Dear Parents,

It has been a great start to Term 2 with this glorious autumn weather. Thank you to everyone who came along to the ANZAC day ceremonies on Sunday and represented our school or another community organisation. It was wonderful to be able to gather once again as a community to commemorate this special historical event. A special thank you to the students, parents and teachers who braved the early morning cold to represent our school at the dawn service as well. St Patrick’s was very well represented at both events.

Special congratulations are extended to Christyne Calub who has received the Michael McCormack ANZAC Day writing award for her entry in the writing competition. Christyne entered a piece of writing titled ‘On Anzac Day’  and was picked from 100’s of entries. We are super proud of you Christyne and look forward to Mr McCormack or a representative fromm his office, coming to present her with her special award and book prize.

We are delighted to announce that St Patrick’s has received additional funding to support the implementation of an Intensive Learning Support (ILS) program. The NSW Government funding has been received in recognition of the challenges of learning that arose from COVID and the impact of bushfires and floods in 2021. $31 million has been provided for non-government schools to implement a small group tuition program aimed at ensuring that schools can identify students who would benefit the most from intensive support. This support will be tailored to students' requirements to ensure that their educational outcomes continue to improve in 2021. The support comes in the form of implementing MacLit and a Reading Tutor program for Years 3-6 and the MiniLit program for Years 1/2 from Term 3 onwards. Teachers and support staff will be trained in these programs and the programs rolled out in the form of intensive small group support based on results from our PAT Reading assessment data.

The NAPLAN assessment program for 2021 will be conducted in an online format commencing in Week 4. It is very important that all Year 3 and Year 5 students are present at school during Week 4 from Tuesday 11^th May to Friday 14^th May. Thank you.

Best wishes for a wonderful week ahead,

Christine Baron

Principal

Welcome back to Term 2. I hope you had a lovely holiday and was able to enjoy a beautiful Easter break.

Easter Celebrations

Thank you to all our wonderful helpers over the Easter celebrations who assisted Father Namora and Father George. A special mention to Sophie Graham, Eliza Hargreaves, Juliet Pearce, Tahlira Rose, Ollie Gailey, Nate Tozer, James Reardon and Hugh Ryan for their altar serving and Joey Gailey for his assistance on the computer. Well done and thank you.

Sacramental Dates

Registrations are now being taken for the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist and Confirmation. This Sacramental Program is Parish based and is lead by a team from our St Patrick’s Parish. Registration forms were sent home on Friday. We would appreciate those forms returned as soon as possible to the Parish Office or if more convenient to the School Office.

If you are aware of children from surrounding schools who are eligible to make these Sacraments, could you please share this information with them.

Mother’s Day Mass

On Friday 7^th May Year 5/6 will lead us in a Mass to celebrate Mother’s Day. We invite our mothers, grandmothers and special women in our lives to celebrate with us. There will be morning tea provided at school at 11 am, so please come, enjoy a cuppa, a chat and celebrate Mass with us.

Kate Howe

REC

During 2019, feedback from the parent community via the school survey and open parent forums, requested the school to relook at the present school excursion format and to consider more relevant and interesting class excursions. We were also asked to consider including an annual ski excursion as well. As you are well aware 2020 presented some enormous challenges with excursions and while plans had been made to include a ski excursion and change the excursion format to stage (class based) excursions, we were lucky just to go ahead in Term 4 with excursions plans made as quickly as possible.

However this year, the staff have agreed to move to stage based excursions that are directly linked to the school curriculum and further enrich learning experiences. Excursions will be rotational so that students experience a variety of activities. The following format has been decided.

Year K/1/2 - a local day trip based on a cultural or physical activity on a rotational basis-eg theatre or gymnastics type of activity

Year 3/4 - a day trip that links learning directly to classroom learning ie Canberra

Year 5/6 - a 4 day/3 night excursion that links directly to classroom learning Dubbo(west)/Coastal/Ballarat (gold)/City.

Year 5/6 will receive information shortly on a planned excursion to Dubbo in Term 3 that brings together the units of History, Geography and Science. Mrs Wilson has designed a very exciting trip to support the classroom units and extend students understanding. As this is the first year of implementation, we will provide parents with a payment plan to help plan for this wonderful trip.  Rather than a small excursion of 10 students and leaving half the class behind we feel that a Yr 5/6 excursion is more cost effective, affordable and equitable for families. 

We are very grateful for the continued financial contribution from the Community Council to help fund the bus expenses for any class based excursions we undertake annually.

Unfortunately, the ski trip will not be able to go ahead this year until the snowfields have been able to rebuild their ski facilities however we will continue to investigate the feasibility of proving this excursion to students in the future.

Community Council Term 1 Report 2021

The Community Council (CC) started the year with welcoming 3 new members and farewelling 2 valuable members. Thanks to Renee Lindley and Emma Peterson for their hard work and dedication to the school during their time on the CC.

Currently the CC is undergoing a structure review, with the help of Catholic Education (CE), to help us align with the Constitution. Once the recommended structure is in place the CC will be able to operate effectively to represent the parent body.

One of the recommendations in the Constitution is to set up working parties to increase parent involvement and work more efficiently. Currently we are seeking EOI for parents and teachers to become involved in a fundraising working party. A building and maintenance working party is also being established to help oversee the new administration building.

Our new turf is looking fabulous! Thank you to Jeremy Pearce and his team for their hard work. The CC approached this project with determination and perseverance, and it is great to see the final result and watch the children enjoy the new space.

We are looking for fresh fundraising ideas! Thank you to Madeline Ryan for her efforts organising the movie night. It was a great new idea for a fundraiser to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and it was a fun night! Thank you to the parents who supported the event. The trivia night is also a popular and successful fundraiser and hopefully this event can happen again with the establishment of the fundraising working party.

The CC has also been assisting the staff in finding exciting excursion options for the children in response to parent feedback. Cost is a major factor when planning excursions and it has been a limitation to some of the suggested destinations. The CC is still committed to assisting with the transportation costs of excursions and assisting staff to find interesting and economical options.

As the CC represents the parent body, we are open to input and ideas from parents, and we value your involvement. The representative from the CE mentioned at our recent meeting that there is a correlation between high achieving schools and an active parent body, so with that in mind please consider how you would like to be actively involved in our school to help us achieve great things!!

Kate Graham

Secretary, Community Council

Thank you to all the families that participated in this year's Anzac Day ceremonies on Sunday. It was a beautiful ceremony and once again our school community was well represented. 

Last Friday, (Friday the 23rd of April) Charlie and I (Juliet) went to Mckillop soccer. We both played for Canberra-Goulburn in separate teams, and played against Wollengong, Sydney, Parramatta and Wagga. We lost all of our games, but we made heaps of friends and had fun. Our coach said that Canberra-Goulburn had never had someone in a possible-probable game in over ten years, and we had 4 people make it into the game. No-one got into the Mackillop team, but that's ok. 

Charlie - My favourite part of the day was when I nearly scored a goal, but it hit the crossbars.

Juliet - My favourite part of the day was when my friend Charlotte made it into the possible probable game, or when I booted it down the other end of the field and Ava scored a goal.

We are calling for any interested parents who would like to assist in coaching the boys and girls teams.  If you are interested please contact Mrs Wilson or the front office to express your interest. 

Due to dates clashing with other school activities the Netball Cup will now be played in Wagga during week 10 - Tuesday 22nd of June. Our Yr 3/4 and Yr 5/6 girls will continue with netball skills this term.   More details on this as the date draws closer. 

The students of St Patrick’s school would like to say a huge thank to St Vincent’s School community in Canberra for the wonderful donation of sports equipment to our school. A special thank you to Principal Mrs Vigliotta and her husband for personally delivering the sport equipment to our school during the school holidays. We are extremely grateful for such a generous donation of sport equipment and promise it will be put to good use.

On the last day of Term 1 we celebrated our Student of the Month for Week 10.  We also have introduced a Principal's Award into our Week 5 and Week 10 special awards presentations and our first award recipients received their special certificate during week 10's presentation.  Congratulations to all of our students for a great first term of learning and behaviour 

Student of the Month - Week 10 Term 1 

Kindergarten : Harrison Campbell

Year 1 : Leila Gaskin 

Year 2 : Lachlan Hargreaves

Year 3 : Flynn Leane

Year 4 : Charlotte McDonnell 

Year 5 : Sophie Graham 

Year 6 : Jessica McDonnell

Principal's Award - Week 10 Term 1 

Conor Cotterill, Emily Ryan and Oliver Gailey 

Congratulations to our Week 1 Wildcat Awards:

RESPONSIBLE : Tyler Manns, Locky Eccleston, Hugh Ryan 

RESPECT : Tyler Manns, Riley Smith, Harry Crowe

Congratulations to our Week 1 Term 2 Class Award recipients.  

Kindergarten: Drue Summers for his enthusiastic class participation 

Year 1 / 2 : Lotus Jielan for a positive attitude and using lovely manners 

Year 3 / 4 : Skye Somerville for beginning to show more independance in numeracy

Year 5 / 6 : Jessica McDonnell for mature and respectful leadership skills 

Thank you to all of our wonderful mums for volunteering to help run the canteen in Term 2.  Until our new administration building is completed lunches will be prepared in the School Hall every Friday. 

Roster:

Friday 30th April - Simone Jones & Alicia Hargreaves 

Cookies : Claire Somerville & Caitlin Smith 

Friday 7th May - Tash Smith & Alicia Hargreaves 

Cookies : Jacintha Bedford & Kate Graham 

Friday 14th May - Simone Jones & El Williams 

Cookies : Emma Peterson & Michelle McDonnell