Newsletter #07 March 17
Principal's News
Dear St Paul's families,
Welcome to our weekly update and a "Happy St Patrick's Day" to you all. St Patrick being the patron Saint of Ireland and many Australian families have a rich Irish heritage. St Patrick used the Shamrock to explain the Holy trinity and brought Christianity to Ireland. Today, St Patrick's feast day is celebrated around the world in many different ways with masses, parades and festivals to name a few. If you are celebrating today and partaking in a Guinness or two, please do so responsibly. In true Irish style
"May music fill your heart
May luck bring you cheer
May God's brightest blessings
shine on you all year."
It's hard to believe that we are nearing the tail end of term one already. We were blessed with beautiful weather Monday evening for our first family picnic in such a long time. Thank you to Mr Alexander and the Senior unit play leaders who provided the entertainment for the children. It was nice to get around and say hello and welcome families back. Hopefully there will be more opportunities to celebrate together this year.
Congratulations to the families that participated in the "Walking off the War Within" event on the weekend. Thank you to the children who supported our fundraising effort at school. We raised $400 to support this wonderful initiative.
Well done to this week's Bee Milestone achievers. I am looking forward to this week's assembly to draw out our next prize winner as well. It's always a pleasure to visit the classrooms and present the children with their certificates.
Welcome to Maeva Lopez, Carmel Sherwell and Madeline Bertalli who will be completing a placement at St Paul's as a learning support officer over the next two weeks. I hope they enjoy their time with us and find this learning experience invaluable.
BEE MILESTONE: Dan Boby, Ruby Slimmon, Cooper Wilkens, Holliee Tickle, Gurman Singh, Joseph Santos, Hayley Rowe, Bruce Ratcliffe, Olivia Prescott, Layla Powell, Abbiegail Peters, Soobanah Parvez, Alexis Pantazopoulos, Conor O'Rielly, Darcy O'Callaghan, Andrea Norton, Nhu Nguyen, Jimmy Mott, Dae Dae Moore, Samuel Midgley, Isla Madden, Lachlan Limburg, Zalee Le Poidevin, Austin Jones, Harlow Johnson, Xander Hunia, Angela Harris, Joseph Fotheringham-Gottardo, Finn Droffelaar, Xander Dingwall, Estee Clifford, Emma Circosta, Tanveer Cheema and Sam-Soni Ahotaeiloa
As the weather changes, I am seeing more and more jumpers in the lost property box. Please ensure your child's name is clearly labelled on their uniforms. It makes it so much easier to return it to them. Due to the cooler weather some of our children are experiencing flu like symptoms. Thank you to those parents who are keeping their children home when unwell. I know that this can be disruptive for families, but it is important to minimise the risk of infection spreading.
Tomorrow I will be attending the Northern Zone Catholic Principal's Network meeting for the first time in person in over twelve months. We have our meetings once per term and visit other catholic schools across the zone. It is an excellent opportunity to discuss and share initiatives and best practices in education across our schools.
Don't forget our whole school assembly this Friday afternoon in the hall. You are all most welcome to attend. Please check the calendar regularly for any upcoming events.
As always
Keep the Faith
Vince Muscatello
Junior Unit News
Hello Junior families. Happy Week 8!
We have had another great week of learning together.
This week we have continued our learning about the Zones of Regulation. We have been learning about what tools we can use when we want to move our minds and bodies back into the Green Zone. Some of the students suggested the following tools:
- Go for a run (Hayley)
- Eat a healthy snack (Lucas)
- Drink some water and have a good night sleep (Annalise)
- Go outside and get some fresh air (Cienna)
- Give my mum a cuddle or have a rest on the couch (Hunter)
- Do a fun activity (Bridie)
- Find a quiet space (April)
- Have a snack and a drink of water or find a quiet place to go (Oliver)
- Meditate and sit quietly (Jessica)
- Take some deep breaths and watch something calming (Harriet)
- Play a fun game with my dogs (Noah)
In Maths, we have continued our learning about the Place Value of two or three digit numbers. We have been focussing on expanding numbers, ordering numbers, modelling numbers and interpreting number lines.
This Friday (19th March) we will be having our Junior Unit Liturgy at 9:15 in the hall. We would love it if families could join us to celebrate.
Middle Unit News
On Wednesday, 10th of March, the Middle Unit tackled an obstacle course on the Mercy Oval with two difficulty levels - an easier route and a more challenging route - as well as a calming yoga session which offered a different kind of challenge.
Week 7 Maths saw us exploring the features of 2D and 3D shapes - particularly faces, edges and vertices (points). Some of the learning included students exploring the school grounds to find shapes in our environments. Triangular prisms were a common shape - from light fittings to the soccer goals. Students also had fun exploring shapes by creating 3D shape monsters. In Week 8 the focus shifts to addition. The students will work at their point of need and explore different ways that addition sums can be solved.
In Writing, we have begun creating a narrative based on a visual prompt of a Lego man standing ahead of a broken vehicle of some kind. We have been following the writing process of ‘Planning → Drafting → Proofreading → Editing → Conferencing → Publishing’ to craft our narratives.
Reading saw us unpack the text ‘Lester and Clyde’. We have been working on the process of clarifying to ensure that we really understand what we were reading. When you are reading at home make sure you focus on ensuring that you are able to understand the text you have read.
On Friday the children did an amazing job at our first Liturgy for 2021. Thank you to the very welcoming crowd of special people who were able to join us. Unfortunately, Father Matt was unable to join us, but Mrs Baker stepped in and facilitated the Liturgy beautifully. Our concept in Religion this term has been ‘Belonging’, which our symbolic items, readings, psalms and songs all illustrated.
We continue our learning about and exploration of Belonging through Religion - linking our understandings to Scripture and back to our own lives.
Mrs Byrnes, Mrs Baker, Miss Burt, Mr White & Mr Freeman
Foundation Unit News
We would like to say thank you to the parents who attended The Foundation Book Buddy night last Thursday. We hope you found the night informative. We were hoping to recieve some feedback about the night to improve on for next year. We would really appreciate if you would click on the link below and answer a few questions and share your thoughts about night.
For the parents who were unable to attend, some information that was given out on the night was sent home on Friday with your child. If you have any questions, please see your child's teacher.
For anyone who was unable to attend the Book Buddies night and would like to donate a book to the school library, you can purchase a new book and bring it into the Library and Miss Marg will place your child's photo and name inside the book.
Next Friday 26th March the Foundation Unit will be celebrating their first Liturgy in the Chapel at 9:15am. We look forward to seeing any parents/grandparents or carers who would like to join in the Liturgy with us.
Book Buddies
Senior Unit News
It was wonderful to meet and chat with parents and carers on Monday night at our Family Picnic, thank you for supporting this event. We must give a special thank you to all of our Play Leaders that provided activities to keep the younger children entertained throughout the evening, well done Play Leaders!
Last week saw a number of our students attend Interschool Lawn Bowls, and all of our senior students were familiarised with the correct terminology to use when describing body parts from school nurse Beverly Thomson.
This week during Religious Education lessons, students are researching the ways that people feel that they belong to their chosen faith. Students will be encouraged to share their research with classmates in the form of a free choice presentation.
As part of Harmony Day, students will be involved in a forty five minute cyber safety webinar focussing on cyber bullying, hopefully they will gain valuable knowledge that will help them be caring and safe when involved with social media. Remember that we have our whole school assembly this Friday and we would love to see you there.
Religious Education News
The information brochure for this year's Confirmation program, is attached below. Registration forms are being sent out today to families of children who have made their First Eucharist. If you are new to St Paul's and would like your child to participate, please call in at the office to collect a registration form.
The registration forms need to be filled out and returned to the Parish Office, with payment, by Wednesday 21st April. PLEASE NOTE: Registrations will not be accepted after this date.
If you have any queries, please email me. jfreeman@spmildura.catholic.edu.au
Jess Freeman - Religious Education Leader
Languages - Italian News
Mamma mia ... we have certainly had a busy start to the year with students across the different Units embarking on a variety of Italian activities ...
The Junior Unit students have been learning their Italian greetings and revisiting various songs as they eagerly await for Pinocchio to come and visit our school - we recently contacted Pinocchio by phone and he said will be visiting his St Paul's friends in the coming days. Pinocchio is especially keen to meet all our new Foundation students for 2021.
Here are some photos of the Year 1 & 2 students who decided it would be fun to 'dress up' and sing along to our Italian song in readiness of Pinocchio's arrival. I have included the words and a link to the Italian "Buongiorno" song that the students have been learning, so your child can also sing along at home.
Junior Unit Gallery
Meanwhile ...
The Middle and Senior Unit students have been busy working on their Italian Google Slides presentation in which they have written and described themselves in Italian. Look out for your child's Italian presentations which will soon be shared with parents as part of their digital Learning Portfolio.
This week, the students were treated to a variety of Italian Kahoots games as a bit of fun, and to also acknowledge the completion of their Italian presentations. Congratulations to all the Kahoots podium winners ... it certainly looks like everyone enjoyed themselves gauging from the happy smiles in the photos below.
Grazie molto - Signora Ghidinelli
Middle Unit Gallery
Senior Unit Gallery
Arts News
We have been having a sunny time in the junior classes creating beautiful sunflower art and learning all about the life cycle of the sunflower. Stay tuned for the finished products. In the meantime, here are some awesome artists creating their masterpieces last week!
There are some amazing works in the making... keep your eyes peeled for the middle unit Monsters and senior unit Pete Cromer inspired pieces coming soon!
Technology News
Over the last couple of weeks, students in Year 3/4 have been exploring netiquette and how proper netiquette ensures that ourselves and others are respected and safe in online environments. On Monday, students experimented with using a new Google app, Jamboard, to create a "Jam" to show what they have learned and know. All students are excited to put the finishing touches on their "Jams" next week and upload these to their digital learning portfolios to share with parents/carers and family.
Last Thursday in Foundation lessons, the focus moved from using the camera on an iPad to take photographs to using the keyboard. Students used the Notes app and the keyboard to type their own and others names - with capital letters. Even though it was a bit tricky at first, our giant keyboard and magic pointer finger helped us all understand how to change between the lowercase and uppercase keyboards!
Using our giant iPad to help us find the letters on the keyboard
Jaxon and Olly using the giant iPad keyboard to type Gus, the name of our 'Gotcha Watcher.'
Mobile Phones and Smart Watches
At St Paul's, we discourage students from bringing mobile phones and smart watches to school. These devices can cause disruption, cause distress and invade the privacy of others and breach our school social media, ICT and Digital Technologies policies.
A smart watch is considered to be any wearable electronic device with the capability to send and recieve messages and/or notifications, take photographs and make voice recordings.
If a parent feels it is necessary for their child to bring a mobile phone or smart watch to school, then the expectation for student use of mobile phones and smart watches in the school are listed below:
- Devices brought to school is done so entirely at the owner’s risk.
- Mobile phones and Smart Watches are to be switch off and handed in to the office immediately on arrival at school and can be collected at the end of the school day .
- Mobile phones andSmart Watches are not to be used to call home or visa versa. If contact needs to be made with parents or with your child at school, this can be done via the office phone number.
Any use of mobile phones and smart watches by a student, that is in breach of these expectations, will lead to the confiscation of the device. In this instance, parents will be notified and confiscated devices will need to be collected from the Administration office by the student’s parent or guardian at the end of the day.
Hands Up Mallee
It was great to see quite a few of our families on the weekend at the Walking Off The War Within. I got to speak to some of our students and it was fantastic to see them walking and having fun while raising awareness of a difficult issue in our society. One of our students told me that it was "just like Walking Club, only longer!"
I also got to speak with Adam Young (the co-ordinator) who asked me to pass on his gratitude for the donation that the students made. He was very appreciative of our fund raising efforts. Thank you!
Physical Education News
Lawn Bowls:
Last week on Wednesday, our Senior team competed at the Sunraysia Division Lawn Bowls competition at the Mildura Lawn Bowls Club near the river. We were blessed with wonderful weather and some lovely Bowls players to help our students learn the game. Our team came equal third overall.
Our Junior, Middle and Senior grades have been enjoying learning about Lawn Bowls in our PE lessons. Here are some photos from their lessons and of our Lawn Bowls Senior team.
Rugby League:
Our Middle and Senior rugby league teams will be competing against other schools during the final week of this term. Information for these days will be sent out on the SIMON Everywhere App this week, please ensure you provide your child with consent if they are in one of the teams.
Division Lawn Bowls Competition
Middle Unit Lawn Bowls
Continuous Raffle Draw
Thank you to the families who have contributed their prize to our Continuous Raffle. Donations for raffle can be left at the office.
Congratulations to the following families who won a prize in the Continuous raffle drawn on Friday 5th March.
- Basketball, Puzzle & Zee Rocket donated by Rebel sport won by Stephens family
- Lego book set, Soccer ball & Skipping rope donated by Rebel sport won by Le family
- Hula Hoop, books & netball donated by Rebel sport won by Harry Williams family
The next raffle will be drawn this Friday 19th March.
Lost Property
Please check the lost property box (outside staff room door) for lost jumpers, water bottles, lunch boxes etc.
A scooter was left here at the end of 2020. Please contact the office by the end of term if you think it belongs to you.