Newsletter 133- May 9th 2024
Prayer of the Week:
Lord,
Gracious God, we thank you for the love and care of our mothers and those who are like mothers to us.
We place our mothers in your tender care.
We ask you to give them strength when they are weary, knowledge and understanding when they are unsure, compassion and kindness when they are struggling and hearts full of love and joy.
We ask this prayer through Jesus your Son.
All: Amen.
Principals Report:
Dear St Patrick’s community,
Our students had a day on Friday commemorating Catholic Education Week and 150 years of Catholic Education in our region at both our school and Marian College. There are photos included in today’s newsletter.
Last Wednesday, during a Sports session with me, our Foundation class showed Mrs Smith and I the wonderful spirit that lives in St Patrick’s. As each new student got to the front of the line, the chant of their name rang out across the basketball court. They took their jump and then sprinted back to the group where the whole line held out their hands ready to give a low-five to the student who had jumped. No student was missed, no student was cheered more or less than any other. Every student was included; every student was valued by their classmates. It was a heartwarming display of unity and encouragement. This spirit is continually modeled by our older students and is clearly seen by how quickly the Foundation students have picked up how we do things at St Patricks.
Yesterday, we had the pleasure of hosting Dave Runge from Future Schools, alongside DOBCEL Executive Director Tom Sexton and Education Officer Janet Claassen. Although Pasi Salhberg sent his apologies for not being able to make it, we seized the opportunity to discuss various aspects of our school. We ensured that our celebrations, needs, and aspirations are duly considered in the unfolding DOBCEL strategic plan.
As we approach Mother's Day, we extend warm wishes to all our mums and special friends. Thank you for your unwavering support and love.
I look forward to walking to school with students on Friday morning as we Walk to School Safely.
With Kind Blessings,
Bettina
From the Office:
Wellbeing:
Exciting new launch - St. Patrick’s Breakfast Club
Recently the Country Women’s League (CWA), kindly donated $200 to St. Patrick’s Primary School with the purpose of the money being used for supplying our students with breakfast. This sparked a conversation during our Wellbeing meeting and our team has decided that this will be an ongoing, twice weekly event on an ongoing occurrence.
Why?
There are two aspects that we feel are extremely important for the wellbeing of our students.
- Breakfast Benefits: Eating breakfast offers numerous advantages for students' school days, such as:
- Enhanced concentration
- Improved behavior
- Potential academic improvement
- Better attendance
- Social Connections: Breakfast time also fosters social connections through:
- Development of social skills (all students will be seated together to eat breakfast)
- Connections with peers
- Positive way to start the day
- Reinforcement of table manners
For this term the awesome Grade 6 students will be taking turns to assist with cooking and serving.
When: Every Tuesday and Thursday from 8.15am to 8.45am starting next on Tuesday 17th May
Where: School Hall
What: toast (with vegemite or jam), cereal (rice bubbles) milo (will be carefully poured for students and will be lukewarm for safety reasons) and a selection of fresh fruit. Gluten-free options will be available (gluten-free bread toasted in a separate toaster)
Who: all students are welcome, no cost.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Fiona Harney
This special occasion is a time for us to come together as a school community to honor the incredible love, support, and guidance that mothers provide each and every day.
Time:
12.30pm - Children and guests will gather in the hall for welcome and liturgy.
1.00pm –Students return to their classrooms. Guests move to visit children's classrooms.
1.30pm –Guests return to the hall for a light luncheon. Students remain in thier classrooms for Recess then head outside for play.
Thank you to those who have already sent back their RSVP. Could anyone that hasn’t done this yet please let us know if you will be attending ASAP for catering purposes.
We look forward to celebrating with you and making this Mother's Day a memorable one for all!
Teaching and Learning:
School Assemblies: Our assemblies happen each Friday afternoon starting at 2:50pm in the school hall. Students are dismissed from the hall on this day. We invite all our community to come along. This Friday 10/5/24 our Foundation class will host their first assembly.
Week 4: Foundation
Week 5: NO ASSEMBLY - Athletic Sports
Week 6: Middle B
Week 7: Junior R
Week 8: Senior M
Week 9: Middle C
Week 10: Junior FB
Week 11: Foundation
Assemblies create an opportunity for students to learn public speaking. It is an essential skill that empowers children to communicate effectively, build confidence, think critically, empathize with others, demonstrate leadership, succeed academically, and thrive in their future endeavors.
We love watching our students celebrate and share their learning with our community at assemblies.
Why have a school assembly?
The intention behind implementing a regular whole school assembly is to develop a feeling of unity and a positive school culture among the students, staff and our St Patrick’s community. Simply put, gathering together strengthens the way our school works. Whether singing a song together, watching a performance by fellow students, sharing class learning or sharing events that have been happening in our community, our goal is to create camaraderie, ignite school spirit and help instill students and families with a sense of belonging. School assembly provides students with the opportunity to develop their confidence by speaking and sharing their learning and thoughts.
Each learning community will take a turn throughout the term to host assembly and showcase their class learning. Coming together to celebrate success, showcase learning or strengthen commitment to shared goals is time invested in making St Patrick’s a special place to be.
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.
Wednesday 15th May, 2024 Mrs Bettina Bird Compliance Workshop
Foundation:
We have continued to have a fabulous few weeks of learning in Foundation so far this term.
We are all working very hard and are making wonderful progress in all curriculum areas.
Mrs Bush and Mrs Smith are enjoying working with all of the beautiful children very much.
Initial Lit - Every day begins with our Initial Lit lesson. We have recently learnt two new letters, which includes their name, sound and action, Eric the Elephant ‘e’ and Nigel Numbat ‘n’. The children are listening very carefully to the beginning, middle and end sounds of words and are also learning some tricky words including they, is, that, was, you, the, a, I, to and my.
It is so exciting to see so many children being able to accurately sound out and read words. Thank you to everyone for continuing to read and record your home reading in your diaries so often. This is certainly helping the children to make wonderful progress. Keep it up!
Each day we are doing some independent writing. It is wonderful to see the children being able to think of a simple sentence, begin with a capital letter, use spaces, write some tricky words, put a full stop at the end and use their risk taker superpower to have a go at sounding out unknown words. We hope Mrs Marshman will be very excited to see our progress when she returns next term.
In Maths we have been doing lots of work about numbers that are more than or less than numbers from 0 - 10. We have also been practising our counting and talking about objects that are tall, taller, tallest, long, longer, longest and wide, wider and widest.
This term we are learning about the creation story in Religion. We have listened to this story and are beginning to be able to retell this story in our own words. We are very grateful for the beautiful world God has created for all of us to enjoy and look after.
We are very much enjoying learning Auslan this term. Today we had the pleasure of working with our teacher Chantelle and her interpreter Pauline face to face in the classroom. It has been wonderful to see so many of the children so excited about learning this language. We hope they are teaching you some of the signs too!!
At the moment we are busy preparing for our upcoming athletics sports. We are very much looking forward to our first sports day and are enjoying practising the events with Mrs Bird.
In Science we have been learning about natural and man made objects with Mrs Giles. It has been lots of fun.
In Art with Mrs Cox-Hayward we have been doing some leaf rubbing with the beautiful Autumn leaves that are about at the moment. We are learning about cool and warm colours.
Last but not least we have really enjoyed thinking about our mothers or a special female in our life. We have enjoyed preparing our special gifts and cards and really hope all of the mothers at St Patrick’s have a very special day on Sunday.
Teachers as Co Learners - Auslan.
On Wednesday we welcomed 15th April our language assistant Chantelle into our school for our first face-to-face lessons. Chantelle is a fluent or native user of Auslan and a Member of the Deaf community. Chantelle will worked with our staff and students to assist and guide us around sign accuracy and cultural understanding. We also welcomed Pauline, an Auslan Interpreter who supported us with communicating with Chantelle.
We would like to commend our students on their exceptional behaviour and respectful way they interacted with Chantelle and Pauline. Upon leaving both Chantelle and Pauline commented that our “students were the best students they have come across,”and that St Patrick’s “had a beautiful warm feeling.”
About Auslan:
- Auslan in referred to as a “visual language"
- Auslan in referred to as a “visual language”
- Auslan is a language that has cultural custodians
- Sentence structure of Auslan is more similar to french rather than English
- We will be learning the southern dialect
- Auslan is NOT gesture or mime - it is a legitimate language
Mothers day stall - Friday 12th May, 2023
Our children have had a very busy time doing some special shopping at school today. The children love the independence of being able to shop for something special.
Thank-you to our dedicated parents who have assisted with the organising and running of the stalls. What would we do without you!
Students of the week:
Amelia O'Callaghan - For using her self-motivated, curious and risk taker superpowers to learn the Auslan language. Congratulations on knowing so many signs!
Thea Swain - For being such a self-motivated and collaborative learner in all subject areas. Keep up the fabulous efforts!
Archer Cooper -For your excellent work when using the Count On strategy in Maths. You took risks and were self-motivated and answered all your questions correctly. Keep up the hard work!
Evelyn Christie - For making maximum use of learning time. You are always organised and begin tasks quickly. I have been impressed with your eagerness to answer and ask questions. Keep being the curious learner that you are!
Dixie Davenport - For using her self-motivated superpower when learning new strategies during maths and asking for more challenges. Well done Dixie!
Khoor Kur - For contributing his thoughts to class discussions and showing curiosity towards his learning this week, it is so great to hear your ideas Khoor!
Peter Aird - For successfully identifying suffixes and explaining what a suffix is.
Kayde Werry - For being a self-motivated learner in all aspects of your learning especially Writing and Maths.
Arli Werry - For displaying your resilient and risk taker learner super powers during Maths. Miss Bonney is extremely proud of you.
Tanner Freeland - For using your self-motivated and risk-taker superpowers while challenging yourself in Maths. Keep up the unreal work Tanner!
Archie MacPherson - For showing self-motivation and taking risks when grasping new concepts in Maths! Amazing concentration and determination Archie! Keep it up!
Maddox Austin - For the wonderful growth, resilience and determination in Maths! Congratulations Maddox!
Greta Thomas - For the wonderful leadership you show to both in and out of the classroom. You are an amazing role-model Greta!
Jack Sullivan - For demonstrating the traits of a self-motivated learner during writing. You should be very proud of your published discussion piece.
Living in Faith:
Catholic Education Week is not just a time to celebrate within our school community, but also an opportunity to share the joy and blessings of Catholic education with others
Last Friday the Grades 4 - 6s enjoyed a day full of creativity and learning at Marian College. We started the day with a Mass to begin the celebrations of Catholic Education Week. This was then followed by students being placed in mixed groups and enjoyed activities such as STEM, Woodwork, Sport, Home Economics and many more hands on activities. It was a fun day where we all got the chance to catch up with past students.
Meanwhile at St Patricks Foundation to Grade 3 hosted St Marys Grades F, 1 & 2. Our morning started with a liturgy where we celebrated being a part of a Catholic school and highlighted the important role we play in providing an environment where students are nurtured in mind, body and soul. We also spoke about how we all can make a positive contribution to the world around us. We then split into three groups and rotated through various activities such as: art, dancing and sport. A highlight of the day for the children was the free sausage sizzle.
We look forward to engaging with more activities with our fellow catholic schools.
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. “We have all very much for which to thank and love God” Saint Mary MacKillop
Congratulations to this weeks award recipient: Ella Tyler
For helping a junior student in need.
Thank you for your kindness.
Parents and Friends News:
What a huge success our Mothers Day stall was today! The kids have scored some great gifts. All of today’s profits will go directly back into the school.
A reminder that next Friday we are hosting a limited canteen at the Aths Sports. Thanks to those who have already offered to help us on the day. If you can spare 1/2hr we’d appreciate it very much. The lunch service (when no children are competing) will be our busiest time, if you’re available.
On behalf of the P&F I would like to wish all of our Mums and Mum figures a wonderful day on Sunday.
Kate Field
President
Birthdays:
Congratulations to this student who celebrated their birthday this week:
Bonnie
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
Please find below the link for the March 2024 edition of
“Our Diocesan Community”
This Magazine is a way to share the good news stories of our schools, parishes and agencies across the diocese.
https://www.ballarat.catholic.
Around Our Community:
Please follow us on instagram; stpatsstawell
Stawell Wildcats
Please see below link for competition information and link to join.
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.