in our lives.

Mrs Turner & Mrs Devlin
Aboriginal Education Teachers

Year 2 News

Fun! Fun! Fun! Year Two have engaged in lots of amazing learning this term.

Public speaking was a hot topic of conversation in our classroom. Well done to our participants, Sawyer and Jude, for their terrific performances. Special congratulations to Jude, our finalist. We are so proud of you!

Year Two have LOVED participating in Softball this term. They have found it so much fun engaging in a team activity and demonstrating fantastic sportsmanship.

This week we celebrated the feast day of Mary McKillop. Year 6 led a beautiful journey of reflection for us, enlightening us on the life and teachings of Mary, reminding us of the importance of ‘Seeing a need and doing something about it’ and allowing us a community of learners to ‘Grow in Hope’ together.

Children have been practicing enthusiastically for Grandparents Day. Thank you to all our family’s participation in this wonderful event and helping to make the day extra special for our children.

Well done Year 2 on all your terrific learning!

Mrs Schneider & Mrs MacNevin
Year 2 Teachers

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Sport News

It’s been a big and successful couple of weeks of sport at St Pat’s! Thank you to all our families and staff for your continued support. And congratulations to all our students for their outstanding conduct and sporting spirit.

Touch Football Gala Day

Last Friday, five teams from Years 3-6 participated in a Touch Football Gala Day at Wallsend. By all accounts there was lots of football fun in the sun with all teams experiencing some great results (our Senior Boys remaining undefeated!) and learning a lot in the process.

Diocesan Athletics Carnival

Congratulations to Aiden Bowmaker, Evie Buchanan, Chloe Fitzgibbon, Khloe Hansen, Egan Joyce, Mia Porter, Skye Porter, Sienna Reddie, Jaymie Tisdell and Layla Watkins for their sterling efforts at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 2^nd of August. Each student ran, threw and jumped with 100% effort.

Our Junior Girls Relay Team won by a huge margin and St Pat’s was well represented in many finals.

We wish the best of luck to Skye Porter, Mia Porter, Jaymie Tisdell, Evie Buchanan (Year 4) and Sienna Reddie (Year 6) who have progressed to participate in the Polding Athletics Carnival at Sydney in October. We will all be cheering you on!

Netball NSW Schools Cup

This year St Patrick’s entered a competitive team in the senior primary division of the NSW Schools Cup held in Newcastle on the 10^th of August. The team has dedicated time to training before school for the past 8 weeks and have been privileged to have been guided by Kirstie Fuller, one of our wonderful Mum’s who is a talented and experienced netball coach. Well done team on your achievements.

Congratulations to our team: Imogen Walker, Sophie Dunn, Lucy Layton (Yr 4), Chloe Fitzgibbon, Sophie Hill, Sienna Parker, Lara Stuart, Chelsea Wilks (Yr 5), Sienna Reddie and Lukah Thornton (Yr 6)

Pathways Sport

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 Star

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

Raffle

Who wants to win something exhilerating!? Our P&F Committee are excited to give some lucky person the chance to win a Matt Hall Racing Joy Flight gift voucher worth $489!Tickets are $10 each and are on sale now via Qkr! to everyone in our school community. …See more

Canteen

Uniforms

Second hand uniforms needed!

We are in need of Size 10 girls winter pants and size 10 girls summer blouse wanted for second hand uniform supplies. 

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

For those that have settled their fees in full we thank you for your ongoing support. For families whose fees are in arrears, we request prompt payment. Please continue to make your nominated payments to be fully finalised by the 30th November 2023.

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.

Community Notices