Term 2 - Week 2

Message from the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers 

I hope everyone had a restful break and enjoyed the sun when it was shining. We have certainly hit the ground running as we start Term 2! Over the last two weeks we have participated in the ANZAC Day march at Swansea, the ANZAC liturgy at school, our Easter liturgy, biodiversity audit workshops, Diocesan Cross Country and the Mother’s Day stall, breakfast and liturgy. The holidays definitely seem like a distant memory.

We welcome to our St Patrick’s community, the Hansen family- Kate, Ben, Khloe (Year 3) and Ruby (Year 1). And we welcome back the McDonald family- Corrine, Clint and Callan (Year 6). We thank you for choosing St Pat’s.

Today we celebrated a beautiful liturgy for Mother’s Day where we came together to celebrate our precious mothers, grandmothers and the significant women in our lives who care, love and support us. It was certainly lovely and uplifting to hear the laughter as Year 5 shared the things mums say. They all sounded so familiar! Congratulations to our little Kinders for their superb reading and dancing. It’s hard to believe they have only been at school for a term. Thank you, Mrs T and Mrs Dent for your organisation and preparation.

I wish all our mums and grandmothers a wonderful day on Sunday.

Lucy Harvey 
Principal

Thank You

Huge thanks to Leanne Fletcher for organising our Mother’s Day Stall this year. As Leanne did such a great job, I think she should come back next year and do it all over again! Thanks also to all the mums and grandmothers who helped Leanne and to our Year 6 Leaders of Mission, Jess, Emily and Layla for leading by example. Heartfelt thanks to Grandma Helen Boyce for the beautiful hand made Mother’s Day cards. All your efforts are greatly appreciated.

Thanks also to Tammy Reid for organising the Mother’s Day breakfast and to the Staff for their prep work, serving and cleaning up. A MASSIVE effort!

And finally, thank you to all our mums and grandmothers who joined us today. It’s pretty special seeing so many families enjoying themselves at St Pat’s.

Photo Day

Unfortunately, our school photo day needs to be rescheduled, again! We will confirm the new date ASAP. Third time lucky!

Winter Uniform

As the weather is very unpredicable at the moment, student's may alternate between Summer and Winter dependent on the day.  A date will be set in Term 2 when all student's will need to be in Winter Uniform.

Message from RE Coordinator

Last Friday the students participated in a liturgy focusing on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The celebration of the resurrection is the climax of the Church’s life making Christ’s victory over sin and death.  The event marks the beginning of the season of Easter, and it extends for 50 days after Easter Sunday closing with Pentecost Sunday.

May is the Month of Mary and this coming Sunday is Mothers’ Day.  We would like to take a moment to think of our mothers, grandmothers, aunties, or a significant woman who have made an impact on our life.  This prayer is dedicated to all mothers and grandmothers, living and those dearly departed. 

 A Prayer of Gratitude for Our Mothers 

Good and Gentle God

We pray in gratitude for our mothers and for all the women of theory who have joined with you in the wonder of bringing forth new life. You who became human through a woman, grant to all mothers the courage they need to face the uncertain future that life with children always brings. 

Give them the strength to live and to be loved in return, not perfectly, but humanly. 

Give them the faithful support of husband, family and friends as they care for the physical and spiritual growth of their children. 

Give them joy and delight in their children to sustain them through the trials of motherhood. Most of all, give them the wisdom to turn to you for help when they need it most. 

- Author Unknown 

Happy Mother’s Day  

We wish all mothers and special women in the lives of our students a very special day this Sunday and thank you for your loving commitment to your children. We had a special morning today and we are grateful to celebrate this event with all the special women in our school.  

 I would like to thank our helpers that made today’s celebrations possible.  Thank you to the group of parents and the staff who gave up their time very early Friday morning to cook, serve and help clean up. We also had a group of mums prepare and run the Mother’s Day stall on Wednesday. We are very appreciative of the contributions that our families make to the life of the school. 

 Save the Date – Friday 27th May 

This year, St Patrick’s Primary School is celebrating its 70th anniversary.  On this day we will have a whole school celebration, inviting all families and parishioners to commemorate this milestone in our school’s history.  We will post further information regarding this event in the coming weeks. 

Daniel Lockwood 
Religious Education Coordinator

Message from the Assistant Principal

Naplan

Next week Years 3 and 5 will participate in NAPLAN. Testing will begin on Tuesday and conclude by the end of the week. The students will participate in four aspects of testing including Writing, Reading, Grammar and Punctuation and Numeracy. They will be completed in that order. Almost all of our testing will be completed online.  

Year 5 will need to bring their laptop each day fully charged. If your child is absent any of these testing days we will be able to run catch up assessments in the following week.  

We would encourage students not to stress about NAPLAN. It gives schools and government important information about student achievement and we would like for students to perform at their best which is done when they are relaxed.  

If you have any questions about the testing procedure or the tests themselves please don’t hesitate to contact school.  

Ben McCarthy
Assistant Principal 

From the Sports Room

Cross Country  

Late last term we held our School Cross Country. Congratulations to the following students who placed in our school carnival: 

There were cut off times to compete at the Diocesan Cross Country which was held yesterday at Maitland Park. Of the students representing our school we had some exciting results: 

8/9 Girls – Skye Porter 2nd and Mia Porter 4th  

12 Girls – Madi Trembath 8th  

The girls will now compete at the Polding Cross Country Championship. 

Well done to all our athletes. Full results may be found here: 

https://csnsw.sport/maitland-newcastle/primary/sport/cross-country 

Cross Country

Other Sporting News – Teddy’s Baseball  and Elliot's Basketball Success

Teddy in Year 6 plays baseball for Belmont Baseball Club. In January he was selected to be part of the Newcastle Eagles Representative baseball team. During the holidays Ted headed down to Sydney for the state championships. A huge congratulations to Teddy as the team went on to be undefeated in the tournament and crowned the State Country Champions! As a result they are now heading to the national finals in June where they will play teams from across Australia. 

Elliot made the Newcastle Falcons Division 1 basketball team and he has recently made the Lakers Division basketball team. A future Boomer in the making! Well done Elliot we are proud of you.

Parent Engagement

On Monday next week we will be sending out an update of the ideas and suggestions from our recent survey for parent engagement opportunities at St Pat’s. We will also include the current PEG financial accounts of monies in and monies out. At last Wednesday’s parent engagement gathering, we began planning some social and fundraising activities for the remainder of the year. These will be detailed in the update on Monday as well.

A meeting has been arranged with Cath Garret-Jones (Family Engagement Officer) on TUESDAY 17^TH MAY AT 6:30PM IN THE LIBRARY. At this meeting, Cath will outline the structure and benefits of both the P&F and PEG model. This is an opportunity for all parents to review both systems and to ask Cath any questions around parent engagement.

Cath is also opening up the Listening Lounge to all parents Kinder to Year 6. A flyer is attached. I encourage you to take up this wonderful opportunity to have input into the future direction of parent engagement at St Pat’s.

Canteen Coordinator

If you have some time to spare and would love to take on the role of Canteen Co Ordinator please email me to have a chat about what is involved. Perhaps there might even be a group of people who would like to share this role!

Easter Raffle

Thank you to everyone for supporting our Easter Raffle, the raffle raised $698.65. 

Mothers Day Stall

Leanne our Mother's Day Stall coordinator for 2022 would like to thank the following people:

• Leader of Mission girls - giving up some of their holiday time to help wrap gifts
• Jess Quiggin
• Layla Wass
• Emily Brough
• Mothers - bringing ideas to the table and navigating through the new process of going cashless
• Sue Wass - wrapping and running the stall
• Kylie Brough - wrapping and running the stall
• Tammy Reid - special mention of making handmade soaps and sugar scrubs
• Liz Sharpe - operation of the QKR app and getting the tickets out to the children
• Donations from Grahame & Karen Whiteman of Sedgefield for their beautiful succulent plants and Helen Boyce for her beautiful handmade cards

Given the short notice and navigating through a new process of running the Mothers Day stall it's an amazing effort by everyone, I believe it has been a success.

Enrolments

It is that time of year again. If you have a child whom you wish to enrol for Kinder 2023, please contact Rachelle for an enrolment pack. If you know of anyone else seeking enrolment, please ask them to contact admin.

For families who wish to attend a tour of the school we will be holding a session on:

• Thursday 26/5/22 4.00pm – 5.00pm

Save the Date

Office News

2022 School Fees have been invoiced for the full school year. If paying fees by instalment, your payment should have commenced and is to be paid in full by 30 November 2022. If paying fees in full in one payment please finalise prior to 30 June 2022. 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.

Joint Account Access Form are available, refer to Compass notification in March 2022, complete form and return to cso.sassupport@mn.catholic.edu.au.

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

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 contact the office to enquire.

Canteen

Qkr canteen ordering closes at 8:30am on Fridays. Canteen bags have arrived, for those who did not receive theirs, they will be sent home early next week in time for canteen on Friday. 

Uniform Shop

With the introduction of the new finance system, uniform orders requiring a refund will be credited to your school fee account.  Refunds will no longer be issued as they were in the past.

Community Notices