Newsletter #16 June 10
Principal's News
Dear St Paul's families,
Welcome to this week's update. It was wonderful to see everyone return to school from Foundation to Year 6 yesterday. Hopefully the hot chocolate for the Middle and Senior students was warmly received on arrival. It was a very cold day to return to school. A big thank you to the staff who helped organise the welcome for the children. There was certainly a lot of chatter, which was to be expected, during the day as the children were excited to reconnect with each other at school.
There has been a lot of information shared with you in recent weeks regarding the return to school and also the physical distancing and hygiene measures that have been put in place. These will remain in effect till the end of Term 2 and will be reviewed in preparation for the commencement of Term 3.
With Winter upon us, it is important that all children are in the correct uniform and that jumpers and jackets are clearly labelled. Our uniform shop is well stocked with supplies so please contact the office if you wish to purchase anything.
Enrolments for 2021 are currently open. If you have not contacted the office regarding your child attending next year, in Foundation, please do so as soon as possible. We will be sending you a digital application form which will allow you to type directly on the form. Hopefully, this will streamline our process and simplify it for you as parents.
This Friday will be our second virtual assembly. We hope you enjoyed the last assembly as we reported from the moon. I wonder where we will be visiting you from this week and who our special guest will be? Only time will tell.
Congratulations to this week's Gotcha Winners. I am certainly enjoying walking through the school and presenting these certificates to the children. I am very keen to see what our 50 Gotcha award winners choose as their prize.
25 Gotcha Award Winners: Bella Tardio, Jannah Roberts, Ruby Oliver, Eddy Lion, Bella Hensgen, Suiti Havea, Pippa Doecke, Bianca De Maria, Taylor Bui, Evan Beyer, Jessica Allieu, Jules O'Donnell, Jack O'Callaghan, Cohen Hateley
50 Gotcha Award Winners: Lachlan Prescott, Nathasha Allieu
I hope everyone enjoys the remainder of the week as we all settle back in to school life. Once again, thank you for your support.
As always,
Keep the Faith!
Vince Muscatello
Principal
Religious Education News
St Paul’s Day – Friday 26thJune 2020
On Friday 26thJune 2020 (the final day of Term 2), we will be celebrating St Paul’s Day, commemorating the feast day of St Paul, which is celebrated on the 29thJune each year. The day will commence with a liturgical celebration, which will be celebrated within each unit. This will be followed by a range of different activities, within our classrooms. Lunch will be provided for all students, with further details surrounding this in next week’s newsletter. Unfortunately, due to the current restrictions in place, parents will not be able to attend our liturgical celebrations or be involved in our feast day celebrations this year. We will upload some photos and videos onto our school Facebook page to be viewed by all. Please see next week’s newsletter for further information. Thank-you!
Foundation Unit News
Last week the Foundation and Junior Unit celebrated a successful return to school after remote learning with a fun day. The students and staff came dressed in their pyjamas and took part in the following fun activites: biscuit decorating, PMP and making a lion. They then ended the day with watching The Lion King.
A reminder to many of the Foundation students to return their library books. There seems to be a very high number of books that have not been retuned since remote learning. Can parents please help them look for their books to allow them to borrow each night to assist with their reading.
Junior Unit News
Hello everyone and welcome to our Week 9 Junior Unit news!
Last Thursday saw us come to school in our pyjamas to celebrate Pyjama Day! The day was full of fun activities including designing our own pyjamas, comparing our pyjamas in a venn diagram, writing stories, creating dream catchers and finishing the day with a movie.
This week we are continuing to learn about addition in Mathematics. We are also learning all about narratives in Writing while planning and editing our work so that it makes sense.
Please remember to continue to pack a drink bottle full of fresh water each day along with lunch, brainfood, snacks and readers (ready to borrow new ones).
Have a great week everyone!
Senior Unit News
We're Back!
It was a wonderful sight to see our Senior students return yesterday and to once again hear the classrooms alive with chatter. For some of our students it has been almost 12 weeks since they have seen each other! Our first day back at school was all about familiarising ourselves with routines and reconnecting to one another. The photos below capture a fun day had by all!
A reminder to please ensure that all students are sent to school with a drink bottle, as there is no access to the drinking taps at the moment.
Arts News
It's been so great to get back into the paints and pastels and dyes in the classroom. The grade one and two children have worked so hard on their fantastic chicken divas, and they're now finished and ready to hang in the library. Check out some of them in the gallery below. "Whitney and Britney - Chicken Divas" what a fun story!
Chicken Divas
Next week I'll share the awesome crocodiles that the foundation students have been working on for the past three lessons, they are AMAZING!! I'm so excited to get to work with the middle unit students on Thursday and the seniors next week.
"Art has the role in education of helping children become like themselves instead of more like everyone else".
Jess Freeman
Languages - Italian News
Ben Tornati alle Classi 3 - 6 ... Welcome back to Years 3 - 6
During this Term, Middle and Senior students have used the "Languages Online" platform to work through a series of Italian topics including Greetings, Numbers, Colours. Students have also been learning to ask and answer questions in Italian such as ... How old are you? What is you name? How are you?
Year 3-6 students participated in a series of weekly Language activity tasks for each topic, then at the end of their Italian lesson, Students were able to take part in a variety of Kahoots Quiz games to revise and assess their learning for each week. Here are some photos of our students working on their Italian Kahoots Quiz.
Now that our Middle and Senior students have returned to school, each class will be able to participate in our St Paul's ITALIAN KAHOOTS QUIZ CHALLENGE. We are eager to hear how students have gone over the last 7-8 weeks of the Remote Learning and see which students will secure their names on the Kahoots finalist podium.
Buona Fortuna - Good Luck. Signora Ghidinelli
Yr 3 - 6 Student Gallery
Physical Education Update
It's been lovely to have all our students back at school onsite again! This week our Foundation students learned how to underarm throw a beanbag. They learned how to throw it far first, then aimed for a closer target of a hoop or splat. Our Junior and Middle students learned about the punt kick. The Junior students practiced their punt with a soccerball to make it a bit easier. Here are some photos of our Junior students from last week while they were practicing their catching skills.
Kyra Mitchell (PE teacher/Sports Coordinator)
Technology News
It is so great to have everyone back at school again! The Technology room is so much more exciting when it is full of students eager to learn together.
Over the last two weeks of remote learning, the Middle unit have explored how computers work and how most people use peripheral devices to enhance a device. We then discovered how, for some people, peripheral devices are important for accessibility. We even had a go at redesigning a couple of apps to make them more accessible for visually impaired and physically impaired people.
The Senior unit have also been looking very closely at how computers work and learning about Binary Code. Students learned to convert between binary numbers and decimal numbers and used this knowledge to create some great pixel images.
Until next week remember...
Technology is cool, but you've GOT to use it as OPPOSED to letting it use YOU!
Mrs Narelle Simms
Hands Up Mallee
This June a new initiative called ‘Mindful Month is being launched with Smiling Mind’. Join the mindful movement!
Mindful Month with Smiling Mind is a month-long movement to help you establish positive mental health practices for now and into the future.
What does mindful month include?
This June you’ll have access to a free, in-app, month-long movement to help you start fostering a routine to proactively look after your mental health. You'll have access to daily mindfulness exercises in the Smiling Mind app, and we'll be sharing inspiration to guide your journey all month long.
The benefits mindfulness can bring to your life includes: -
- Reducing worries, anxiety and distress
- Create a sense of calm
- Relax and better manage your emotions
- Improve concentration and increased productivity
- Develop compassion and connectedness
- Fall asleep faster and get and better nights sleep