Dear Parents and Carers

We have had a very busy but exciting start to Term 2. The cold mornings are certainly turning into beautiful autumn days and we are making the most of the sunny days while we have them.

Thank you to all our families who supported our school in the ANZAC day commemoration services. A special thank you to our school captains for braving the cold morning and early start to represent our school at the dawn ANZAC service and to all our students who attended the community ANZAC day parade. We had over a third of our school represented at this March and we thank you for your commitment to the school and support of ANZAC day.

Term 2 began on Wednesday and it was a lovely settled start to the new term. A special welcome is extended to Faith Miller who has joined our Year 5 class. We also welcome Faiths parents, Krystal and Jason and family as they join our St Patrick’s school family.

Friday was the most anticipated day of the week, with St Patrick’s hosting the Western Region Cross Country carnival. We forged ahead with preparations despite the dubious weather forecast. The weather was certainly on our side when beautiful weather conditions prevailed all day. Instead of needing gumboots and wet weather gear we were reaching for hats and sunscreen!

Thank you to all who made this such a wonderful event. A huge thank you to Mrs Howe, Mrs Eccleston and Mrs Wilson for the ‘behind the scenes’ preparation and to all staff, parents and students for such wonderful support on the day. We are extremely grateful to our families who assisted with setting up, cleaning up, cooking, working in the canteen or in checkpoints throughout the day. A very special thank you to Sam Johnson for coordinating the canteen facilities and also to Belinda Hindmarsh for lending us ‘Betty’ the mobile food van. We have received many positive comments from other school communities about the smooth organisation and the wonderful venue for the Cross Country event.

We look forward to sharing this Friday with our mums, grandmums, aunties or all special women in our lives, as we celebrate Mothers Day at school this Friday.

Happy Mothers Day wishes to all our wonderful mothers for Sunday. You deserve to be spoilt!

Christine Baron

Principal

EASTER SHOE BOX ACTIVITY

In preparation for Holy Week and Easter the children participated in many activities that retold the significant events that Jesus faced during this week while he was on earth.

Each activity had a special symbol, that was added on the children’s Easter Box. The children fully engaged in this activity and were able to give a detailed account of their learning.

EASTER THANK YOU 

Thank you to all those children and their families that made themselves available to assist the Parish over the Easter celebrations by Altar Serving, reading and helping in any way. Your generosity is greatly appreciated by Father George and Father Namora and all members of the Parish.

PROJECT COMPASSION BOXES

Thank you to the many families, who have returned their Project Compassion Boxes. Your financial support is greatly appreciated and will help the lives of many to have a better and brighter future. Every contribution no matter how small will make a difference to someone’s life.

Please send your boxes back to school this week so that the money can be sent to Caritas Australia.

MOTHER’S DAY MASS AND MORNING TEA

On Friday 6^th May we will celebrate a whole School Mother’s Day Mass in St Patrick’s Church at 12 noon. We invite all our mother’s, Grandmother’s, Aunts and all those special mother figures to join with us to celebrate Mother’s Day.

Prior to Mass we are holding a Mother’s Day Morning Tea at school at 10:45 am. We would love to see you there. Please let Jacki know if you are attending.

MASS TIME CHANGE

Just a note to advise, that Mass will change to 5 PM from Saturday 7^th May. Given it is already dark at 6pm, Fr thought we should change now rather than wait until June.

SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION

Next week we begin our preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We ask you to pray for our Year Three students Indi Cole, Oliver Crowe, Eliza Graham, Lachlan Hargreaves, Molly Lott, Chase Robinson and Chase Clout, Beau Jones, Nora Lindley, Jimmy Lott and Connor Manton from Gundagai Primary School.

Below is the Preparation Timetable.   

Week 3

Lesson 1 - Tuesday 10^th May 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Lesson 2 - Saturday 14^th May and Commitment Mass 3:45 pm 4:50 pm

                  NB Mass at 5 pm

Week 4

Lesson 3 -Tuesday 17^th May 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Lesson 4 - Saturday 21^st May 3:45 pm 4:50 pm

Week 5

Lesson 3 -Tuesday 24^th May 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Sacrament of Reconciliation – Thursday 26^th May 9:30 am

FAMILY MASS

On Saturday 14^th May we will hold a Family Mass at 5 pm. This Mass will also be a Commitment Mass for those children who are preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We would love as many St Patrick’s families, to join with us in this Mass. If your family would like to take a special role, please contact me asap.

Kate Howe

REC

Thank you to everyone at St Patrick’s who helped with last Friday’s WR Cross Country. We had an amazing team of helpers that willingly gave their time, resources and energy to this event. We were blessed with the weather which enabled us to run a successful carnival that was enjoyed by the twelve competing schools.

There are so many individuals to thank. Please know we are truly grateful for your generous support.

Kate Howe

This Friday 6th of May St Patrick's Staff and students will be hosting a very special Mother's Day Morning Tea and we would like to extend this invitation to grandmothers, aunts and important mother figures or role models in our lives to join us for a "Devonshire Tea".  The morning tea will start at 10.45.  We would love if you could join us to celebrate Mother's Day. 

After the morning tea the whole school will head down to the St Patrick's Church at 12pm for a special "Mother's Day Mass" and we invite you all to join us.

In preparation for our Mortimer Shield Rugby League and League Tag Carnival on Thursday in Tumut we had Zac Masters and Courtney Barrett from NRL Development attend our school on Monday for a drills and tackling technique session. Thank you Zac and Courtney for the morning all the children thoroughly enjoyed this training session. 

We wish our boys and girls in Yrs 5 and 6 all the best for Thursday's carnival. Play Safe, Be Respectful and have fun.

We remind our families that Full Winter Uniform is to be worn as of Week 3 Term 2 (Monday 9th of May).

Just a note to the families waiting on ties and woollen jumpers there has been a delay in production and Bec Gaskin as been advised that they should arrive within 3-4 weeks.  The children waiting on the winter woollen jumper are able to wear their polar fleece jumper until they arrive. 

We remind families to order their uniforms online via the website www.spg.nsw.edu.au click on the parents tab then the uniforms tab. From here you will click on the link that takes you to the live uniform shop.  

Yr 5/6 Excursion to Dubbo has been booked and the dates are:

Leaving Monday 1st of August and arriving back on Thursday 4th. More information on the excursion and costing at a later date.

As COMPASS is quite new to our school community and families this is the new platform for events and communication that we need to use when we organise excursions and permission notes.   All local and overnight excursion permissions, consent forms and payment have now all moved to COMPASS.  

When an Event is created for each class parents are sent a notification that is "Awaiting Consent/Approval"  - If this does not appear on your homescreen we suggest parents open the Compass App. Any event created will sit at the top of the Compass Home Page usually in green. Its very simply if you click the event it will open and all information will hopefully be found in the event.    Otherwise you can click on "Notifications" on Home and anything unread will be marked with a red dot.  

We understand that this will take some time for our families to adjust to but will make things so much easier in the long run.

Please note for local sporting events that require private transportation parents are asked to provide or organise transport to and from the event.  This will no longer be arranged by staff.  

Please find below the NAPLAN assessment dates for Years 3 and 5 in Term 2. 

1oth May-Writing

11^th May-Reading

12^th May-Conventions of Language

13^th May-Numeracy

Parents of Year 3 and 5 students who would like more information on NAPLAN can view all details on www.nap.edu.au 

Thank you to Mrs Carberry and Mrs Eccleston for their continued commitment to the COGLearn professional learning days. On Monday, Mrs Carberry and Mrs Eccleston travelled to St Mary’s Batlow to participate in Session 3 of this exciting program with St Mary’s staff and St Joseph’s Adelong staff. Mr Michael Roberts who leads the sessions, demonstrated Daily Reviews and provided professional conversations around the impact these have on student learning and engagement. Mrs Carberry and Mrs Eccleston are now building daily reviews and high impact teaching strategies into their everyday classroom teaching practice.

We have set the date for our Athletics Carnival -  Wednesday 25th of May with a back up date (weather permitting) being Tuesday 31st of May.  

We thought we would provide these dates early for parents should they wish to take the day off to watch their children or volunteer with timekeeping and field events.  

If you are able to volunteer an hour or more at our carnival could you please notify the office.  We will need timekeepers for age races and parent volunteers for field events.  

Additional Staff Development Days

CE have approved two additional Staff Development days for all Catholic schools in the Canberra/Goulburn archdiocese, during Term 2.

The dates for these days will be

1. Friday 10th June (long weekend)
2. Friday 1st July (last day of Term 2)

Staff will be working on CATALYST goals, reports and school programs over the two days.

Please note that Term 2 will now conclude for students on Thursday June 30th.

Saturday Night Mass has moved to 5pm during the Winter months.  Could you please ensure the children are at the Church by 4.45pm.  Thank you 

Saturday 7th May - Andrew Cole and Eliza Hargreaves

Saturday 14th May - Christyne Calub and Alec Bell-Magnone 

If your child is unable to do their rostered day can you please arrange to swap with another family then notify the office so we can contact Madeline to update the bulletin. 

Canteen will return as normal on Friday. This week there will be an Egg and Bacon roll as a "Special" and Pizza Bread will be back on he menu for Winter.   Orders need to be in by no later than Thursday 8pm so that the order can be sent through to the bakery. 

ROSTER: