Newsletter 125 - February 29th 2024

Prayer of the Week:

Dear Lord, during this Lenten season, help me to recognize my sins and turn my heart toward you in genuine repentance. Grant me the strength to make amends and grow in your grace.  Guide my steps and illuminate my path with your wisdom. Open my heart to the needs of others. May I reflect your love and compassion in my actions, serving those who are suffering or in need.  In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen

Principals Report:

Dear St Patrick’s community

Last Friday we were blessed with a day that turned out beautiful and sunny for our annual Swimming Carnival. Earlier in the week I was worried that it was going to be too hot, but it turned out to be perfect. The Swimming Carnival is easily my favourite school activity so far and it was so great to see so many family members on hand to support all the swimmers. A big pat on the back to all the parents and staff who took part in the Parent/Teacher versus Grade Six student relay. It was a hotly contested event but luckily us oldies managed to just take the win.  

Days like this take the efforts of many to ensure that they run smoothly. Thank you to all the staff and volunteers who helped out with the myriad of tasks that needed to be done. Well done to all the students who tried their best. Congratulations to Barrett House for being crowned the overall winner! 

A fantastic effort raising over $1000 towards the Pomonal bushfire appeal. Anthony, the Principal at Stawell West, has organised how that money will get to the people who need it through the Pomonal Progress Association. The decision to support our community through the Progress Association avoids the fees and percentage taken by a ‘Go-fund-me’ type page so all the funds get to where they are intended. Thank you to Stawell West and Anthony for his co-ordination in the fundraising process. 

Diocesean Leadership Gathering update: 

On Thursday I attended the Diocesan Leadership gathering where all the DOBCEL principals get together to build collective understanding. We worked on the DOBCEL Strategic Plan with workshops that make us consider where education has been in the last 25 years- what has worked and not worked.

What impacted me the most in these workshops were two slides. These slides demonstrated how community and a sense of belonging to a school has the biggest impact on student learning. The sense of community at St Pats is amazing, it is very different to the other schools I have worked at and different from when I was here 15 odd years ago. On Thursday, I was very proud to sit there as your principal knowing what we have in our events; our assemblies; our Parent and Friends Committee; our SAC; our front and back gate catch-ups and in the way our community supports each other, has a direct impact on the learning of our students. What a wonderful tribe to belong to. 

Bushfire Danger School Closure Days

I thank the school community for the no-fuss attitude at which you have undertaken the school closure days due to our bushfire danger rating. We had a little more warning this week which I hope enabled families to feel more organised and prepared for the closure day. It is unfortunate that these days occur and put our students and ourselves out of routine. Our staff certainly didn’t rest, using the day to complete compliance tasks such as OH&S modules, as well as planning for upcoming weeks. 

 Speaking of what is coming up - NAPLAN starts March 13th

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a literacy and numeracy assessment that students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sit each year. It is the only national assessment all Australian students undertake. NAPLAN is just one aspect of our school’s assessment and reporting process. It does not replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance, but it can provide our teachers with additional information about students’ educational progress.

In exceptional circumstances, a student with a disability that severely limits their capacity to participate in the assessment, or a student who has recently arrived in Australia and has a non-English speaking background, may be granted a formal exemption. It is very rare for St Patrick’s students to be withdrawn from NAPLAN. We believe that our learning Superpowers such as resilience and risk-taking allows students to delve into the testing with a positive attitude. If you have concerns regarding your child undertaking the assessments on March 13th, please speak to their classroom teacher. 

We wish our Year 5 and 6 classes a great couple of days away at Urban Camp, Melbourne and look forward to hearing of their adventures when they return. 

With Kind Blessings, 

Bettina

Wellbeing:

Families with kids of varying ages struggle to keep screen time in check

Families with multiple children are struggling to keep their screen time within the recommended limits, new research has found, with calls for more resources to help families navigate the issue.

Current Australian guidelines recommend no screen time at all for children under two years of age, one hour per day for those aged two to four, and two hours daily for children aged five to 12.

But research from the University of Queensland suggests parents of children across multiple age ranges are failing to meet those guidelines.

UQ maternal and child health expert Leigh Tooth led a study looking at almost 2000 mothers and 4543 children aged under 12 to see how they handled screen time.

They found that a little over half the families with two or more children in the same age bracket managed to keep their children to the recommended screen-time limits.

That dropped to just 23 per cent for families with children in multiple age brackets.

Professor Tooth said the results showed many families were struggling, especially when they had children whose recommended screen-time limits were different.

“If a parent has two or three or four kids of different ages, and the iPad is on and so is the TV and the XBox, it’s hard to remove their two-year-old from that,” she said.

“Kids aged two to four, we found around 92 per cent of them are exceeding the guidelines, so they’re just doing the screen time of their older siblings, which is two hours or more a day.”

Professor Tooth said the finding was not necessarily surprising, but this was the first time anyone had quantified exactly how bad the problem had become.

National screen-time guidelines are based around preventing children from having sedentary lifestyles, rather than specific harm from watching screens.

Professor Tooth said the issue was complicated by the fact that more educational and enriching content was now available via screens.

“It’s not black and white, but for kids under five, they need play-based activities – they need to be in the sandpit, falling over, exploring their surroundings – to develop their cognitive abilities,” she said.

“But screen time has evolved a lot over the years, and a lot of the early research on the subject was based on just parking a kid in front of a TV. The reality today is a lot more complex.”

Pandemic lockdowns further complicated the issue, with children forced to do both schooling and recreation at home, although the data used in this research predated the pandemic.

Professor Tooth said national health authorities needed to do more to ensure parents could proactively meet the guidelines, rather than just stating them and letting parents figure it out for themselves.

She said in the same way that there were many resources to help people meet diet and exercise recommendations, similar resources should be available to help parents navigate a world in which their children are increasingly exposed to screens.

“There need to be more parenting resources showing how to juggle screen time between multiple kids,” she said.

“I would love to see the guidelines themselves tweaked or changed to reflect the reality of the modern world and having multiple children, rather than the black-and-white thing it is now.”

Article by Stuart Layt, Published by The Sydney Morning Herald

Lillie Marshman- Mental Health & Wellbeing Coordinator 

Teaching and Learning:

School Assemblies:  Our assemblies happen each Friday afternoon starting at 2:45pm in the school hall.   Please note change of time due to school now finishing at 3:10pm.  Students are dismissed from the hall on this day.  We invite all our community to come along.  Whole school community invited to attend.

Week 5: Senior M                                                                                             

Week 6: Middle B

Week 7: Junior FB                                                                                                      

Week 8: Middle C                                      Week 9: Stations of the cross Thur 28th March 1:45pm

Professional Development:  At St Patrick’s Primary School we are committed to Professional Development of our team.  At various times staff members will be working off site or online which may result in classroom teachers being out of the classroom.

Week 6:      Wed 13th    Mrs Bird   Compliance workshop 

Senior M: 

Well who can believe we are already halfway through Term 1. Our class has had an amazing term together both socially and academically setting the foundations for a great year ahead.

In Reading time, students continue to explore a set reading strategy through the Cars & Stars Reading program, using the knowledge that they gain to improve both their literal and inferential comprehension skills. Recently, we have been looking at finding the main idea in different texts. A highlight of our week is our Wednesday reading block, where we read our class novel titled “Two Wolves” and respond to each chapter in different ways. The novel explores the life of Ben Silver, his younger sister Olive and his parents April and Ray. The family appear to be on the run from the Police and are heading to a family cabin in the bush.

In the Writing block, each student has just completed a narrative piece of writing of their choice. A focus for students has been to use a mix of simple, compound and complex sentences and to include literary devices such as metaphors, similes and hyperboles to take their writing to the next level.

In Math, Grade 5 students have been revising addition and subtraction strategies while the Grade 6’s have been using a formal algorithm to add decimals and revising addition and subtraction strategies. 

In Religion, students have explored the terms ‘hope’ and ‘dignity’ and connected these words to Catholic Social Teaching and the world today.

In Inquiry this term, students have begun a unit on government. As a part of our urban camp we were hoping to visit parliament but this wasn’t possible. Instead, as a result of Mia Bailey writing a letter to our local member of parliament, we are looking at organising a Q & A session with Juliana Addison, the member for Wendouree later in the term.

In Science, we have been looking at different forms of matter and the composition of solids, liquids and gases.

Finally, next week our class will head to Melbourne for Urban Camp. The weather looks great and everyone is very excited about the learning and fun experiences we will participate in over the 3 days.

See you all at assembly tomorrow!

Learning Dispositions:  St Patrick’s Primary School Learning Super powers St Patrick's Learner Superpowers  please click for further details. 

These are qualities  that successful learners use in their everyday life, self - motivated, curious, resilient, collaborative, risk-taker. We have been focussing on these qualities throughout the term and will continue to reinforce and apply these skills in the classroom and in everyday life. 

We are committed to ensuring that our whole school community has an understanding of what each super power means.  This week we will unpack our Risk-taker learning superpower.     

 At St Patrick’s we strive to create a culture where mistakes are seen as a valuable part of learning and life for both staff and students.  We aim for all to recognise mistakes and help us learn.   Carol Dweck a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and one of the world's leading researchers on motivation and mindsets highlights in her TED talk, reminding students that they have mastered things they once got ‘wrong’, allows them to understand their place on the learning curve and stresses that through ongoing effort and persistence they will eventually achieve. Giving valuable feedback that shows students how they can grow or fuels the idea that risks are opportunity!  If you have ten minutes I would highly recommend a listen to Professor Dweck’s  TED talk.  

In Middle/Senior (Grades 3-6)

Cars n Stars Reading Program:

Our Middle and Senior classes will once again take part in the  Cars n Stars reading program. 

What is the programme? Cars n Stars aims to improve the reading comprehension skills of young readers who experience some difficulty in understanding the meaning of texts. It is a highly structured program which provides an intensive focus on developing the 12 reading strategies. The Program is very prescriptive and uses a reading series that provides essential instruction in and practice using the same 12 reading strategies that students need to master, in order to achieve reading success in the future.

The 12 strategies are: Finding the Main Idea, Recalling Facts and Details, Understanding Sequence, Recognising Cause and Effect, Comparing and Contrasting, Making Predictions, Finding Word Meaning in Context, Drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences, Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion, Identifying Author’s Purpose, Interpreting Figurative Language, Distinguishing Between Real and Make-believe.

Students have worked through an online assessment.  This helps teachers diagnose each individual students' reading ability and provides teachers with a detailed analysis of each individual student's point of need. 

In addition to this, classrooms are continuing to explore Structured Literacy through implementing the following: daily review of concepts taught, morphology session, fluency practice,  handwriting and a class text study. 

Intervention programs have begun - 

Most students require support at some point in their education, as they encounter a variety of areas within the curriculum that each need different skill sets and cover a range of concepts. Some children learn at a different pace, so intervention is essential to accommodate personal needs and abilities.

What are St Patrick’s Intervention programs? 

The programs we offer are:  Minilit Junior Reading Intervention, Macqlit - Middle/Senior Reading Intervention, Toe by Toe - literacy intervention.

All our Intervention Programs are research and evidence-based for best practice.

Intervention programs are designed to fill any gaps in a student’s learning journey. Targeted intervention programs also provide opportunities for students to learn and practice specific and explicit strategies, which can be utilised back in the classroom.

Our programs are designed to provide students with more support to help them access the necessary knowledge, understanding, and skills that create a foundation for successful and lifelong learning and participation in the community.

Maryanne Comitti   Teaching & Learning Leader 

Students of the week:

Living in Faith:

This year we will be celebrating our Harmony Day on Friday 22nd March, 2024.  

Harmony Day is a day where we celebrate our cultural diversity, it is about inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone. 

We are thrilled to announce that footsteps, a Melbourne based school dance program will once again be visiting St Patrick’s.  

“Footsteps specialises in curriculum, age-based movement programs for Foundation to Year 12 students. We deliver engaging and relevant dance and drama programs which have been developed around the Australian National Curriculum. Our programs develop students’ social skills, confidence, fitness levels, creativity, expressive skills and coordination, ensuring we provide a safe, positive and stimulating environment for all students.”  https://footstepsdancecompany.com.au/

In the footsteps dance sessions children will explore this idea of belonging through dance.   Students will work with the footsteps dance instructor at an allocated time during the school day to learn their dance.  Students and our St Patrick’s Community are then invited to come together for an evening celebration which will commence at approximately 5:00 pm.  Details regarding catering to follow.  

A detailed timetable will be sent out closer to the date. If anyone has any queries or would like to become involved in our Harmony Day activities please contact me. 

Maryanne Comitti, Religious Education Leader

Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of the annual Caritas Australia Project Compassion Appeal. Donations to Project Compassion allow Caritas Australia, the Catholic Agency for International Aid and Development, 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 or you can donate online via our website at lent.caritas.org.au Let’s Go Further, Together!  
For more information: https://www.caritas.org.au/project-compassion/

Each Friday till the end of Term 1 our MiniVinnies group will be selling Zooper Doopers for $1.00 each St Vincent de Paul Sponsor a student program. As always we thank our St Patrick’s community for your support. 

Why do we at St Patrick’s raise money for the poor?  

Catholic schools participate in the Church’s mission “to bring the Good News to the poor” (Luke 4:18). In partnership with parents, parishes and other agencies within the Church and the broader community, Catholic schools are called to give witness to a faith which does justice with love. All have a responsibility to read the signs of the times and to respond with love and compassion, ever seeking to protect human dignity and serve the common good. The Catholic Church teaches that the poor represent those who are marginalised in society. Jesus himself taught the importance of helping those who are poor and need help.

Mary MacKillop Award:

Mary MacKillop lived a life dedicated to her faith and serving the needs of others. Wherever and however she could, Mary MacKillop did everything possible to improve the lives of others. This award acknowledges the thoughtful actions of the students at St Patrick’s to help others. “Love one another, bear with one another, and let charity guide you all your life.”Saint Mary MacKillop

Birthdays:

Congratulations to this student who celebrates their birthday  this week: 

Bobby

Parents and Friends news:

What does a  Parents & Friends Association (PFA) do in a Catholic school?

In a catholic school the aims of a parents & friends association are:

-to promote the cause of true Christian education by bringing parents, friends and students and teaching staff of the school into fruitful co-operation,

-to promote social contact among parents,

-plan and organise functions associated with the social life of the school community, 

-inform the school community of PFA activities, 

-to raise funds,

-to provide material assistance in equipping and maintaining the school, when deemed necessary by the Principal.

At St Patrick’s we have been extremely fortunate to have had the wonderful support of our Parents & Friends and wider community over many years.  This has helped make St Patrick’s a wonderful community to be a part of. 

Firstly, I thank everyone for their contribution to the Bushfire Appeal at the Swimming Sports last Friday. We’re pleased to announce that along with the Mini Vinnies and their Zooper Dooper sales, our school raised an incredible $1,062.55. I also extend a massive thanks to those who helped with the sausage sizzle on Friday. Many hands sure do make light work.

We now turn our fundraising focus to next Thursday (March 7th) when we will supply an afternoon tea for the NGSC International Women’s Day event. We are asking for your generosity and support of food donations.

The types of food we’re asking for are: Sausage Rolls, Mini Quiches, Party Pies, Pinwheels, Slices, Muffins, Biscuits & Cakes. If you are able to supply any of the above please let me know via text on 0439 479 994 or on the class dojo post. This will allow us to plan accordingly. All food donations can be delivered to school next Thursday morning, no later than 10am. A great opportunity awaits us to fundraise outside of our school families.

You should now have your Easter raffle tickets at home, if your child has misplaced theirs or you’re after more please see Anna at the front office.

Thanks for your ongoing support.

Kind Regards,  Kate Field(President)

We are now accepting donations from our school community for our annual Easter raffle.

Any contributions are greatly appreciated. Suggestions include but are not limited to:
-Easter chocolate
-Books
-Travel games
-Gift vouchers

Families are encouraged to drop donated goods into our school office for collection by Friday 15th of March.  Any enquiries regarding the annual Easter raffle, please contact Hannah on 0400615275.

Diocesan/Parish news:

Mass Times: 
Ararat Sunday 8.30am 
Stawell Sunday 10.30am
Lake Bolac 1st, 3rd, 5th Sundays 6.30pm Vigil Sat 
Landsborough 2nd, 4th Sundays 12.30pm
Glenthompson (Hamilton Parish) 2nd, 4th Sundays 8.30am

Around Our Community:

Please follow us on instagram; stpatsstawell

Upcoming Events:

Our Vision and Mission:

Vision Statement: St Patrick's School is a community which reflects and celebrates Christ as its centre point:  By honoring our story we value our whole community.  By coming together our vision is for a loving, just, compassionate and tolerant world.     Mission Statement:  In the tradition of St Patrick, we are committed to: Promoting and celebrating a love of God, self and community.  Recognizing and enhancing the talents and uniqueness of each person through our vision of Prayer, Care and Learning.  PRAYER We nurture and grow our relationship with God as members of a faith community.  CARE We foster recognition of difference, compassion for others and the strength to act on our beliefs. LEARNING We develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills essential to reaching our full potential as life- long learners.