Dear Parents,

Welcome to Week 6 of Term 4. The term is moving along very quickly with many school activities to take place over the next four weeks.

Congratulations to our Year 5 students who have/will present their leadership speeches to the school community today and tomorrow with voting for the 2021 school captains to take place on Thursday. We know that all our Year 5 students will be very capable leaders in whatever capacity they take on next year. We have already witnessed their ability to be responsible and caring leaders, as they have embraced the Kindergarten Orientation sessions by taking such great care of their Kindergarten buddies for 2021.

We continue to plan for end of year events now that restrictions have started to ease slightly. We are very grateful that we are able to go ahead with normal school activities however we must still abide by regulations. Please remember that social distancing measures will be in place for all events and that if anyone is unwell , they must not attend the events.

Our Award Presentation Day will be held on Friday 11th December. We are looking at possible venues to host this occasion that can allow enough space for parents, students, staff and award presenters while keeping within the restriction guidelines. We will provide this information.

Year 6 Graduation Mass will also take place on Friday 11th December at 12pm in St Patrick’s Church. Numbers will be clarified shortly. Our Year 6 Graduation dinner can also now take place. This will be held on Monday 14th December at Lott’s Hotel. Only Year 6 students and their parents will be able to attend the outdoor event. More information to come out about both these events shortly.

Next week our students are very excited to be heading away in their school excursions. Year 6 head off to Jindabyne for three days, Years 3-5 to Canberra and Years K-2 to Wagga (Wednesday 2nd of December). Thank you to teachers for making these opportunities available to our students especially with such short organisational time.

Our new playground area, continues to take shape. The children are enjoying watching the machinery and activities of the workmen. We look forward to the final product. In addition to this, our Year 3/4 room and the library will be receiving new Reverse Cycle Air conditioners shortly, in response to the heating/cooling issues experienced in both of these rooms. Thank you to Catholic Education for installing these to ensure our students enjoy optimum learning conditions.

There was great excitement last week, when Mrs Howe unearthed the statue of our school patron saint, St Patrick. St Patrick has been returned to his rightful position on our school prayer table. We pray that St Patrick continues to watch over our school families and community and keep us all safe.

Best wishes for a wonderful week ahead.

Christine Baron

First Holy Communion

What a wonderful Mass was celebrated for First Holy Communion! The children were so reverent and excited to receive the Eucharist. It was a lovely family celebration to witness this special occasion.

We thank Father George for celebrating the Mass, the children for their thorough preparation, their very supportive parents, the wonderfully supportive school community – teachers, children who sang like angels and the Sacramental Team. St Patrick’s truly is a great team. Congratulations!

 Classroom Reconciliation

Last Friday Father George visited the Year 3/4 Classroom to celebrate Reconciliation. We are so very grateful to our Parish Priests for giving us this opportunity to celebrate this Sacrament within a Classroom situation.

Mass

This coming Friday, Year 3/4 will present the Mass. The theme of the Mass will be, ‘The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary’. Year 5/6 will also attend this Mass.

End of Year Celebrations

The Year Six Graduation and Thanksgiving Mass will be held on Friday 11^th December at 12 noon. Due to COVID restrictions our numbers of attendees may have to be limited. More information will be provided closer to this date.

This Mass is traditionally our chance to support and give items of food to the St Vincent de Paul Society. The Society will compile hampers from the items and distribute these to those in our community who need assistance during the festive season.

As you do your shopping over the next few weeks please keep this in mind. Whatever you can give will be appreciated.

Kate Howe

REC

Years 3 and 4 Trent Barrett Shield Wednesday 11^th November.

Trent Barrett Girls League Tag

On the 11th of November 2020 St Pat’s 3 and 4 went down to Anzac park for the Trent Barrett Shield Gala day. We played girls league tag as St Pat’s girls 2. 

We may have lost all our games but one thing we know is that we had the most fun you could ever have. We had two girls from St Joseph's helping us play. We became good friends with them. We would love to play with them again and we are thankful for their help. 

We want to thank Jayda Bartlett for volunteering to coach us on the day, we are very thankful.

By Abigail Bock and Charlotte McDonnell

On the 11th of November, the Year 4 girls went down to Anzac Park for the day joined with two Adelong students to play Trent Barrett.

Our first game was against McAuley Central 1 and it was a draw. 

Our second game was against Gundagai Public School and we lost but still had plenty of fun!

Our third game was against Tumut Public School and we had a great first win!  

Our last game was against McAuley Central 3 which we won. It was a great last game. 

We thank Jayda Bartlett for coaching us and helping us to succeed and we also thank all our opponents for being fair and having good sportsmanship! We also thank Adelong School for lending us players and all the teachers, parents, students and people in the community who came to watch or ref. We give another big thanks to Britany for running the day.

By Akacia Winchester and Tahlira Rose

Trent Barrett League Year 3 and 4 Boys.

On Wednesday, the 11^th November we played tackle league at the Trent Barrett Gala Day.

We played: McAuley, Tumut Public, Franklin, St Josephs and Gundagai Public.

Our team went really well and we got better at being tackled and making tackles as the day went on.

Thankyou Mr Norden for coaching us, we appreciate what you did, THANKYOU.

Just a few reminders to our Year 6 parents

* Sport & Recreation Medical Consent Form - Please ensure you have submitted your online Medical Consent Form to the Sport & Recreation Centre for our upcoming Year 6 Camp to Jindabyne.  Our Year 6 students will leave for camp on Monday 23rd of November and return on Wednesday 25th of November.   Payment of $109.50 to the front office ASAP so we can finalise accounts. Thank you to the families that have already made payment. 

* Year 6 Graduation Dinner - This year our Year 6 Graduation Dinner we have booked at Lott's Hotel for Monday 14th of December. Parents and Yr 6 students (time to be confirmed) more details will be provided shortly

* Year 6 Big Day Out -  Week 10 Day and date to be confirmed

This morning was the start of our Year 5 students presenting their captain speeches for 2021 to the whole school, teachers and parents.  We listened to 5 well prepared speeches at this morning's assembly.  Wednesday morning we will continue to listen to our final 5 students prepare and present their captain speeches. 

Timeline: Tuesday & Wednesday - Year 5 students will present their speeches to the whole school

Thursday - Whole School will vote

Captains for 2021 will be announced at our end of year awards presentation on Friday 11th of December 

Next year we will be introducing InitiaLit into our Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 literacy sessions.

InitiaLit is an evidence based whole class literacy program which will provide all children with the essential core knowledge and strong foundations to become strong readers and writers. It provides an explicit and effective model for teaching reading, spelling, writing, and all aspects of literacy.

Catholic Education is supporting the Implementation of the InitiaLit program and is part of their new CATALYST initiative. Teachers are currently attending training sessions so that the InitiaLit program can be rolled out immediately in Term 1.

Parents in K/1/2 will receive an information sheet on the InitiaLit program. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Baron.

Please mark your calendar for our upcoming Pupil Free Day which will be on Friday 4th of December.  This is our Staff Development Day.  

Dates for upcoming events have been marked on our School Calendar which is located on our school website.  

Week 6 - Friday 20th November : Simone Jones & Liz Ferguson 

Week 7 - Friday 27th November : Kate Graham & Alicia Hargreaves 

Friday the 27th of November will be our last canteen day for 2020.  Thank you to all our volunteer mums for all your help and cooperation during this crazy year of unpredicted changes.  The communication and support has been amazing and we thank you all so much for everything you do each and every Friday to provide everyone with amazing food.  Thank you to Leanne McDonnell for being such an awesome canteen coordinator. 

We are still on the search for a parent volunteer to take over the Canteen Coordinator role from Leanne McDonnell.  As advised in previous newsletters and emails Leanne is stepping down as our canteen coordinator after 5 years.  Leanne will be available to assist anyone that steps up to take on this role.  Without a canteen coordinator to oversee the running of our canteen we will not be able to provide tuckshop to our children in 2021 unless this role is filled.  Please contact the school or Leanne for further information. 

Congratulations to our Week 4 and Week 5 Wildcat Awards: 

Week 4 

Responsible - Hugh Ryan x 2, Locky Eccleston, Zoe Morgan, Mackenzie Little, Molly Lott, Eliza Graham, Zoe Paton and Leila Gaskin 

Respect - Addison Fairall, Asher Jones, Sam Turck, Lilly Cotterill, Lotus Li, Jack Peterson, Molly Lott 

Safe - Lotus Li, Zoe Morgan 

Week 5

Responsible - Gracie Peterson 

Respect - Anson Chew 

Service NSW is returning to Gundagai in their Mobile Service Centre. The van will be parked in the Gundagai Services Club carpark on 9th of December from 9.00-12.00pm

The Service NSW staff can provide support across a broad range of services including:

• Renewing a driver licence or vehicle registration
• Processing of Medical and Mobility Parking Permits
• Processing of RSA and RCG cards
• Undertaking driver knowledge tests
• Applying for births, deaths and marriages certificates
• Applications and Renewals for Working with Children Checks
• Consulting with a Cost of Living specialist for help accessing more than 70 government rebates and savings.

Mobile Service Centres will accept cashless payments by credit and debit card or cheque.