St Pat's News

Principal: Olga Lyons

Deputy Principal: Peter Sanderson

Parish Priest: Fr. John Corrigan

Phone: 55681371

We Acknowledge the Gunditjmara people, the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are gathered today.

We respect and honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, past, present and future. We acknowledge their stories, traditions and living cultures on this land and commit to building a brighter future together.

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome Back for Term 2. I hope all families were able to take advantage of the sunny weather in the first week and had a more relaxing second week as the weather turned to a typical Autumn mode. 

I always consider this an important term for significant learning growth as the children have had term 1 to settle and teachers have a comprehensive understanding of all students learning capabilities.  

We have our annual Mother's Day Breakfast coming up on May 7th which is a much anticipated event.  I look forward to seeing our mums having a relaxing breakfast with their children that morning. 

This term we welcome 2 new staff members, Xavier Stephens and Lise Salvo who are both Learning Support Officers.  

Kind regards,

Olga Lyons, Principal

Andrew Chin - Australian Religious Songwriter and Singer will be visiting St Patrick's School on April 29 to share his songs with our children.  Andrew's songs, such as "These Hands", "Rainbow", "An African Blessing" and "Rise Up" are used in classrooms and liturgies around Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada.  He has released 11 CDs, 6 picture books and 5 DVDs plus a new online resource for teachers.   

Andrew was a teacher for 20 years in Catholic Schools in Sydney, he taught all year levels.  He lives in Wollongong with his wife and a couple of Shetland Sheepdogs, who love the beach.  

The classes will work with Andrew to learn a variety of songs.  They will perform these songs at a concert that will take place in the School Hall at 2:30pm.  Parents are welcome to attend the concert.  

Parents and carers will be aware that NAPLAN tests are administered to Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students in May each year. Our dates for this year are Tuesday 11th to Thursday 13th May. You may not be aware that each year a sample of students in these same year levels, from across Australia, is also required to sit the NAPLAN Equating Study. The equating tests have occurred every year since 2009 and thousands of schools, nationally, have participated.

This year, St Patrick’s has been selected to be one of the schools participating in the equating study. Twenty one students have been randomly selected from Years 3 and 5 to take part. These students have been informed so they may mention to their parents that they are involved. This activity will take place at school on Thursday 6th May.

Our staff have been working very hard to explicitly teach our expected behaviours listed on St Patrick’s Behaviour matrix to our students. This document is a ‘living document’ and has had some adjustment since you may have last seen it. You may have heard or even seen that we have also been positively rewarding these displayed positive behaviours with class and yard dojos. It has been wonderful to hear our students using the positive behaviour vocabulary listed on our expected behaviour matrix. Words like, ‘Thank you for using a kind tone when you are speaking to me’.

Our staff has also been working on our consistent response to behaviours displayed that we would not expect.  These unexpected behaviours have been listed under the headings MINOR, PROBLEM AND MAJOR behaviours.  The unexpected behaviours listed in each column have specific consequences. The consequences to these behaviours are linked to the intent of the actual behaviour displayed. Please be aware that the consequence to a problem or major behaviour is to spend some time in a classroom with a designated teacher during a break time. The designated teacher will ask the student to reflect on their unexpected behaviour. They will assist and support them by redirecting them to our expected behaviours by using our Behaviour Matrix and identifying the appropriate behaviour they should have been displaying.

All the inappropriate behaviours displayed are recorded so that we can identify areas in our yard that may need further supervision or students who may need extra support in learning our expected behaviours.  

Our Behaviour Matrix and our Minor, Problem and Major behaviours checklist were sent home at the end of last term for you to become familiar with.

Erik Tamer for looking out for a fellow student and including him in his game.

Belinda is our new Family School Support Worker. Belinda works for CatholicCare, she is available every Thursday 8.30am-4.30pm to assist with the wellbeing of families and children at our school. Please contact the school if you would like to see Belinda.

This Sunday, April 25 2021, Australians and New Zealanders, both at home and overseas, will stop to commemorate ANZAC Day. A day of national and international significance that gives us all the opportunity to pause and reflect on the service and sacrifice of those who have served in defence of our nation, and those who continue to serve today. 

Our School Captains and Vice Captains will be representing our school by laying a wreath at the 10:15am service at the Railway Memorial.  Families are encouraged to participate in the Light Up the Dawn observance from their driveways instead of attending Dawn and Public Services. 

The following families have indicated that they are available to assist at this Saturday's Working Bee at 9am-12pm: Hennig, C & N Down, Fry, Mirtschin, Verhoef, Wolff, Greene, Cryer, McGowan/Belleville, Fitzsimmons, Chisholm, Brown, Burris/McLean.

The jobs they we are hoping to complete are: realigning a latch on a shed, reattached a bracket for a gate into a brick wall (see picture), tightening up wooden outdoor furniture, removal of rocks from the playground, affixing padding to poles, clearing gardens, raking the sandpit.

If anyone has the following items that they could bring along we would really appreciate it: Drills and screws, gardening equipment, wheelbarrows, trailers, chainsaws.

Our school photos will be on Monday May 17. Photo envelopes will be sent home with your children today. Payment can be made using the envelope provided or online using the Shootkey on your child's envelope. The school does not handle these envelopes so please make sure you have the correct money in the envelopes or the credit card slip and have sealed the envelope. 

If you would like a family photo, the envelopes can be collected from the school office.

Sporting Schools Program

The Sporting Schools program will this year run on Monday and Wednesday afternoons after school from 3.20pm - 4.30pm starting next week. This program runs for 7 weeks each term. Tom Sell, one of our Learning Support Officers, will be coordinating the program this year, along with our trainees.

Term 2 days will be Wednesday and Thursday, commencing April 28 & 29. The activities will be soccer, football and netball.

Attendance forms are located on the Skoolbag App. Attendance slips must be filled out by 10am for each day your child is attending Sporting Schools. Any child without an attendance form will not be permitted to attend. 

Please use the Skoolbag App for each session your child is going to attend.

If you do not have the Skoolbag App, click on the link for instructions.

https://www.moqproducts.com.au/skoolbag/installation-instructions/

We invite our beautiful Mums to come along to enjoy a special breakfast in the school hall with their children on May 7th at 8am.  Orders are now open through CDFpay. The order can only be made via CDFpay and close on Tuesday May 4 at 3.20pm, NO LATE ORDERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.