Term 2 - Week 10

Message from the Principal

God of wisdom,

We thank you for all the gifts you have given us throughout this term.

We praise you for giving us life, and for choosing us to be your people.

As we come to the end of this term, we voice our gratitude for all the good things you have given us, and we thank you for all who have shared in the work of our school.

We ask you to bless our St Patrick’s community. Keep us safe so we return renewed and refreshed.

We praise you, God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord,

Amen

Dear Parents and Carers

It’s hard to believe that we are halfway through the school year! It has been a very productive semester with continued positive partnerships between home and school. The positive school culture which exists at St Patrick’s was evidenced in the recent Tell Them From Me survey results. As the principal, and more importantly, the principal of a catholic school, I was overwhelmed and humbled to read the feedback from the parent body, staff and from our students in Years 4, 5 and 6. It is a privilege to lead our unique little school by the sea and with your continued support, our students will continue to grow in all facets academically, socially, emotionally and physically. St Pat’s community is extraordinary!

I wish all our staff, students and families a restful holiday. Stay safe, enjoy the sunshine (fingers crossed there is some) and quality family time together.

Lucy Harvey
Principal

Term 3 Highlights

Next term is shaping up to be equally as busy. In our learning the students will be developing their public speaking skills with school and regional trials to be held.

Wednesday 31^st July (Week 2) all students will be joining our parish schools of Windale and Belmont to acknowledge NAIDOC week. We will be travelling to St Francis Xavier Belmont for a full day of activities.

The book week theme this year is ‘Reading is Magic’. The students will participate in a magic show incursion on 14^th August and we look forward to our combined Grandparents Day / Book Week celebration on Friday 23^rd August. The parade will commence at 9:00am in the courtyard, followed by the book stall in the library, liturgy in the hall, open classrooms and a picnic lunch.

School photos will be held on Monday 26^th August. Full winter uniform to be worn.

On Friday 30^th August we will celebrate Father’s Day with breakfast starting at 7:30am, followed by a liturgy and stall.

Inservice Day

A reminder that Monday 22^nd July (first day of Term 3) is a PUPIL FREE day. The focus of our day will be:

• Embracing the story and virtues of our patron saint, St Patrick.
  • Developing within the staff a deeper knowledge and understanding of the values and the purpose of the Josephite Charism at St Patrick’s.  
  • How can we as a school, ensure the core values of St Patrick and the Josephites are seen, heard and lived / actioned in the daily life of the school?
• Students return to school on Tuesday 23^rd July. To show our team spirit and support for the Australian Olympic Team, we will be having a Green and Gold Day on the first day back next term. Students are encouraged to dress in green and gold and wear sports shoes. Year 6 students are organising a rotation of Olympic sports and other fun activities to be shared throughout the day. We look forward to a fun-filled first day back for Term 3! 

Welcome 

We warmly welcome the Tommerup family – Kellie, Ryan and Duke (Year 1) to the St Pat’s community. Thank you for choosing St Pat’s and we hope you very quickly feel at home.  

Farewell

Sadly, we say farewell to the Huang family (Amy in Year 1) as they return to China for work. We hope to see Amy again in a few years.

We also say farewell to the Chun family (Olivia in Kinder and Sophia in Year 3). We wish them all the very best in their new school setting.

Tell Them From Me (TTFM) Parent Survey Feedback

Many thanks to the families who participated in the recent TTFM survey. We had 28 respondents provide feedback. A snapshot of the positive responses included:

• Dedicated teachers
• Welcoming, engaging community. Teachers who are passionate and seem happy in their workplace
• St Patrick’s is a wonderful school….the entire school is a credit to the Catholic Education system.
• The school community is very welcoming! It is a fantastic loving and caring environment for students and parents.
• The school encourages positive behaviours.
• The staff, students and community of St Patrick’s Swansea are amazing. The entire school is inclusive and welcoming.
• Student wellbeing focus is a great initiative and I would love to see it continue to evolve. Even down to helping students deal with emotions and stress. Wellbeing is so important.

Early next term, the staff will unpack all feedback received and suggestions made for improvement. If you have any concerns about your child/ren, however big or small you may feel it is, I strongly encourage you to communicate these concerns to us. Open communication is essential, and it is important to address issues early. Please email me if you require any follow up with issues.  

3-way Student Led Conferences

Many thanks to the large number of families who participated in our Student-led Conferences this week. This was our first time undertaking this new format and from the feedback I have received thus far, it has been very successful. 101 bookings were made, which represents 75% of our students sharing their learning goals with their parents. I will send home a quick Forms document for you to provide feedback on your experience in the process.

Regional Athletics Carnival

Congratulations to all our students who competed at the Regional Athletics Carnival on Wednesday. Our athletes displayed excellent sportsmanship, and despite the cold and showers, a great day was had by all. A HUGE thank you to our Year 5 and 6 students who attended the carnival as helpers. They were extremely busy all day! Congratulations to Mrs Browne, who along with Mrs Treadwell from St Francis Xavier Belmont, organised the carnival for the Lakes Regional schools.

DIO Spelling Bee

Congratulations goes to Benjamin Tisdell who came 2nd in the Stage 1 (Year 1 & 2) Diocesan Spelling Bee held today at St Catherine's Singleton. This is a massive achievement for Benjamin to get to this level. We are very proud of you!

Crossing Guard

Sadly our Crossing Guard John is leaving us today for a permanent position at a school closer to where he lives. We thank John for being a wonderful asset to our school community, keeping everybody safe.

A new crossing guard is currently is being advertised. All the very best John.

Canteen Thankyou

Today Elise Moncrieff finishes up as Canteen Coordinator. We would like to sincerely thank Elise for her reorganization and smooth running of the canteen. We are VERY grateful to Elizabeth Webb (Noel in Kinder) for taking on the role and to Natalie Le Marchant for offering to assist in the running of the canteen on a Friday. Thank you also to our regular canteen helpers for supporting Elizabeth as she finds her feet in Elise’s big shoes!

Diocesan Funding

We are very grateful to the Diocese for investing in St Patrick’s. Funding has been approved to construct a boardwalk along the Swansea channel boundary, providing extra sensory and learning opportunities for our students. Construction should commence mid next term. Still waiting for my jetty!

The Diocese has also approved to recarpet, paint and supply new pinboards to our current Kinder, Year 1 and Year 5 classrooms. We are hoping the remainder of the rooms will be completed next year.

The Diocesan funded extension of our Administration building should be underway early next term as well. The verandah space behind the staffroom will be closed in to provide a bigger sick bay, 2 extra staff toilets, a new storeroom and an extra meeting space.

Thank you to all in the Diocese facilities team for seeing the needs and potential of St Patrick’s.

Term 3 & 4 dates

Please see attached term planners with known dates. Please add to this as the term progresses.

Term 3 Week 1

Term 3 Week 2

Message from the Assistant Principal

Student-led Conferences

This week we have held our first student-led conferences. This has given students the opportunity to share their learning strengths and goals for improvement in the areas of Maths, Writing and a subject of choice, with their parents and carers. It has been wonderful to witness the joy on students’ faces as they share their learning with you and receive immediate positive feedback. Hearing our students honestly speak about what positive behaviours they display well and the areas they need to work on has also given them the opportunity to own their behaviour, celebrate success and reflect on changes they could make to ensure they contribute to a happy and safe school community.

Professional Learning

Last week Miss Harvey, Mrs Schneider and Mrs Simes attended CSO professional learning days facilitated by international author, educator, academic, leadership and instructional coach, Michael McDowell. The days provided an opportunity for teachers, leaders and Principals to deepen our understanding of student learning and our role of leading this work in our schools. Focus was on teaching strategies that have the greatest effect size on student growth, and lead to students becoming assessment capable learners. This means students knowing where they are in their learning, and the next steps needed to improve. Our student-led conferences this week have been a great example of this. We look forward to sharing more of this learning with our community over the coming semester.

Janine Schneider
Assistant Principal

Message from RE Coordinator

Vinnies Winter Appeal

Thank you to all the families that been so generous in their donations to the Vinnies Winter Appeal, donating warm items of clothing, to assist the less fortunate in our community.  If you still have any items that you would like to donate to the Winter Appeal, they can be placed in the tub in the office.  We thank the Swansea Vinnies Conference for their continued dedication to the local community.

Today the students wore warm items of clothing, such as beanies or a scarf to bring awareness to the Vinnies Winter Appeal.  Thank you to all the students and their families for supporting this very worthy cause, assisting the less fortunate in our community.

Term 3 Liturgical Celebrations

Term 3 has a large variety of liturgical celebrations that we acknowledge as a community.  Please accept our open invitation to join us for our liturgies and masses next term.

Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop – Thursday 8^th August

Feast of the Assumption – Thursday 15^th August

Grandparents Day – Friday 23^rd August

Father’s Day – Friday 30^th August

Parish Mass Year 5&6 – Friday 13^th September

Parish Mass K-2 – Friday 27^th September

Mission Ambassador Program

Yesterday, the Leaders of Mission attended the Mission Ambassador Program Workshop at St Mary's Gateshead.  The workshop aims to deepen students' understanding of Catholic Social Teaching, the work of Catholic Mission and the Catholic Mission focus country for this year's campaign (Mongolia) and empowers students to use their voice to make a difference. We look forward to these leaders sharing their experiences and understandings of the role of Catholic Mission during Mission Month in October.  Thank you to Mrs Anne Turner for attending this workshop with our leaders.

Environmental Warriors

We love the enthusiasm of our young environmental warriors who have made it their mission to keep St Pat's the beautiful school that it is. 

Mr Daniel Lockwood
RE Coordinator

Save the Date

From the Diverse Learners Team...

Learning Support – Self-regulation

Self-regulation is definitely a buzz word in education, but what exactly does it mean?

Self-regulation usually refers to a person's ability to manage their emotions and respond appropriately.  Lots of us use various strategies to 'de-stress' or wind-down: go for a run or to the gym; connect with nature by going to the beach or walking through the bush; listening to or playing music.  Most people work this out for themselves over time, but for some kids managing big emotions can be really tough.  We use several approaches at St Patrick's to support students in developing their self-regulation skills, so they can better cope with situations that can cause them to feel 'out of control' or 'in the yellow / red zone' or 'like their engine is running too fast / slow'.  Students need to understand that these feelings are okay, but how we react is what we need to adjust.  Some of the strategies we use at school include: taking a break (have a drink,  five finger breathing, movement breaks, grounding techniques) or 5 minutes in the calm corner with an agreed activity such as Lego, a jigsaw, reading or colouring.  We also use programs such as Smiling Minds (mindfulness and meditation are beneficial in developing self-regulation skills) and Zones of Regulation, which teaches students how to recognise which 'zone' they are in and what actions help them stay in the green zone.

You might find some more tips on this website How Can We Help Kids With Emotional Self-Regulation? (childmind.org) or dip into School TV to find ways to manage your child's ups and downs (tackling 'I'm bored' or limiting screen time) during the upcoming holidays.  Help them to build their own tool kit to manage their emotions.

Gifted Education – WriteOn Competition

The annual WriteOn competition, organised by NESA (NSW Education Standards Authority), gives students the opportunity to become published authors and develop skills in writing to express their ideas.

The competition is for students in Years 1 to 6 who are using NSW syllabuses.  Students compose an imaginative text of up to 500 words, using an image as the stimulus. The entries are judged by a selected panel comprised of school sector and NESA representatives.

At St Patrick’s, we held a writer’s workshop to discuss ideas around the stimulus picture (see below).  Students then chose whether to continue working on their writing so that they could submit an entry into the school competition.  Miss Harvey and Mrs. Simes then had the tough job of judging which entries would go on to the State level competition.  The winners were Sophie Dunn (stage 3), Egan Joyce (stage 2) and Vinnie Walker (stage 1).  We were so impressed with their motivation to finish their stories and the use of descriptive phrases and strong vocabulary choices, while still keeping to the ideas in the picture stimulus.

Mrs Jo Simes 
Learning Support Teacher

Mrs Anne Turner & Mrs Karen Devlin
Aboriginal Education Teacher

Year 4 News

Year 4

Year 4 has had an amazing term filled with exciting new learning adventures. We enhanced our athletic skills in sports lessons and proudly showcased our efforts at the school's athletics carnival. In science, we've been exploring materials and their properties, conducting experiments to determine which sports balls are made from the most elastic material, and repurposing items to design and create new toys. In mathematics, one of our focuses has been understanding the relationship between multiplication and division and searching for patterns. In our writing, we explored the difference between authority and authorship through a deep analysis of the text Ned Kelly and the Green Sash. We also developed a deeper understanding of rhetorical devices used to strengthen an argument to persuade an audience. We love helping each other learn, being creative, and embracing challenges. We look forward to continuing our learning journey in Semester 2 with even more exciting projects and discoveries. 

Miss Chloe Murray
Year 4 Teacher

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Library News

There is so much to look forward to in Term 3. The most exciting date is the 23rd of August when we have the Book Fair, Grandparent’s Day and our dress up parade for Book Week all on the same day!  This year’s theme for Book Week is Reading Is Magic.

Borrowing in Term 2

This year we’ve been keeping a tally of how many students from each class borrow and having a bit of friendly competition by announcing the highest borrowers each week.  Last term, Year 4 pointed out each class size is different and being the smallest class, this affects them the most when it is a raw numbers tally.  For Term 2 we moved to percentages.  We then calculated an average for their term result.  This has been A LOT of maths for the library.
As borrowing for the term has finished, we are excited to announce the classes who have consistently had the most borrowers each week.

1st – Kindergarten, 68%
2nd – Year 2, 64%
3rd – Year 1, 56%
Honourable mention to Year 4 with 53%

Mrs Karen Devlin
Teacher Librarian

Mrs Penelope Hale
Library Assistant

Sport News

Regional Athletics

Our talented squad of Athletes braved the elements on Wednesday to compete in the Lakes Region Athletics Carnival at Hunter Sports Centre. We are very proud of all our competitors and congratulate the following students who were selected to compete at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival on Wednesday the 7^th of August.

Junior Girls Relay Team (Scarlett Jones, Emily Hill, Charlie Hill, Sophie Dunn)

Senior Girls Relay Team (Jaymie Tisdell, Florence De Champlain, Sienna Parker, Ava McCullough-Hendriks)

Ruby Hansen- Jnr Long Jump

Florence De Champlain- 11yr 800, 11yr long jump

Sienna Parker- Snr Long Jump

Charlie Hill- Jnr High Jump, 9yr 100m

Khloe Hansen- 11yr High Jump

Ava McCullough-Hendriks- Senior 200m, 12yr 100m

Scarlett Jones- 10yr 100m

Jaymie Tisdell- 11yr 100m

Alexander Batchelor- Snr Long Jump

Vincent Walker- 8yr 100m

Egan Joyce- 9yr 100m

Over the past three years St Patrick’s has been the convenors of the carnival, along with St Francis Xaviers Belmont. The day does not go ahead without the support of our staff and students. I’d like to extend a huge thank you to our band of student volunteers who helped tirelessly throughout the day and accepted any job thrown their way, they truly embodied learning, loving and serving. Congratulations on your commitment and service to your community Max Kanev, Max Summers, Casey Batchelor, Sara Corbett, Sophia Dawson Angeli, Angus Teterin, Oscar Claydon, Drew Torzillo and Cooper Ballard-Totten.

If your child attends a Pathways Sport or Trial, we’d love to see your photos and include them in our next newsletter.

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  

On Sunday, Lachlan Atkins, in Year 3, competed in the Central Coast Cup.  This was a karate competition hosted by his home club and the NSW Karate Federation with competitors coming from Sydney, Canberra and the Central Coast. 

Lachlan competed in the open 7- & 8-years kumite (free form fighting/sparring) and placed a very impressive 3rd. This was Lachlan's first competition. Congratulations, Lachlan on your great results.  

If your child is a Weekend Sports Star, please email details and a photo to so we can celebrate their success in our next newsletter.  

Mrs Claire Browne
Sport Coordinator

Email: claire.browne@mn.catholic.edu.au 

Office News

A reminder, if you nominated to pay fees ‘in full’ as one payment, please finalise ASAP.

If you haven't already commenced weekly, fortnightly or monthly payments as agreed, reminder sms, phone calls and letters will be sent home to these families. Please check your monthly fee statement and process payments as required.

The Diocesan agreement for settlement of school fees requires payments to commence by 31 March and continue with regular instalments each month until fully settled by 30 November each year.  Alternatively, fees can be paid in one payment, due before 30 June.  

Please contact the office if you would like assistance with calculating your weekly, fortnightly, monthly deduction amount. 

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 Community Fund website www.myccf.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.

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.

Rachelle McKenzie
Senior School Officer

P&F

P&F Meeting Minutes

Treasurer Report

Uniforms

Lowes Update

Following is an update provided by Lowes to assist you with purchases of Winter stock and navigating the Lowes online website:

• Boys grey pants - these pants are a standard stock item.  To order through the website please find order link here.
• Girls long sleeve blouse in all sizes is available as an interim unembroidered shirt. To order through the website please find order link here.
• Girls pants are on sale in store only for $34.95 (The stock we sold to Lowes - not the Lowes stock) They are available in sizes 4, 10, 12 & 14.

We thank you for your patience during this transition. If you have any queries or concern please do not hesitate to contact Rachelle.

Preloved Uniforms

We have some uniform supply delays with our transition to Lowes and we are desperately seeking preloved uniforms in good, clean condition. In particular we are seeking:

* Sports shirt Size 8 & 10

* Girls winter tunics Size 10

All hand me downs welcome. If you have any uniforms no longer being used, please drop them off to the front office so they can be put to good use.

Community Notices