Newsletter #24 August 18
Principal's News
Dear St Paul's families,
Welcome to the weekly update.
It's hard to believe we are already halfway through the term. As long as the restrictions keep easing, we can begin to engage more with you in our school based events. Hopefully our school sports day will go ahead this Friday. Like you I am also frustrated that you cannot attend on site, however, at the least the children will have the opportunity to participate in a fun day and enjoy some outdoor activities. I am also hoping that our Senior girl's soccer team will be able to travel to Swan Hill next week for the regional finals. Only time will tell.
The restrictions are continuing to place a strain on everyone's wellbeing. If you notice any changes in the behaviour of your children, please talk to your child's teacher as this will enable us to try and provide additional support where needed. Likewise, if you need someone to talk to yourself, Felicity Rix our school counsellor, is available as well.
MAPPEN week will be happening at different times this term due to a change in events. Our Seniors will participate next week with the rest of the school later in the term.
Our Flying Start Program has been postponed due to the current restrictions. Whilst this program may not go ahead, rest assured our official Transition program in term 4 will.
Congratulations to this week's milestone winners for following our school norms.
BEE MILESTONE: Hailey Wilson, Charlie Stephens, Vivian Thai, Skylar Humphrey, Isla Madden, Eleni Mouzakis, Harriet Gibson, Shivreet Gill, Jessica Allieu, Isabella Burdett,
HIVE MILESTONE:Oliver Welsh, Lottie Moyle, Andrea Norton, Deji Obatoki, Vienna Panagiotopoulos, Mischa Pascale, Alliyah Silorio, Jordan Tran, Tolini Vave, Will Hogan, Denim Humphrey, Amelia -Mae Hunt, Jeron Kuruvilla Robin, Nushwa Mannan, Charlotte Miller, Meranda Miller, James Echanes, Isabella Edwards, Joseph Fotheringham-Gottardo, Ella Garland, Zach Garland, Marco Guevarra, Zander Hately, Harvey Heagerty, Ella Dunn, Marco Guevarra, Ofa Ahotaeiloa, Liam Aranas, Jessica Cavallo, Nicola De Maria, Natasha Cavallo, Rocco Circosta, Pippa Doecke
As always
Keep the Faith
Vince Muscatello
SENIOR NEWS UPDATE
We are so excited that we have planned a camp for our senior students. Although it might not be Melbourne or the Grampians, hopefully we can provide them with an experience that they will remember. Once we finalise the itinerary we will send this out but we hope to visit some local attractions during the day and sleep out in tents overnight. If you have any questions or concerns about the camp, let your child's teacher know. Please give consent on SIMON Everywhere .
The senior unit will work through the MAPPEN unit of work next week. We will be focusing on 'Care for the Kid's' which aligns with our Religious Education Theme of Compassion. By the end of the week, students will come up with an issue that they would like to engage in to make a difference. We will end the week with a Liturgy (which at this stage, parents cant attend).
On Wednesday we will have Marty McGauran who will be doing a 90 minute interactive webinar with the students around Cyber Safety. Marty is from Inform and Empower and aims to teach Cyber Safety to students in an engaging and interactive way. Please remember to monitor your child's ChromeBook use. Please check regularly their browsing history and sent emails to ensure they are safe online.
Wishing you all a fantastic week!
Mrs Courntey, Mr Emmett, Ms Kedmenec & Ms Parker
Middle Unit News
It's really hard to believe that we are in Week 6. Whilst coming in and out of lockdown has been challenging at times, we are grateful at this stage to be in the classroom and enjoying getting to learn some great things. Last week in Literacy we have been learning about direct speech and indirect speech. Students have been supported to develop an understanding of how to correctly punctuate these. We were able to get out our new whiteboards and all learn this together. The students enjoyed punctuating their own sentences on the board and then checking their work with their peers.
In Religion this week we have been looking at stories that impact who we are. We have been exploring some local stories and the relationships and cooperation that occurs in these stories. It has been lovely listening to some of the students share stories of the relationships they have and the impact these have had on them. We have been talking about different ways we can show care and love to those around us. It would be great if you could ask your students to share some ideas of how we can show kindness to others.
Foundation Unit News
Last Friday the Foundation Unit finally were able to celebrate 100 Days of Learning at school. We began the day with connecting out learning to the number 100. We counted and sang songs to 100, we worked out that if we know all of our rainbow words, we know 100 words, we congratulated those children who know 100 words. We have all borrowed and read 100 books. We also made crowns and we decorated a picture of ourselves to show what we might look like when we are 100. We ate biscuits and freckles with 100's and 1000's on them. It was a lot of fun recalling what we have learnt in our 100 days of learning. Below are some pictures.
This Friday is our Mini Olympics day. Please remember to dress in your sports uniform with a coloured T-shirt that matches your house colour. Please look on SIMON Everywhere App - Student Profile / personal details for your child's house colour.
Junior Unit News
Happy week 6 Junior families. Can you believe we are halfway through this term? It has definitely been a challenging term coming in and out of lockdowns. The students have shown such a huge amount of resilience with the constant changes.
Junior Unit Camp Update
We would like to thank the families who provided their input to our camp survey earlier in the year. The Junior Unit camp is booked to be held on Thursday 16th September (last day of Term for students). There will be no school for students on Friday 17th, this is scheduled to be a pupil free day where staff will be onsite engaging in professional learning.
During the day both Grade 1 and Grade 2 will engage in a variety of engaging activities. All students will stay after school for an afterschool snack, further activities and for dinner. The Grade 1 students will then be picked up at 6:30 while the Grade 2 students will be invited to sleep over at the school.
Our objective for the sleepover component is to provide a local camp experience for the Grade 2 students to prepare them for an out of district camp in Grade 3. We appreciate that for some children the idea of staying away from their families can be difficult and stressful. Of course, if you or your child would prefer, they can be picked up at 6:30 with the other Grade 1 students or a later negotiated time.
For children engaging in the sleepover component of our camp, families will need to provide some form of bedding for their child to sleep on. We will set a time early Friday morning for children to be collected from school.
Over the coming weeks there will be a parent consent form that will be available for you to complete through the Simon Everywhere app. We will also provide further information regarding our camp at this time.
“Find happiness in making others happy.” Mary Mackillop, 1899
Last Tuesday, the Junior Unit came together to celebrate the Feast of Mary Mackillop. Mary Mackillop was named Australia’s first Saint and is known for her commitment to the poor, helping those who needed it the most in any way she could.
After we engaged in prayer, the students were given the opportunity to explore what it means to find happiness in making others happy. The students were given a handprint where they were asked to write their own name in the centre. The children then moved around the classrooms writing kind words on each other’s hands. During the activity, there were smiles on everyone’s face as they went about describing their friend’s and then began reading how their friends described them.
100 Days of Learning
J6 keeps track of how many days of learning have been completed by putting one pop stick into a container each morning.
Once ten days are reached, we make a bundle by putting a rubber band around the ten sticks. The class counts the total number of sticks each morning.
During lockdown in July we reached 100 days of learning! Because most of us weren’t actually physically at school we celebrated this milestone on Thursday 29th July once we returned to school.
The entire Junior Unit joined in our celebrations with making a ‘100 day crown’ and snacking on a hundred and thousand biscuits and a couple of freckles.
Library News
Hello from the Library,
We have decided to delay our Book Week until Term 4. Our Dress up and celebration day will be on Wednesday 13th October. The theme this year is 'Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds'.
We will also have our second Book Fair in October, the Wish List day will be Friday 22nd of October. Looking forward to seeing and buying these fantastic books. We will have a competition to go with the Book Fair where students will have the opportunity to win prizes from the Fair.
Thanks Marg Pongrac
Languages - Italian News
Congratulations again to the students who participated in the Italian Poetry Recitation Section at the recent 2021 Mildura Eisteddfod.
On Sunday, Eliza received a plaque from the President of the Dante Alighieri Society of Mildura; Mrs Lina Kadziela. The plaque was presented to Eliza as the 2021 winner of the Dante Alighieri Society Encouragement Award. " Congratulazioni Eliza !" More Eisteddfod Certificates and Prize money will be presented to our other participating students at an upcoming assembly.
Extra prizes were issued this year in acknowledgement of the Dante Alighieri Society of Mildura 50th anniversary 1971-2021 and Dante’s 700th anniversary since his death 1321-2021.
A special mention also to our youngest Italian Poetry Eisteddfod entrant - Faye Ratcliffe - for her Italian poem " Stella Stellina " - "Star, little Star". Faye was featured in Saturday's edition of the Sunraysia Daily. Bravissima Faye !
Physical Education News
MINI OLYMPICS
This Friday, 20th of August, is our annual St Paul's Mini Olympics Carnival. Unfortunately due to current restrictions this event is for students and staff only, NO parents.
The event will be held at school during our normal school hours. Students will need to wear their sports shoes and pants, with a top in their house colours. If you do not know your students house and colour, please look on SIMON Everywhere App - Student Profile / personal details.
Lunch orders will be available as per a normal Friday. Please ensure students have a water bottle to carry with them to the events. As students will be active for a large portion of the day, it might be a good idea to pack extra healthy snacks with their lunch.
Students have been practising for their events in P.E. lessons over the pass few weeks and are really excited to compete on Friday.
Mr Warwick McDermott
Arts News
The senior students have been creating these AMAZING dragon eyes in Arts over the past couple of lessons. We studied close up pictures of different creatures' eyes and talked about the particular characteristics of reptiles. The children used coloured pencils and were very inventive in creating effects using shadowing and blending.
