2023 Newsletter #07 May 3

PRINCIPAL NEWS

Inez Sullivan 

Our beloved retired teacher Inez passed away during the school holidays.  Inez was a valued staff member of St Paul’s for over 30 years.  A Memorial Mass will be held for Inez Sullivan on Friday, May 5th at 6pm at Sacred Heart Church Mildura.   Refreshments will be served afterwards in the Monaghan Centre.  All welcome.

Welcome to Term 2, Week 2.  

We have a lot of exciting events coming up in May.  

Graduation  

Congratulations to Amy Jones and Laura Squillace for Graduating from their Bachelor of Education last Friday.  We are very lucky to have these inspiring teachers in our school.  Their passion for education and commitment to the student’s has been evident from when they first began their work as Tutors in 2021.  We wish them all the best in their future careers.

Mother's Day Celebration

Next Friday 12th May, we will be hosting a 'Mother's Day' Breakfast from 7.30am followed by a Special 'Mother's Day ' Mass at 9.15am.  All the wonderful Mother's, Grandmothers & Special Carers in our childrens lives are invited to join us for this special celebration.

Camps 

Grade 3 and 4 teachers have been busily preparing for the camp to Swan Hill next week on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th May.  Please ensure that students are at school on Tuesday at 7.30am for an 8am departure.  A medication form has been sent home for parents to fill out if their child will require medication while they are away.  We look forward to hearing all of the students' learnings when they return.  

The senior camp will also be on later in May at Rose's Gap.  Students will be participating in team building and adventure activities.

We thank all of the staff that are attending.  We appreciate the time you have taken away from your own families to give the students such a great experience.  

Welcome

We welcome Jorja Pezaniti who is joining St Paul’s as a casual Learning Support Officer.  Jorja is a former student of St Paul’s.  We also welcome Kerry Fitzgerald who is completing her Education Support placement with us in Room 1 with Ms Bugden.  Bianca Fisher will also join us for 3 weeks in S13.  She is completing placement for her Bachelor of Education.  

Assembly 

This week we will gather for Assembly on Friday at 2.45.  M1 will be presenting their artwork as part of the Religious Education lessons.

SAC Updates

The School Advisory met last night.  Members participated in an induction of the Child Safe Standards, facilitated by Julie Graham our Compliance Officer.   We would like to thank our School Representative Council Students supported by Rachel Slimmon who have created a Child Friendly Version of the Child Safe Standards.  These will be displayed around the school to ensure that students know what they are and how St Paul’s commits to students feeling and being safe.  

Open Day Tours - Wednesday 10th May - 9.30am, 12pm, 4.30pm & 6pm

We are excited to open the school on Wednesday 10th May for our Open Day Tours.  Please let your friends and family members who have children starting school in 2024 to come and have a look at our beautiful school.   

Open Day tours can be made online through our website http://www.spmildura.catholic.edu.au

Finally, congratulations to this week's gotcha award recipients - Elsa Allieu, Carlos Catian, Oliver Angwin, Willow Droffelaar, Malia Fonua, Elih Groenen, Fetongi Latukefu, Riley O'Callaghan, Olivia Mackay, Esta Pascale, Abbiegail Peters, Issac Puleio, Aiden Varghese Moolayil, Jessica Ram, Mia Hofer, Maggie Slimmon, Arianna Pileggi, Tevita Pohahau, Tate Gorringe, Angela Harris, Akesa Toto, April Nyabonda, Jason Tran, Erica Ram, Neve Morton, Lizbeth Mathew, Angela Nguyen, Jenny Tran, Holliee Tickle, Reyon Shermin, Candice Treweek, Manpriya Atwal, Conor O'Rielly, Sophia Panagopoulos, James Nadalo, Emma Williams, Giuseppe Gazzo, Hunter Rayson, Fleur Gorringe, Lini Vave, Asena Akkus, Ira Janssen, Vincent Cricelli, Nico Pettinau and Jemma Trinh.

We hope you enjoy the rest of the week.   Our next newsletter will be Wednesday 17th May.

Melissa Sutherland

Acting Principal

OPEN DAY

Please forward our Open Day Tours flyer to any friends or families that may be interested in attending St Paul's in 2024

Learning Diversity - NCCD

The Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) takes place every year by all Australian schools. The aim of the NCCD is to provide the Australian Government with information about the number of students with disability in Australian schools and the type of adjustments they need in order to access and participate in education on the same basis as other students. Funding allocated from the Australian Government to support students with disability is based on the NCCD.

Through this collection, teachers use their professional judgement based on evidence to capture information on:

a) The level of adjustment that students with disability are being provided to enable them to participate in education on the same basis as other students.

• support within quality differentiated teaching practice (QDTP)
• supplementary level of support
• substantial level of support
• extensive level of support

b) The broad category of disability under which each student best fits (based on the broad definition of disability used in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) and the Disability Standards for Education 2005).

• physical
• cognitive
• sensory
• social-emotional

There is more information for interested parents regarding the NCCD in the flyer below. 

Library news

Hello from our library.  It is great to see so many students borrowing our lovely library books.  This term each student who comes into the library to read before school will recieve a gotcha award.  You are very warmly invited to come into the library from 8.30 to read with your child, a lovely way to start the day.

I have information in the library from the Premiers' Reading Challenge. If your child would like to be involved I can give you the information or you can look it up on line.  Registration for this event are now open.

Unfortunately quite a few of our decodable readers are being returned to school damaged, which results in them being weeded from our stock. It would be really fantastic to see all foundation and junior students bring their library bag to school each day, this would ensure the books stay dry and prevent any accidents. Thanks very much for your cooperation, looking forwards to seeing you in the library.

Marg Pongrac.

Hands Up Mallee

National Walk Safely to School Day is on Friday 19th May 2023. This event is now in its 24th year! It is a day that primary school childern, their parents and carers are encouraged to walk safely to school. 

Walking to school helps children to develop vital road crossing skills, promotes increased health benefits, creates healthy habits, reduces car dependency and congestion as well as reducing air pollution.

To celebrate this day, we will again be conducting a walking school bus. we will meet at the Number 1 oval gates in 12th Street for an 8:00am departure. I will be walking with the students and talking with them about road safety along the way. Parents are more than welcome to join us. Please just email me at nsimpson@spmildura.catholic.edu.au to advise if your children will be joining me so I don't leave without anyone! National promoters of the day have also been in contact with me as Sunraysia Daily have expressed an interest in covering the day and they would like to highlight our school, so it would be great to have as many students joining me as we can!!

A very big thank-you this week to Bunnings as they have been kind enough to donate seedlings, hats, gardening tools and all the equipment that we need to set up our very first wicking beds! 

So what is a wicking bed? Invented by an Australian named Colin Austin, the idea with a wicking bed is that you prevent water from leaving the bottom of the bed with a waterproof liner or layer. This creates a water reservoir underneath the soil. Then, rather than having to irrigate by watering from above (via drip irrigation, a hose, watering can etc), the water literally wicks up into the soil from below, keeping it nice and moist.

Now, with all that water, this could easily get messy and even stinky. But, you prevent the weight of the soil from squashing all the water out – and making a muddy mess – by having the water sit within a layer of small stones, which is able to accommodate the water whilst bearing the weight of the soil (and your prize pumpkins!) without collapsing. You prevent the soil from washing down into gaps between the stones with a sheet of something that lets water wick up, but stops soil moving down.

Hopefully by using this type of system, we can create a sustainable garden that will be able to cope, even during the school holidays! Stay tuned for more information!

Senior Unit News

Welcome back to Term 2!  We hope you had a restful and enjoyable break over the school holidays! 

Senior students have settled into the term very well and have been their best in revisiting the expectations in the classroom.  

On Tuesday, students participated in a Inform and Empower session run by Thrive Online which helped students understand how they can build a healthy balance and relationship with their devices. Students were engaged throughout the session and enjoyed some great discussion with each other. 

Camp

Thank you to parents for your prompt responses regarding consent for camp this year. 

As part of camp we would appreciate it if you could send in some snacks to be shared eg: biscuits, chips, popcorn (NO NUTS) etc,  to help build a bank of snacks that we can take with us on camp.  Please drop off snacks to your classroom. Main meals are catered for us on camp, but we will require snacks for students while they are out on activities and in between activities. 

More information will be sent home with your child regarding medical and dietary information in the coming weeks. 

If you have any questions regarding camp, please contact Tom Pike at tpike@spmildura.catholic.edu.au. 

Chromebooks

A reminder regarding Chromebooks: 

• Chromebooks are required at school each day.
• Chromebooks must be at least 80% charged ready for each day. 

We are completing a large portion of work on Chromebooks in the Senior Unit, so it is important all students have access to their Chromebook. 

Junior Unit News

A very warm welcome back from the Junior Unit team! We hope you had a wonderful school holiday break and are ready for another amazing term. It has been great to see the children settling straight back into their learning routines. 

This week the students participated in our second Ollie Online digital safety incursion. Presenter Marty McGauran spoke to the students about the importance of balancing screen time as well as healthy digital habits and knowing when to put down the technology. The students thoroughly enjoyed joining in the fun activities. 

Just a heads up, next week the Grade 3/4 students head off to camp!  This means that our Junior Unit specialist day has swapped to Tuesday. Luckily for us, students will still be required to wear their sports uniforms on our usual days (Tuesday and Thursday).  The following week will be back to normal.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher. 

Middle Unit News

Welcome back to Term Two!

Excitement is high and the children are very much looking forward to attending camp next week. 

A reminder that the bus departs St Paul's at 8.00am sharp (please be at school at 7.30am) on Tuesday 9th May and we will return to school at approximately 5.30pm on Wednesday 10th May. An SMS will go out to parents on Wednesday afternoon with an updated arrival time.

A packing list and medical consent forms have been sent home and an extra copy can be found on the Simon Parent App. 

Foundation Unit News

Welcome to Term 2.

We hope you all had a lovely, restful holiday and are ready for a busy term.

This term the Foundation Unit will be taking part in "Star of the Week". A roster went home with the children last week to let them know when their turn is. We hope this is an enjoyable experience for the children. They will be the special helper for the week, they will have time to share show and tell with their peers, they will sit on a special stool and wear a star vest. 

This term we have begun writing and expanding sentences. The children have been enthusiastic and really enjoyed their first attempts at learning how to write a sentence. They have learnt that all sentences need to include "a who" and "what doing" for it to make sense. We have also begun learning how to write on dotted thirds. Our Rainbow is looking wonderful with many names on it. Thank you to the parents who are continually supporting your children at home with reading and learning their Rainbow Words every night. 

In Maths, we have been learning about collecting and arranging data into graphs. We have learnt to analyse the data to see what it is telling us eg. What is the most/least popular fruit? 

In Religion yesterday we went on a nature walk to look at all of the beautiful things we can see in our environment. We collected some leaves and did some leaf rubbings and then created a mural with the leaves.

Technology News

Learning to keep ourselves safe online and be a good digital citizen is a foundational skill students will learn throughout their education and into the future. It was with great excitement students in 5/6 participated in this term's 'Thrive Online' live presentations with Marty, Laura and the Inform and Empower team.

Next week, year 1/2 and 3/4 students will participate in their live presentations. Don't forget to ask your students what they learned. For more information regarding the program, please refer to the flyer below and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact our Learning Technologies Leader via email, nsimms@spmildura.catholic.edu.au or your child's classroom teacher.

The year 5/6 presentation involved:

• listening to Marty and Laura talk about the concept of thriving online,
• watching Marty and Laura's alter ego's Alex and Jessie deal with online issues, particularly around managing screen time, and 
• students interacting via a Kahoot quiz to show their learning.

Sacred Heart Parish News

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