Term 1 Issue 1 3rd March 2023

Principal's News

Dear Families,

We have had a fantastic start to the 2023 school year. We have warmly welcomed our new students and their families as well as our existing students and their families back to school. It has been lovely to see our current students introduce themselves to our newbies and make them feel welcome and a part of our St Patrick’s family. Students from our 3-6 class have been terrific role models and have made our new students feel right at home. We have started the year with 33 students from Prep – Year 6 and look forward to welcoming additional students throughout the school year.

We have also welcomed three new staff members, Mrs Alice Bryant, Miss Aislinn Callinan and Mrs Rho Garton to our St Pat’s family. Both Alice and Aislinn have had a wonderful start to the school year, and they have been engaging our students in a range of learning activities. Rho has taken up our school cleaner role and she has been doing a wonderful job keeping our school clean and fresh.

Congratulations to our 2023 Student and Vice Student leaders. McKenzie, Wyatt, Maggie and Paitence. We look forward to watching you grow in your leadership roles and watching you follow in the footsteps of Catherine McAuley as you continue your leadership journey this year. In the coming weeks two Sports Captains will be nominated to lead our sporting events throughout the year.

On Wednesday we held our PPF AGM. It was wonderful to have a high number of families attend the meeting. The enthusiasm from all who attended was exciting and I look forward to working with our families throughout the year. I would like to extend our thanks to our 2022 committee members, you have done a wonderful job and we thank you for all of your hard work and dedication throughout the 2022 school year. I warmly welcome our 2023 committee and look forward to seeing what amazing things will take place this year.

Naplan

This year students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will participate in the NAPLAN tests for writing, reading, conventions of language and numeracy. St Patrick’s students will engage in NAPLAN testing on Wednesday 15^th March, Thursday 16^th March and Friday 17^th March. Our catch-up testing will occur in the following week.

Year 5/6 Camp

This year students in year 5 and 6 will have the opportunity to attend camp. On Friday 10^th March at 3.15pm there will be a camp meeting for parents of students in years 5 and 6 to discuss what camp will look like for 2023. This is an exciting opportunity for our students.

Warm regards,

Kylie

Term Dates for 2023

Term One - Friday, 27th January to Friday, 31st March

Term Two - Tuesday, 18th April to Friday, 23rd June

Term Three - Tuesday, 11th July to Friday, 15th September 

Term Four - Tuesday, 3rd October to Friday, 1st December

PPF Meeting

The next meeting of the PPF Assn will be held on Monday 20th March at 3.15pm.

St Columba's Parish Mass Dates

Sunday 19th March 6pm. Please note the change of day for March.

Class News : Years 3, 4, 5 and 6

Class News: Prep/1/2

It’s been a busy start to the year with our Year Two students living and demonstrating some of our Mercy values. We’ve been learning our classroom values, classroom and personal organisation and exploring the different areas of our school, such as the library, multipurpose room, playground, undercover area and our parish, St Columba’s where we made special ‘Church Search’ glasses to help us find some special items in our church.

Organisation:

• Please ensure your child has a piece of fruit or vegetable packed each day for their ‘brainfood’. We have a quick snack around 9:30am when we use the obstacle course. Crunchy foods (carrot, cucumber, apple, capsicum) are especially great as the movement of the jaw up and down stimulates the brain.
• If you haven’t already, please help your child finish their ‘star’. If you have any issues with printing a photo, please email me and I can place it together for you.
• Please ensure your child has a full change of spare clothes in their bag (named). The office is running low on underwear, shorts and shirts.

Literacy:

In literacy this term, a big focus has been on oral language. We have been investigating words, syllables, rhyme as well as letter formation and even introducing entries and exits to our Year Two students. Please continue to help your child recognise the letters and sounds for - s,a,t,p,i,n,o,c,k,m,d,g. This week in library your child will be coming home with some practice readers and sight words. Look out for a separate note sent through the Parent Portal with more information on this.

Numeracy:

Our Prep and Year One students have been looking at the digits; 0,1,2,3,4 through hands on activities and investigations while our Year Two students have been looking at patterns in numbers to 30. Each day we have been placing a mark on our count ‘100 days of School’ poster. At 100 days, we will celebrate with a class party! We’ve got a long way to go, we’re only up to day 22!

Science:

We have been investigating the weather, weather symbols and the appropriate clothing we can wear when the weather changes. Some words we recognise and use are sunny, cloudy, stormy, rainy, windy and snowy.

Health:

In Health this term we are learning about our healthy bodies. We have learnt the words living, non-living, what helps our bodies grow, what foods are help fuel our bodies, and how our bodies can move (e.g. hop, skip, run, jump). Each week we implement these movements into our obstacle course.

Hot Tip!

A great way to practise rhyme in the car on the way to school is point to an object (e.g. goat) and see if your child can make up a rhyming word. A rhyming word is a word that sounds like the word with a different beginning, e.g. boat. We have also been using ‘robot talk’ to break words up into syllables. Can they break up the rhyming word into syllables as well?

Mercy Awards

Torah Lewis

Awesome Achiever Award

Remi McCarrol

Brayden Wise

Important Dates for 2023