Dear Parents and Carers

This week we have presented two special St Patrick's awards. Both students and staff are given opportunity to nominate someone whom they see demonstrating the attributes of each award. 

The Michael Rheinberger Award for Athletics is presented to a student who displays the attributes of past student Michael, as he strove to achieve his dream of climbing Everest. These attributes include: Persistence, Sportsmanship, Effort, Positive mindset, & Participation. These attributes, and the nominees and winner demonstrate across all three of the St Patrick's school pillars. 

Well done to the nominees: Chase, Sophie, Elizabeth, Isabella, Jayden, Thomas, Henry, Remmi and Ruby.

Congratulations to the awardee, Chase! Well deserved.

The Noa Jessop Memorial Award is presented to a student who emulates Noa's attributes of Christian Spirit, Sportsmanship, and Commitment to School. Again this award is presented to a student who shows these 3 school pillars behaviours in their everyday life at school.

We congratulate the nominees: Jayden, Isabella, Archie, Will N, Flynn, Arly, Chase, Eva, Aodhan and Colin.

The very worthy 2023 recipient of the award is Aodhan. (photo to come next week!)

Our Jersey for Noa day was a day of great remembering and some footy fun! Thanks Mrs Harnett for popping in to be the football ref!

Congratulations to the students who represented the school at the Southern Region Athletics Carnival. Read more in the sport news about the great achievements of our St Pat's kids. Thanks to Mrs Harnett for coordinating the day and to Mrs Collins for organising and running the canteen on the day, and of course all the helpers too.

And, on the note of congratulations, well done to all the Year 3-6 students who prepared and presented a speech this week. Well done to all the students who embraced the opportunity to compete at a school level to represent St Patrick's at the Southern Region Public Speaking Competition next week. We can name up to two students in each year level 3-6, and a reserve.

The St Pat's team is:

Year 3 Cassidy and Keeret, reserve Ash

Year 4 Sofia and Jayden

Year 5 Abbie and Rowan, reserve Zoe

Year 6 Sophie.

  

Good luck to our team!

At St Pat's the Red Pillar 'Look into Thinking' names our core work in teaching and learning and is the simple daily language that describes one of the three school principles. At assembly every morning teachers honour many students for the ways in which they are demonstrating this pillar every day at school. You are always invited to come to our morning assembly, it is a short and wonderfully positive way to start school each day.

Look Into Thinking In Action 

Each Pillar is supported with a corresponding School Principle. Our documentation is developed around these Pillars and Principles, to enable each member of our community to action our Vision. 

St Pat's students are recognised every day for showing characteristics of the Three Pillars.

Students who receive Red Pillar recognition show characteristics such as:

• Stamina 
• Active Listening
• Asking Questions
• Trying their best
• Making connections to real life
• Sharing Information 

  

Supporting Students 

This week our 3/4 teachers participated in professional learning facilitated by clinical psychologists and teachers from The Kidman Centre, University of Technology Sydney. The workshop focused on practical classroom strategies for children struggling to manage their emotions with the aim to equip staff with extra “tools for their toolkit”.  Here is the feedback from the teachers:

"The professional learning was very practical and has allowed us to think about adjustments that can be made in our classrooms to support students."

Here are six tips for at home:

REC

Chapel Masses – every Friday 9:15am in the Church

Week 4- 3/4R, Families Welcome

Each year on the 8^th of August, we celebrate the revered Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Mary Mackillop is Australia’s first saint, recognised for her commitment to helping the poor, helping those in need and for the important role that she played in making education accessible for all children. On Tuesday, we will have mass for the Feast of St Mary of the Cross at 12:30pm. This will be facilitated by students in Years 5 and 6 and we would like to invite all families to attend.

This week, students were asked to consider joining Mini Vinnies. Expressions of interest were handed out to students in Years 3-6, who wished to join. Mini Vinnies, as the name might imply, is based on the principles and foundations of the St Vincent De Paul Society. It aims to empower primary school students to become advocates within their school and local community by putting Vinnies Values into action. Our St Pat’s Mini Vinnies team will meet weekly to learn about social justice issues, while developing effective leadership skills and engaging with the local community. Please talk to your child about this wonderful opportunity and encourage them to become involved. 

1/2R: In 1/2R Students have been learning about the bible story ‘Fishers of Men’. Children retold the parable as the story of Jesus calling his disciples and learning more about God.

3/4R: Stage 2 students are learning about the different sacraments. 3/4R have been looking into the sacrament of Baptism. One student said “when a child or adult gets Baptised we become a part of God’s big family”. They describes the process of being blessed with Holy Water in the Church when being Baptised.

5/6R: have been Learning about Images of Mary and have created posters showing some of these images. After studying these images the children have learnt that Mary was portrayed in many ways such as ‘Mother’, ‘Protector’ and ‘Helper’.

Curriculum

This Week, we celebrate our Red Pillar ‘Look into Thinking’. When entering any classroom at St Pat’s, you will see students actively engaged, participating, and demonstrating higher order thinking skills. Our Direct Instruction approach encourages students to think about what they are learning and the processes that their brains go through when learning and retaining new information. A key component of Direct Instruction is review. This helps move information from our short-term memory, into our long-term memory. All classes at St Pat’s participate in a ‘Daily Review’, where they practice skills that they have been learning across subjects. This repetition of key concepts in the form of a daily review,  helps them retain the information and be able to transfer it across different contexts.

We were greeted by the most beautiful spring-like day for our Southern Region Athletics Carnival. St Pat's had 47 children attending and they all performed to the best of their ability. Some were first-timers, and some were competing in their last primary athletics carnival. 18 children have now been selected in the Southern Region team to compete in Canberra in two weeks’ time for a chance to make the Archdiocesan team.

For a smaller school we also did very well in the individual champion stakes. Out of 6 individual champions, St Pat's students achieved 4, thus the most individual champions came from our school!

A big congratulations to our Southern Region individual champions:

• Archie Sly Junior boy
• Aiden Green equal 11 year boy
• Arly Schrader 11year girl
• Eva Ridley was Senior girl

For those children moving forward registration is all done online.

A big thanks to any parents who helped in the canteen or did some baking. Thank you to Nicole and her small team who worked very hard to provide the canteen service.

My special thanks to Aaron Koellner and Jodi Clifton-Collins. Without the help of these two parents the carnival wouldn't have happened. They both worked tirelessly all day at both our school and the regional carnival. They helped with all the equipment that needed to be moved and set up and packed up so a huge thanks to both of you!

The Australian Dental Health NSW (Dental Clinic Van) will be visiting our school during Week 7, Term 4.
Consent forms have been sent home and need to be returned to the office by Monday 4^th September (Week 8, Term 3)