Newsletter #20 July 22

Principal's News

Dear St Paul's families,
As parents we often need to remind ourselves that our children are like sponges and absorb everything they see and do around us. They will easily imitate and adopt our behaviours. When we are happy, positive and confident they too are feeling the same.  Given the current situation across the country we have an excellent opportunity to be beacons of hope and light for our children. Focus on the positives and not the negatives. Yes, it is often easier said than done, but we are the adults here and sometimes we just need to step up  and work together.

The reason I share this with you is that we have all gone through a significant period of upheaval in recent months.   Our routines, lifestyle and day to day living has changed dramatically. We ask ourselves , "When will things go back to normal?" or  "What will tomorrow bring us?" What is important is how we choose to respond to each situation and question as they arise. We can embrace the changes and use them to our advantage or we can let them control our thoughts and actions and fuel the fire of uncertainty and doubt. Either way, it is ultimately our decision to make and no one else's. We can all play the blame game or we can all get on with the job at hand and do our best.   At school we often talk with the children about their dreams, needs and abilities ? When was the last time you shared your Dreams, Needs and Abilities (DNA)  with your children? What is your message that will inspire them?

I love the positive attitude the children have at the moment with the Gotcha awards. It is such a buzz when I get to present the certificates and when some of the children choose their gotcha reward  to be me for an hour. Monday afternoon Max Mangan (F17) had a great time helping me print the Gotcha Award certificates and then present them to the children throughout the school. His first decision as principal was to tell Loretta that she could go home for the rest of the day.  Some of the staff asked Max for a payrise and he immediately said "Yep".  I'm not sure he knew what they were asking for, but was happy to oblige. He was very curious about what else I did as a principal and we spent time in my office talking.  Max then asked me a very important question- "Where's the food Mr M?"  I need to be better prepared next time as he obviously worked up an appetite being the principal for an hour. What a great afternoon!

Congratulations to this week's Gotcha Awards Winners

25 GOTCHA AWARDS: Sienna McKay, Jack Humphrey, Jenny Tran, Elijah Hunt, Nicholas Halton, Blair Traeger, Ariah Tickle, Tarlow Fangatua, Gianluca Dimasi, Ariani Arden, Jimmy Mott, Emmy Rayson, Leo Tardio, Jasper Trinh,Sophie King, Sienna Brown,

50 GOTCHA AWARDS: Emma Williams, Hayley Rowe, Oliver Harradine, Hannah Davies, Hunter Rayson, Paityn Miller, Nayte Yates, Harry Williams, Ari Williams, Olivia Prescott, Vienna Panagiotopoulos, Jasper Mitchell, Taylor Bui, Xander Dingwall, Bella Hensgen, Shermin Reyon, Avy Tauelangi, Macki Tickle, Cooper Chapple, Nathasha Allieu

Pick up at the end of the day-  Due to the increased number of vehicles coming through the driveway at the end of the day; parents do have the option of parking in the Salvation Army car park. You can use  the crossing and walk over to collect your children at the front gate.  This will help alleviate the traffic congestion. If you are collecting your children from the pedestrian gate, please remind them when you drop them off in the morning. If your travel arrangements change please contact the office.  Communication is the key here at the moment.

Welcome to Carmel Seiler and Sam Keller who are completing their work placement hours as a learning support officer over the next few weeks. I wish them well as they continue their learning in education.

Given the current restrictions in place I hope that you have found the student led conferences held last night beneficial. I hope tonight's run just as smoothly. We are faced with many challenges at present but I am confident that we will all succeed as we continue to work together. Our school year has been significantly interrupted and we have certainly loved being back this term with your children focussing on their learning. Now more than ever, it is important that children attend school every day. Every day counts and we want to maximise their learning opportunities.

 As the children adjust back to the routines, there will undoubtedly be issues along the way both inside and out of the classroom. Please remember to talk with your child's teacher first when an issue arises. Communication is an important  key for developing  successful relationships within our school and the wider community.  

I pray that you all stay safe during these uncertain times and as always,
Keep the Faith.

 Vince Muscatello
Principal

Religious Education News

Updated Sacramental Program Information

First Reconciliation

With Covid-19 restrictions continuing to impact on numbers able to gather for worship, a further adjustment has been made for our students receiving First Reconciliation.

Children from Sacred Heart Primary School and St Paul’s School will receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation at their school at times to be determined by the school communities.

First Reconciliation for children attending Government Schools will be at the Church on Wednesday 29^th July or Saturday 1^st August at 10am.

On Wednesday there will be two sessions, the first at 5pm and the second at 6 pm. One adult can accompany each child, so that there will be no more than 20 people gathered in the church at each session.

First Eucharist

Parents/caregivers are asked to come to the Parish office during office hours to receive the Eucharist Pack and to select day for celebration of the Sacrament.

Friday 23rd Oct at 6pm

Saturday 24 Oct at 9.30am

Saturday 25 Oct at 6pm

Sunday 26 Oct at 9am

Sunday 26 Oct at 5.30pm

The four week program will be done at home in preparation for First Eucharist in October. There are no group sessions for this year.

If you have any further questions, please contact Mrs Maria-Stella Blagus  mblagus@spmildura.catholic.edu.au or the Parish Office 5021 2872 . Thank-you. 

Student Led Conferences

Thank you to all the parents, students and teachers that attended Student Led Conferences.  It was lovely for students to still get this opportunity to share their learning, even it was online.  

School Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS)

As you are aware St Paul's is a SWPBS school. As a SWPBS school we focus on positively reinforcing and teaching the Norms and Expected Behaviours as well as having a Continumn of Responses for when students behave inapropriately.  The school is in the process of developing and improving our systems to prevent inapropriate behaviour. This will involve a Tier two team who will work with teachers to collect student behaviour data and analyse this to identify and provide appropriate adjustments and interventions to prevent problem behaviour occuring. Tier 2 is about providing more support for students who are experiencing difficulties in following the  norms, learning and  engaging socially .

Senior Unit News

Mini Writing Festival

Next week all of the Grade 5 and 6 students will participate in an online mini-writing festival hosted by littlescribe! The students will watch and listen to a range of live video conferences presented by authors such as Jackie French and Andrew Daddo. After each online session there will be follow up activities for the students to engage in. The flyer below provides more information about the festival! We can't wait!

Over the past 2 days many of our students have been engaged in online student led conferences - something new for all of us! The students were charged with designing their own slide show of work they were proud of as well as setting goals for the remainder of the year. Congratulations to  our students on the work that went into the presentations and the way that the conferences where engaged in.  Thankyou to all of our families who engaged in the experience. 

Middle Unit News

Hello all, we have successfully put together our self-watering greenhouses using our plastic bottles. Thank you to anyone who quickly finished off the juice or soda in order for us to be able to do this. They look great and we all have our fingers crossed that they will grow and sprout some delicious beans. The kids have also started looking at how we can show peace and justice in our own community. We will be looking at some stories of incredible children that are aiming to make big changes in the world. 

The children are doing an awesome job with subtracting two-, three- and four-digit numbers. They are showing some awesome growth so far and we look forward to seeing how far they have come. 

Thank you to everyone who popped in to say hello for Student Led Conferences, we look forward to talking to the remaining families tonight. 

From the Middle Unit Teachers. 

Junior Unit News

The Junior Unit has been very busy since returning to school after the holidays. This week the students have been busy getting prepared and organised for their Student Led Conferences. The students were able to choose two pieces of work to share with their caregivers and three goals they had written, which they will work on throughout semester two.

The Junior Unit are continuing their learning of subtraction in mathematics and information reports in writing. We are so impressed with the information reports we have seen the students write so far. We are also enjoying exploring different athletic games in our sports learning. The topic for the next few weeks is Mini Olympics and the students have been participating in Vortex Throwing, Long Jump, Soccer Kicks, Frisbee Throw and Shot Put. 

 
We are looking forward to having an amazing week! 

Foundation Unit News

This term in Religion the Foundation Unit are learning about their special qualities and how we call them "gifts". The children have spoken about what makes them "unique" and "special" and how we are not all the same. We have read books that highlight the different gifts that characters have. We have also been discussing how creation is a "gift" to us. We took part in a nature walk to look at the beautiful aspects of nature around our school.

Reminder: Please remember to pack a drink bottle for your children as they are still unable to use the drink stations at school.

Arts News

After creating a digital cartoon version of themselves, the senior students are now in the midst of learning about the dimensions of the human face and how to DRAW a cartoon version of themselves.

We talked about how cartoons often exaggerate certain features, especially those which stand out. eg. big eyes, beauty spots, freckles etc.

Many of the children were blown away to realise that a person's eyes are in fact in the middle of their face, not at the top!

Does this one look like Ms Jess?

Senior Cartoon Portraits

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Check out some of these amazing drawings and stay tuned for the finished products!

Languages - Italian News

Welcome back - the Junior Unit students are settling into Term 3 and have begun a new theme and story book in their Italian classes.   The book is called   " Aiuto!  Un topo! "  -  " Help!  A mouse! " ...  It's a  story is about a cheeky mouse who frightens the different family members of the household.

Here are some photos of our Foundation students listening to the story and participating in class activities in our Italian lessons this week. 

Grazie  - Signora Ghidinelli 

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Library News

Hello from the Library. 

Overdue notices have been given out this week. If there is a problem or you think your child has already returned these books just let me know.

We have some fantastic new picture story, novels and non fiction books just catalouged, look out for these.

Physical Education Update

This week we are continuing to practice our Mini Olympics skills even though we will not be holding our event this year. The younger grades are learning the techniques of both shot put and vortex throw. The older grades are practicing their discus throwing and triple jump skills. Here are some action shots from the past week of the shot put, discus, frisbee throw and some Star Wars (dodgeball).

Kyra Mitchell, PE teacher/Sports Coordinator

Mini Olympics skills

Technology News

Who knew creating algorithms could be so much fun!!!

This term students in Foundation, Years 1 & 2 are learning to follow, describe and represent a sequence of steps to complete a task or solve a problem, which is the fundamental building blocks for coding.

Foundation students had a ball last Friday as they described the steps to making fairy bread for me to follow.  We had a few hiccups along the way but the students were quick to correct their description of each step and finally we had success!  The best part was definitely the last step...eating the fairy bread.

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Following the steps themselves and making their own unique paper fairy bread was also fun and everyone experienced success.

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Students in Year 1 & 2 had a lot of fun  exploring the steps of everyday tasks represented as images, and sequencing them correctly using a custom made program, Boom Learning.  When they were able to correctly sequence the steps, they moved onto the next task.  If they didn't quite get the sequence right the first time, they problem solved, collaborated with each other and tried again.  Not only were these students learning to understand the very basic concepts of coding, they definitely practised the important skills of being persistent, resilient and determined. 

It was not always easy to determine the correct sequence of the steps.  The motto of the day was loud and clear, if at first you don't suceed, try, try, try again, and that is exactly what they did.  Followed by some very excited celebrating when they did get it.

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Until next week, remember...

Technology is cool, but you've GOT to use it as OPPOSED to letting it use YOU!

Mrs Narelle Simms

Online Safety in the Home

Don't forget about the upcoming online safety webinars being offered by the eSafety Commissioner.  The webinars are specifically designed to provide support for parents to learn more about online safety and supporting children in online environments. 

The upcoming webinar: "eSafety's Parent Guide to Online Gaming," is running this Thursday, 23rd June at 12:30pm and next Tuesday, 28th June at 7:30pm and will cover:

• the benefits of gaming and how to mitigate the risks,
• strategies to manage gaming and overuse, and
• where to find help and support.

For more information and to register click here:

Future upcoming webinars will include:

• A parent's guide to screen time
• A parent's guide to the latest apps

Hands Up Mallee

It has been so lovely to have Walking Club and Breakfast Club both back up and running again! The students have very quickly got back into the swing of things and it is so nice when the students rostered on to help with Breakfast Club are not able to help, there are plenty of volunteers ready and eager to help me. Thanks kids.

The Breakfast Club roster for term 3 is located on the Senior Fridges in the Hallway. I will also put up the roster for the coming week in the newsletters as well. If your child is rostered on for Breakfast Club and they are unable to make it, it is okay, but would be appreciated if they could let me know beforehand so I can replace them. The students do really enjoy the opportunity to assist with Breakfast Club and are becoming quite the little experts in the kitchen!