Dear Parents,

We welcomed our 80^th enrolment to St Patrick’s last week when Lotus Li joined our Kindergarten class. We also welcome Lotus’ mum Lucca and dad Stan to our St Patrick’s School family. It has been exciting to see our enrolments continue to grow over the past year and thank you to all who are continuing to spread the word about our wonderful little school.

Congratulations to our team of 24 students who headed off to the WR swimming carnival in Harden yesterday. From all reports they had a fantastic day and were great representatives for our school. Special congratulations to Reo, Charlie and Essie who will now go onto represent at the Archdiocesan Swimming Carnival in Narooma. Well done to everyone!

It was great to see our students supporting the local Gundagai Show on the weekend by entering the various pavilion sections. There were a few prize winners among our students too, who must be proud of their efforts. Thank you to teachers and students for creating the lovely school display to thank the efforts of emergency personnel for their incredible work in saving communities especially over the school holiday period and giving a message of hope and moving forward.

As part of our 2020 Annual Improvement Plan, we have three main areas of focus this year…..

1. An updated Vision and Mission Statement
2. Improved outcomes for students in Literacy and Numeracy
3. Introducing STEM as part of our Science and Technology Curriculum 

Tomorrow Mr Phil Pettit (CE) will work with the leadership team and our Data Analyst, Mr Ferguson to look at the ways we collect, analyse and interpret student data. This information will help us make important decisions around the way we teach and deliver the curriculum mainly in the areas of Literacy and Numeracy. Mr Pettit has a wealth of experience around student data and we value his time and expertise. 

We give thanks for the rain we have received and continue to ask God’s blessings upon our land and communities.

Best wishes for a happy week.

Christine Baron

Next week the Church season of Lent begins.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (26^th February) and lasts for a period of forty days. Lent reminds us of Jesus’ time in the desert where he went to pray and fast.

Lent is a time of preparation and an opportunity to be closer to God. It is a time for personal reflection that prepares people’s hearts and minds for the events of Good Friday and Easter.

The three main things that become our focus during Lent are prayer, fasting (going without something) and giving or charity.

Ash Wednesday which also marks the beginning of the annual Caritas Australia Project Compassion Appeal. Donations to Project Compassion allow Caritas Australia, to work with local communities around the world to alleviate poverty, hunger, oppression and injustice. We encourage you to put your compassion into action this Lent through your prayer, fasting and almsgiving by supporting Project Compassion. Each family will receive a Project Compassion box for their donations. Each classroom will also be provided with a Project Compassion Box.

Mass will be celebrated on Ash Wednesday at 12 noon. Year 3/4 will lead us in this Mass.

PRAYER

God of all peoples and nations,

As you accompany us on our Lenten journey,

May our fasting strengthen our commitment to live in solidarity,

Our almsgiving be an act of justice,

And our prayers anchor us in love and compassion.

Awaken our hearts and minds that we may be one human family

As we all go further together. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen

Claiming the date:

Tuesday 31^st March and Wednesday 1^st April – The Relics of St Therese of Lisieux will be visiting St Patrick’s Gundagai. More information in the next Newsletter.

Last week we began our Creative Arts term rotations. This year the Creative Arts area of the curriculum will be taught by one specific teacher for each specific area. The same teacher will teach each year level across the school year. Teachers will be teaching to an area of passion and this is hoped to increase student engagement and creativity. The students thoroughly enjoyed their first lesson last week and are looking forward to lesson Number 2 this Thursday.

Term 1 teacher and subjects are: 

Mr Ferguson-Music Year K/1

Mrs Carberry-Dance Year 2

Mrs Hughes-Visual Arts Year 3/4

Mrs Flanagan-Drama Year 5/6

The Community Council met for the first time for 2020 on Tuesday 11^th February. We would like to take this opportunity to advise of the elected positions and recap our Council members:

Chair –Renee Lindley renee_lindley@yahoo.com.au

Vice-Chair – Craig Hargreaves craig@diggeranddrill.com.au

Secretary – Kim Paton kimpaton22@yahoo.com

Treasurer – Jackie Tozer tozercj1@gmail.com

Members are Emma Peterson emmaandmark1@bigpond.com, John Morgan john@jandamorgan.com , Michael Leane michael.leane@lls.nsw.gov.au and Michelle McDonnell hillcrest4@active8.net.au Principle Chris Baron and a Staff Representative. Please do not hesitate to contact any one of the members as your Parent body advocates if you wish to discuss any ideas or issues. If any new members of our school are interested in knowing more about the Community Council or if interested in joining, please contact Renee Lindley on 0416 285 262 or Chris Baron on 69441 085 chris.baron@cg.catholic.edu.au   

We would like to also thank Gemma Crowe who has stepped down from the Community Council this year. Gemma has been a great asset to the team and we will miss her a great deal. Thanks Gemma for all your work over your time with the Community Council.

Fundraising

At the meeting it was agreed that we would continue with our projected fundraising amount of $45,000 over a 3 year cycle. This is in line with the previous 3 year cycle that was met. With this in mind, we are now interested in fundraising ideas that our school community may have in order to achieve our goal. We currently have the following fundraising events scheduled in:

• St Patrick's Primary School Variety Night
• St Patrick's Primary School Trivia Night
• St Patrick's Primary School Street Stall
• Our Major Raffle
• An ‘All Schools Disco’
• Meat Raffles at Lotts on Friday Nights over the Winter period
• Canteen

Can we encourage you to make contact with one of the members in order to suggest any further fundraising ideas and how you would like to run the event. The Meat Raffle roster will be coming around soon, please consider putting your name down for a fun Friday night at Lotts. If you have never done this before and feel a little nervous about it, please let us know, all new parents will always be paired with a ‘well skilled’ parent to ensure you have a great night!

Our Major Raffle is nearing closer to being drawn at our St Patrick's Variety Night on Saturday 14^th March. We were very happy with the outcome of our stall set up at the Gundagai Show and we appreciate all the helpers who were able to allocate some time to sell tickets. Thanks also goes to the committee for giving us such a great spot at the Show with lots of foot traffic.

Finally, our first of two Community Council Open Meetings has been scheduled for 18^th May, we encourage all parents and carers to attend this meeting. Further details will be available closer to the date.

Once again, we thankyou for your support over the previous year and we look forward to a great year ahead.

Regards 

Community Council

Just reminding all families that our 2019 Major Raffle is being drawn at our "Variety Night" on Saturday 14th March.  Could all families who still have books at home please return them with the money to the school over the next few weeks. 

Thank you to all families who have already sold and returned their books.  

With the generous donations from the Community Council of $5,000 we were able to purchase new readers for our school.  These will be utilised in guided reading from Kindergarten to Yr 4.    The Community Council have also donated additional funds to purchase our Soundwaves online spelling program for all students. We are extremely grateful. 

Last Thursday we had our annual swimming carnival with the competing teams, Finnigan and Donovan, Finnigan and Donovan had a great start to the race with only two girls racing 100m Freestyle. Many girls and boys stepped up to do medley even though some people were not meant to do it but they pushed their limits and had great spirit. All the students had a fantastic day and cheered loudly.

Some of our infants tried 25 metres, even some kindergartens did the 25m. All Kinder to Year 2 played fun games like relay races, ping pong ball blowing and colourful ball round up in 1 minute.

The next day the students found out what team won,  Donovan proved that they could dominate Finnigan, but at the end of the day Finnigan still tried their best and we would like to congratulate all students for supporting the other team and their team too, great cheering, swimming and splashing! 

 By Maggie Peterson and Asher Jones 

St Patrick's Swimming Carnival Photos: 

Congratulations to our team of 24 swimmers who participated in the Western Region swimming carnival held in Harden yesterday (Monday 17th February).  All our swimmers participated in their events with enthusiasm and team spirit.  A huge congratulations to Charlie Hindmarsh who received Runner-Up Junior Champion.  

Charlie Hindmarsh along with Reo and Essie Norden will now travel to Narooma on 2nd March to compete at the Archdiocese Swimming Championships. 

We extend our deepest condolences to Max & Mercia Crowe, Eliza, Sam and David on the passing of their son and brother Peter Crowe. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Peter.  Please keep the family in your prayers through this time of loss.  Peter completed his primary schooling at St Patrick's in 1993.  

We would like to wish Charlie Hindmarsh, Juliet Pearce and Jack Peterson all the very best of luck at the Canberra Goulburn Trials which will be held in Lyneham (Canberra) this Thursday 20th February.   

Good luck also to Will Gaskin who will be trialling for AFL on Tuesday 18th Februry at Wollongong.  Good luck to all players. 

Its on again our St Patrick's Irish Variety Night - The date has been set for Saturday 14th of March - This is a very enjoyable evening on the St Patrick's Calendar so be sure you get your tickets.  This is a great fundraiser for our school community. 

Congratulations to our weekly class award recipients. 

Week 2 - 7th February 2020

Kindergarten/Yr 1 - Le Le Zhifeng for his happy start to each day 

Yr 2 - Andrew Cole for putting a huge effort into all his school work 

Yr 3/4 - Tahlia Rose for settling in so well and working hard in class 

Yr 5/6 - Addison Fairall for a mature and settled start to the 2020 school year 

Week 3 - 14th February 2020

Kindergarten/Yr 1 - Zoe Paton for being a good friend to others 

Yr 2 - Skye Somerville for putting in a super effort with her reading and writing 

Yr 3/4 - Akacia Winchester for her mature and settled start to the year 

Yr 5/6 - Nick Little for increasing confidence in sharing work in group and whole class discussions 

Congratulations to the following students who have received a Wild Cat Award for being:

Week 3 Term 1 

RESPONSIBLE - Joey Gailey 

RESPECTFUL - Archie McDonnell 

SAFE - Lily Cotterill 

Happy Birthday to the following students who have recently celebrated a birthday.  We hope you all had a wonderful day:

7th February - Taite Johnson 

8th February - Andrew Cole 

11th February - Akacia Winchester    

15th February - Savannah Manns 

17th February - Alec Bell-Magnone

Altar Serving Roster  

Saturday 22nd February - Harry Crowe & Juliet Pearce 

Saturday 29th February - Oliver Gailey & Eliza Hargreaves

Saturday 7th March - William Gaskin & Jessica McDonnell 

If you are unable to attend Mass on rostered dates please arrange a suitable swap. 

RADIO ROSTER

Year 6 Read out St Patrick's weekly news every Wednesday at 2.15pm on "Sounds of the Mountains" 

 Week 4 (19 Feb) - Addison Fairall & Sam Turck

Week 5 (26 Feb) - Finlay Bock & Lincoln Fallon 

Week 6 (4 Mar) - Abby McDonnell & Asher Jones 

Week 7 (11 Mar) - Addison Fairall & Maggie Peterson

Besure you tune into the local radio to hear our weekly news reported by our Year 6 students