Dear Parents and Carers,

Yesterday I began the day in one of the junior classes for their class prayer. The prayer circle was a beautiful, reverent and a Chirst-centred, heart-centred experience. I was particularly taken with the prayer space. Two Yr 1 students had been responsible, before school, to set up the prayer space. This is what it looked like.

To an untrained eye it may seem ‘busy’ or ‘over-complicated,’ to Abby and Teliah it was the most beautiful way to let God know that we were ready to pray. They wanted to put everything they could find about God and Jesus in the centre of the class prayer. Thank you girls. Thank you 12M for this rich prayer experience.

Congratulations - Michael Rheinberger Athletics

Colin Dowd was honoured with the Michael Rheinberger award for Athletics at the school assembly on Tuesday this week. The attributes that we look for include:

• persistence
• sportsmanship
• effort
• passion for the activity
• active participation

Congratulations Colin!

Attendance

Attending school every day helps students achieve learning success. All school days matter!

In the 2013 National Education Reform Agreement, the Council of Australian
Governments (COAG) set national targets for school attendance as a
way to monitor the extent to which all school children are engaged in and
benefitting from formal schooling, recognising that, alongside engagement
in the classroom,improving attendance rates is a critical step in closing the
gaps in educational outcomes... AITSL

At St Patrick’s we are regularly checking student absences and the student and class data around school attendance. We have Catholic Education system processes in place to support strong attendance by all students. We are currently contacting families of students for whom attendance has dropped below 90% this year. We will work with families on ways to support stronger student attendance. Where ill health is the main reason for absence we will be looking at how to support continued learning where possible and practicable. Thank you for all you do to ensure your children are at school every day possible!

COVID-19

Thank you for your continued support of the current COVID protocols. Thank you for keeping your children home if they are generally unwell and if they have cold and flu-like symptoms. The following protocols remain in place:

• Visits to school are for essential purposes only
• Adults are to wear facemasks when coming on school grounds
• Adults must sign in with the QR code to enter the school 
• All parent meetings will be held by phone or zoom, we will inform you if there is an exception to the rule under extenuating circumstances. 

Congratulations

St Pat’s community send messages of congratulations to Mrs Perryman who has been in an acting position as principal at Trinity Murrumburrah in 2021. It has been announced this week that Mrs Perryman has the substantive principal position from 2022. Best wishes Mrs Perryman!

Prayers

We send heartfelt prayers for Mrs Kite and her family on the passing of Mrs Kite’s mum last week. We think of Mrs Kite often and at this time keep her in our thoughts. 

Blessings for the cold wintery weekend.

Jo