Dear Parents and Carers,

Celebrating learning Thank you to all parents and carers who were able to attend learning conferences this week, and to those who have booked to attend the Celebration of Learning and Bookweek parade next Wednesday. The joy of my days is in celebrating learning and growth with our students. Every morning at assembly we are acknowledging and honouring students for their St Pat's kids attributes for learning and behaviour. Sometimes students are acknowledged for attributes across the 3 school pillars of 'Looking into thinking,' 'Looking after each other,' and 'Looking ahead to the future.'

 

This week, now that our next data set has been collected, the new gold and silver stickers for progress and achievement have been presented. These have been very well received by all recipients - more from Mrs Sheahan in her news.

Orange Sky Laundry - Sudsy Challenge Wearing the same clothes for 3 days straight has advantages and disadvantages. One advantage, no staring into the wardrobe wondering what to wear to work. One disadvantage, wearing unwashed clothes. But, the huge advantage of participating in the Sudsy challenge has been raising awareness and money in support of people living rough. Thank you for your support. On day 2, Rivarni in Kinder asked me, "Mrs Scott-Pegum is it comfortable wearing those clothes again today?" and then we had a good chat about it. 

Chooks Under the great care of Ms Grainger and a troop of St Pat's kids our school chooks are thriving. The eggs go to the school canteen for the cooking and baking. One of the Year 1 students recently wondered why one of our broody chooks couldn't grow a chick with her persistence of sitting on the nest. We had a 'general' conversation regarding not having a rooster at St Pat's and left the greater detail for later! Thanks Belle and Sofia for feeding the chooks this week.

 

Uniform At St Pat's we have some protocols for student hair at school. One protocol is for all children, boys and girls, who have hair shoulder length or longer, to wear it tied back in a pony tail, pig tails or a bun. This is mostly related to hygiene including reducing likelihood of transmission of lice. Thank you for helping your child follow this rule.

School jumpers This year we have proudly seen so many children represent the school, region and diocese in many events. Some of these children have a representative hoodie jumper. We have noticed some children wearing their sport jumper all week. Our uniform jumper is to be worn with the day uniform and the representative sport jumpers/hoodies can be worn on sport day. Thank you for helping your child to follow that rule. 

Fogo

At St Pat's we are working to educate our students in waste processes and sorting as part of our plan for sustatinability. You may not be aware that the Environmental Protection Agency have made some changes to what goes in our fogo bins. There have been items removed from the list for details click herehttps://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/recycling-and-reuse/household-recycling-overview/fogo-information-for-households

For what goes into the bin here is the summary

Blessings

Jo.

CELEBRATING PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENT AT ST. PATS

This week St. Pat's have been celebrating our students' progress and achievement in READING. 

All students have completed a second DIBELS (see below) assessment over the last few weeks. The data taken from this assessment and the beginning assessment in May allowed us to gauge which students are making progress in reading and which students are making outstanding (greater than expected) progress in reading. We have also celebrated achievement in reading. These students are reading well beyond year level expectations based on the DIBELS data.

Students will complete a third assessment in November and progress and achievement tracked again. Mrs Scott-Pegum and myself have had the pleasure of visiting classrooms to award the gold and silver stickers which are placed in the students journals.

Overall 36% of our students received a GOLD Progress Award (for improvement well beyond expectations) and 24% of our students received a GOLD Achievement Award (for reading well beyond year level expectations).

Please check Seesaw and St. Pat's social media where photos of our award recipients have been uploaded.

DIBELS

The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) are a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills from kindergarten through sixth grade. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. The DIBELS assessment materials are designed to focus on the five BIG IDEAS of early literacy: Phonemic Awareness, Alphabetic Principle Accuracy and Fluency with text, Vocabulary Comprehension.

In the very near future St Pat's will also be celebrating progress and achievement in Mathematics.

This week NAPLAN results for students who participated in Years 3 and 5 in May, were given to parents at the end of 3 way conferences or sent home to parents today. NAPLAN assesses aspects of literacy including reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation and writing, as well as numeracy. NAPLAN helps governments, education authorities and schools to see whether young Australians are reaching important literacy and numeracy goals.

NAPLAN provides information about how education programs are working, areas for improvement, and which schools need support in the teaching and learning of literacy and numeracy. NAPLAN tests are designed to provide parents, children and teachers with information about how the child's learning is progressing and where they need support to improve literacy and numeracy skills. 

In 2023 NAPLAN will be conducted earlier; March 15-17th. 

3 WAY CONFERENCES

Here are some photos of students leading 3 way conferences with their families and teacher, sharing their learning in English and Mathematics this term. Students showed work they were proud of work, work that is challenging and shared their goal for a next step in learning. It was great to note the fantastic parent engagement in this event with more than 130 conferences being booked and attended by families. 

   

Religious Education - First Eucharist

This Sunday nineteen candidates will participate in the Sacrament of First Eucharist.

Today these candidates had a retreat day that focused on faith formation and preparation for the Sacrament.

Candidates renewed their Baptismal Promises, explored scripture, wrote prayers and reflections, and celebrated a meal together.

Please keep these candidates in your prayers in the coming days.                            

     

     

Our Year 6 students only have one term left at primary school! This week some students visited Bega High School for a transition day. 

Lumen Christi will be facilitating an orientation day for Year 6 students on Wednesday, 30th November, 2022 – 9:00am to 3:20pm.  

Best wishes and good luck to our athletes heading to Sydney to compete at the MacKillop Athletics Trials next Tuesday. This Carnival is to select a MacKillop Team to compete at the NSW Championships. At this level the competition is very strong as we compete against our city cousins as well as the larger country areas of Wagga Wagga and Wollongong.

Some of our athletes are in more than one event. Arly Schrader will have a busy day as she is in four events, two track and two field.

Good luck Arly, Archie Sly, Aidan Green, Connor and Jacob Elliott, Claire Breust, Eva Ridley, Abbey Collins and Charlie Ingram Bates. We look forward to hearing about your experience.

Next Wednesday 21st September, St Pat’s Kids will be showcasing their MAPPEN and Science learning. Parents are invited to attend this Celebration of Learning in their child’s classroom from 8:30am – 8.55am on Wednesday 21st September. Parent's are welcome to join the school at morning assembly.
 
St Pat's students will also be celebrating Book Week on this day.
The theme this year is "Dreaming with Eyes Open".
Students are asked to come dressed in a character from their favourite book ready for the parade in the hall at 9.15am. Parents are invited to attend.
 
Sending students with some normal uniform would be helpful as back up for tricky costumes.
 
Attendance for both the Celebration of Learning and the Book Week Parade must be booked to adhere to our COVID guidelines. Please book on Trybooking using this link: https://www.trybooking.com/CCPIL 

To relive the joy of the 2022 Dance Concert preorder a DVD or USB recording!

Head to QKR! and look for School Concert in the Menu. Orders will close 23rd September so be quick! 

Uniform Shop Spring Update

Uniform Shop will be open at the beginning of Term 4 on the following dates:

- Wednesday 12 October, 8.30am - 10am

- Friday 14 October 8.30am - 10am.

You can make an appointment to come in by emailing us at stpats.uniform@gmail.com.

Qkr! Store

Qkr! orders can be placed throughout the holidays and these orders will be filled on Wednesday 12 October.

During term, Qkr! orders are filled each Wednesday and Friday morning.

Summer Uniform Prices

Everyday Polo Short Sleeve Shirts $25

Unisex Summer Short $15.90

Skort $19.20

Hats $8.30

Rain Jacket (just in case) $24

SALE WINTER STOCK

Our girls Flexiwaist pants are now on sale for just $8! Also, there are still a few Spray Jackets left at $10 each.

Thank you to everybody for supporting the Uniform Shop over the past term. We wish everyone a happy, safe and relaxing Spring Holiday.

Kind regards,

St Pats Uniform Committee