Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to Week 4! The weeks continue to disappear quickly as the term unfolds.

Stage 3 Ballarat Excursion: Early this morning, I saw off our very excited Stage 3 students as they headed off on a fabulous 4 day/3 night adventure to Ballarat. We look forward to hearing about their new discoveries and learnings on their return on Friday. Thank you to Mrs Wilson, Mr Makeham and Ms Bartlett for accompanying the students and taking care of them.

2024 Kindergarten Transition Program: This Friday we welcome our 2024 Kindergarten children to St Patrick’s as they start to experience life at ‘big’ school. The program will run across the next 3 Fridays. This is always an exciting time for our newest students and helps make the transition to Kindergarten next year a little easier.

2024 Staffing: We have been delighted to receive the news that we will retain five teaching staff in 2024. Our grateful thanks go to Mr Tim Smith (CE PIL) and Mr Ross Fox (CE Director) who were very supportive of maintaining our small class sizes and listened to our concerns with class groupings. Class teachers and class structures for 2024 will be announced in a few weeks. There are lots of discussions and planning happening behind the scenes, to decide on the best way to group our students to support the learning needs of all our students.

VEGEMITE’S 100^th birthday: The well-known tasty Aussie spread called Vegemite, celebrated it’s 100^th birthday last Wednesday 25^th October. Most of us have tasted a vegemite sandwich or toast at some point in our lives and can sing or hum the little Vegemite jingle. While it may not be a taste everyone enjoys, Vegemite is an iconic part of our Australian history. Our students have entered a ‘Happy Little Vegemite’ drawing competition, currently being promoted by Steph Cooke MP (Member for Cootamundra), for Primary School students across the Cootamundra electorate.

CATALYST: Staff at St Patrick’s are continuing to implement Direct Instructional programs together with High Impact Teaching Strategies across our teaching and learning programs, as part of our commitment to the CECG CATALYST program. Over the next few weeks, CECG staff will visit our school to observe and coach staff, to enable them to continue to deliver the best learning opportunities for our students.

I will be away from Thursday to Monday this week on personal leave. Please direct any enquiries to Mrs Howe this week and Mrs Wilson on Monday, if needed.

Enjoy the week ahead. Back to cooler weather again!

Christine Baron

Principal

St Patrick, Pray for Us