Dear Parents and Carers,

I am, and we are, so thankful to you for your wonderful support of your children during remote learning time. Thank you for the feedback that continues to help us ensure that the learning is right for the students each day and challenging for them, but not overwhelming. Thank you for knowing when it is time for your children to put screens-down and play in the sun for a while. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We know this is a difficult time for families. And we ask you to contact us if you need our support. Please continue to follow the stay at home and minimise movement mandate of NSW health, if you have supervision at home it is important that you keep your children home. This is more vital than ever now that there has been covid detection in the water in Bega and Merimbula. We are working hard to ensure the school is staffed according to the directive for skeleton onsite staffing and we want to ensure as many staff that can work remotely are given that opportunity for their health and wellbeing too.

Kindness & Connection in COVID 

Wednesday, Thursday and today we have been working hard to connect with all our St Pat's kids and staff through a letterbox drop of care and kindness. We hope your child has found and enjoyed their mail! Thank you to all families who quickly communicated with the office to inform of an address change! We hope we have everything delivered to the correct address! 

** If you have changed family details: address, phone number, main contacts for emergencies please email the office now so we can update your details!

 

Kindness out to the Community

Yesterday instead of preparing recesses and lunches, our canteen convenor extraordinaire Leayra Thornton, also known for her fabulous catering through her business Valley Katering, cooked up a storm of dinner meals to be distributed to people in need in the wider community. This week's delectable lasagne will be given to those in need in our community including through the parish and the Sapphire Community Pantry. Woolworths Bega are supporting this venture with donations of ingredients. Thanks Woolies!

Remote Learning on our Website

You may not have visited the school website in a while. In 2020 we created a REMOTE LEARNING tab for parents with quick links to apps and documents. Under the REMOTE LEARNING red tab there is a 'document download' list. You can find many helpful resources there including information regarding curriculum, IT, wellbeing and counselling. Please take a look!

https://www.stpatsbega.nsw.edu.au/

Counselling

This week we met (online) our new CatholicCare Counsellor, Erin Taylor is now working in another school context and we welcome Sam Hutchence to St Pat's. We thank Erin for her work for the first half of 2021. 

Hello! My name is Samantha Hutchence and I am going to be the new school counsellor at St. Patrick’s Primary School. I am a provisionally registered psychologist and I have experience of working with primary school children both as a teacher in the UK and UAE and as a counsellor. I am excited to get started and will look forward to talking with some of you soon and hopefully meeting face-to-face when school resumes! If you have any questions or would like any information about school counselling please feel free to contact me on: samantha.hutchence@catholiccare.cg.org.au

Thanks, Sam

We send happy wishes to all the St Pat's fathers, grandfathers and father figures this Sunday. We hope you thoroughly enjoy time with your children and that you get spoilt with love and affection!

Blessings

Jo