1 March 2024

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

Hello St Patrick’s families, I hope this finds you happy and well. 

With the halfway point of Term 1 now behind us, we continue to maintain a strong focus on student learning and engagement. It has been wonderful to see the students settle so quickly into the school year.

Playing Safely

I have had to speak with several students this week about playing safely during the break times with several examples of students pushing, wrestling, and tackling at break times. In most cases there is no malice in the student’s actions but, if I had a dollar for every time a student was upset or a fight started after someone hurt them when they were ‘mucking around’, I’d be on an island off the coast of Mexico in the sun! It’s important that students remember the school has very clear rules on keeping hands, feet and objects to ourselves at all times, especially when we are playing, and that there can and will be consequences for students who are playing roughly, even if it is without any dangerous intent. As the old saying goes, ‘it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt’. Please support your classroom teacher and the school by reinforcing this message at home.

Goodluck Mrs. Scutt – Welcome Miss. Dohle

At the end of last week (Week 6), Mrs. Scutt took an early mark and finished up for the year as she starts her maternity leave. Exciting times ahead! In her place, Miss. Emma Dohle will be joining our staff this week to take over her classes from week 7 onwards. I want to wish Brooke the best of luck on this exciting new journey and welcome Miss. Dohle to St. Pat’s. I can’t wait to meet the little bub when it arrives!

Welcome Mrs. Harrison

Over the next two weeks we will be welcoming Mrs. Angie Harrison to our staff community.

Mrs. Harrison will be supporting the year 3 class every Wednesday as Mrs. Colley moves into her new role of Middle Leader/Curriculum Coordinator. This arrangement will be of tremendous benefit to the school, and I am confident the addition of Mrs. Harrison to the Yr.3 class and our school community will be most beneficial to the students and staff.

Loving Our Community – Mr. Wren’s New Hat Collection

My new collection of St Pat’s community trucker caps is slowly continuing to grow with two new additions going up this week (thankyou Ag & Vet and St George Freight Lines). If you’ve got a cap, keep them coming!

NAPLAN

In week 8 and 9 of the term, our year 3 & 5 families will take part in the annual NAPLAN testing window.

NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents and carers to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard and compared with their peers throughout Australia. At the classroom level, NAPLAN provides additional information to support teachers’ professional judgement about student progress.

Throughout the week, students will complete four tests: Reading, Writing, Language Conventions and Numeracy. The window for testing will begin on Wednesday 13^th March and finish on Monday 25^th March. If your child is away during this time, they will be given an opportunity to make up these tests on their return to school. Results will be forwarded out to families later in the year.

NAPLAN testing assesses literacy and numeracy skills that students have already learnt through the school curriculum and should be treated as just another routine event on the school calendar. Teachers will ensure that students are familiar with the test formats and will provide appropriate support and guidance throughout the testing process. The best way you can help your child prepare for NAPLAN is to reassure them that NAPLAN tests are just one part of their school program, and to advise them to simply do the best they can on the day.

The Australian Curriculum Assessment & Reporting Authority have a dedicated website you can visit to find out more.

If you have any further questions or queries about the NAPLAN process, please contact your classroom teacher to discuss this further with them.

Calendar Keepers Coming Up in Term 1

That’s all from me for now. Stay safe and have a great weekend,

God bless,
Jim Wren
Principal

PARENT PORTAL

Download & Use the App Now!

In recent weeks you will have seen communication from the school regarding our transition to a Parent Portal for more streamlined communication with parents. The transition took place on Monday 5^th February, so if you haven’t already, make sure you follow the instructions recently emailed out to all parents, or view the pdf link below, on how to register on the Portal. If you are having issues registering, please contact the school office so we can help with the process.

Warm Regards,
Jim Wren

OUR PRAYERS…

Let us support each other in Prayer, especially for the Sick and the Deceased and those who are suffering Hardships, in our Parish and School.

APRE News

We are coming into the Third Week of Lent.

The Gospel this week shows an interesting side of Jesus. One that we don’t see that often.

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus becomes very angry when he enters the temple in Jerusalem, to find that there were people selling sheep, doves, and cattle. The price of the animals was double and triple their market value. Passover was a very busy time, and people bought animals to sacrifice during this time, as was required by religious custom.

Jesus drove the market sellers out of the temple with a rage that was so… unlike… Jesus. He was angry for several reasons, but mainly because people who had come to pray were being taken advantage of, and his father’s house was being used in such a disrespectful way.

When Jesus was questioned about his actions, Jesus warned them “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up’. The crowd was confused by this, as the stone temple had taken over 40 years to build.

Jesus was, of course, referencing the fact that his body was the temple, and he would rise from the dead after three days.

A number of years ago, I asked my priest what the point of this passage was. He replied with “The Word of God shouldn’t make you comfortable”.  I was confused that Jesus could show such anger, as I thought that being a ‘good Catholic’ meant that we couldn’t (or shouldn’t) get angry. It has taken me quite a while to actually process and try to understand how Jesus must have felt that day.  Anger, of course, is part of our human condition. Frustration, rage… all those feelings are part of our experience of who we are. 

The hard part is working on those ‘human’ feelings we all experience at some time or other. Most of us tend to move through those feelings many times a day!  We are especially seeing this across our school community. Many contributing factors are at play – the heat, new routines, new classes… this all means lots of big emotions.

The Gospel this Sunday provides us with an opportunity to reflect on how we, as adults, handle these big feelings.  As parents, we are our children’s first teachers.  How we identify, manage, express and work through big emotions is being modelled to our little people all the time.  Those eyes and ears are constantly watching and listening. Sometimes it feels better to show our big emotions outwardly, it feels easier.  However, the impact of this can be long lasting.  The message here isn’t that we can’t be angry. There are times when we should be angry at what we have experienced. The message is how can we deal with that big emotion in a way that is not harmful.

One of the strategies we use at St Pat’s are the Zones of Regulation, Prep-Year 6. This term, this program is being delivered with Mrs Webster in Health.  We will be sending out some resources to our families in coming weeks about how you might use Zones at home.

One of the most important lessons we can teach our children is forgiveness – not only of each other, but of ourselves. We are often hardest on ourselves as parents. God made us imperfectly perfect – we are all made in the image of God. Just knowing that alone fills me with such peace. I may not always get it right, but I can always offer love and forgiveness.  That’s the stuff that makes the world go round…

Be kind with yourself – you are made in the image of God!

Learning Support News

As lovely as it is to see such beautiful blossoms on our trees, often this brings lovely Hayfever, in addition to the presence of general colds and flu.  Lots of runny noses are around now.

As we start to head into Autumn, please be mindful of the impact of ear infections.  If your child experiences an ear infection, or does so regularly, can you please let me, or their teacher know.

If your child has been reviewed by a medical specialist in the last 6 months, and the reason for this review may have an impact on your child’s access to learning, can you please consider reaching out to me to have a chat.  We want to ensure all our students are set up to experience success at school.

God bless,
Mrs Anna Chandler
(Assistant Principal Religious Education & Learning Support)

MASS TIMES

St George-Dirranbandi Parish

Priest Administrator: Fr Antony Samy 0409 278 968 Email: balonneparish@bigpond.com 

TUCKSHOP

Please click the links below for our new and updated uniform price list and tuckshop menu. When ordering food on the Flexischools app please be mindful that the cutoff time is exactly 8:00am on Friday mornings (at 8:01am your order will not be accepted).

Regards
Sue Hopkins

CLASS News

Health & Drama

Students of the Week

Week 5– Aya Kennedy (Lower), Denver Radford (Middle), Rory Southern (Upper).
Week 6– Hayley Southern (Lower), Ethan Simpson (Middle), Pippi Cott (Upper).

Welcome to Week 6 in Health and Drama. 

Students have been exploring how respect and empathy can assist when we   communicate to each other, so we all feel appreciated. We have been looking at different types of behaviours that can affect our relationships with people. The students discovered why friends are important and provide us opportunities to feel good by being kind and friendly to others. 

In the lower school we have been learning about.... Sharing is caring! We read the beautiful story, Rainbow Fish, which depicted the importance of sharing and identifying the benefits and when we share and how it makes you and others feel. We also shared that you could say no but it’s important to explain why. Deny, Give and Seek when sharing. 

In the middle and upper we have continued to explore our relationships and how we can demonstrate being a good friend whilst showing respect and empathy. We discussed conflict in a relationship and what bullying means and how do we deal with the situation and the importance of being aware of how our actions and words may hurt or harm others. We have learnt the different types of bullying and what strategies we can use to help in a difficult situation. 

In Drama we used different scenarios to depict how to deal with a difficult situation and what strategies we could use both verbal and nonverbal, whilst showing facial and body expression to express the correct emotions in the situation. Each week we have continued to build on our warmup activities to develop confidence and relationships within the class. 

Hope you have an enjoyable weekend.

Regards
Mrs Jane Webster

Peeking into PrepM

Week 5– Henry Mace, Lily Donpon, Bridie Chandler.
Week 6– Sonny Bradley, Ollie Hill, Harry Muller.

Here are a few pieces of information regarding the coming week/s: 

• Library bags – please place students library bags in the big green plastic tub. On Wednesday’s this will be placed on top of the port racks. 
• English – Three years ago the Australian Curriculum underwent a review and one of the major changes in the English curriculum was moving away from ‘predictable’ texts and into decodable texts. This has meant schools have needed to look at changing their instructional models and way of teaching reading. St Patrick’s has decided to use Decodable Readers Australia as our phonics and phonemic awareness program. This means there is lots of learning for us as teachers as we continue to ensure learning is occurring for our students and undertaking training and professional development ourselves.  This week we continue to work on revising the sounds for s a t p i n and listening for the sounds in words (phonemic awareness) particularly the first and last sounds.
• Mathematics – This week our number is 5. We will also be looking at numbers that are more/less and bigger/smaller than this number and explaining how we know this. We will continue to practice forming all our letters correctly. We will also be collecting, sorting, and comparing data. An example of this is How many boys and girls are in our class? We will discuss how we could find this out, have a go at doing one of the suggestions and then talk about what we found out. 
• Religion – Lent – this week we are going to commence Daily Acts of Kindness as part of our Lenten Journey. There are three main components of Lent: prayer, almsgiving and fasting. We are going to focus daily on the almsgiving component by trying to do one act of kindness each day. We will discuss this in the morning and then again in the afternoon. 
• Parent/teacher interviews – in week 9 and 10 we have parent teacher interviews. Please keep an eye out for further information regarding this in the Parent App. 
• Upcoming term dates:
• Friday 15^th March – St Patrick’s Day Celebrations.
• Thursday 28^th March – last day of Term 1

I hope you have all had a relaxing weekend and I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow. 

Kind regards,  
Nichole & Courtney

Year 1H

Students of the Week

Week 5– Millie Harrison, Rikku McNamara.
Week 6– Lucy Wren, Charlotte May.

Welcome to week 6!  The students looked very smart in their uniforms today for school photos.  I can’t wait to see our photo! 

This week our focus has been on following instructions.  We spoke about how we do this in the classroom and in the playground and why we need to follow instructions. We decided that often, instructions are around safety or to help us learn. 

This discussion also went into what we do when our peers ask us to stop doing something or for help, and that this is like an instruction, and that we need to listen and if we can, help that person. 

In English, this week our focus was on the letters v, y and z.  We also worked on sounding out and writing CVC words that contain these letters as well as our sounds from last week. 

We continued to work on writing sentences and began to explore recounts and their purpose. 

In Maths, this week we began to focus on our numbers to 100.  We continued to recognise, represent, and order these numbers.  We used MABs to support our understanding of numbers to 100. 

We also started looking at measurement.  We ordered and compared the length of different objects in our classroom. 

Have a wonderful weekend. 
Mrs Fiona Harch

Year 1/2D

Students of the Week

Week 5– Elly May, Frankie Luck.
Week 6– William McIntosh, Hayley Southern.

Dear 1/2D families,
Week 6! Where has the time gone?

Learning for this fortnight:

• Maths – We have been working hard on representing two- and three-digit numbers as well as ordering these numbers. We are also learning about measuring and comparing mass using informal units. Miss Gaggi and I have started Maths groups each Friday with both of our classes.
• English – Our sound focus for this week 6 is the long a sound, spelt as ai and ay, which is found in the words rain and ray. Last week we focused on the sound ‘ch’ as in chin. We have also started looking at compound sentences and conjunctions. Students have started experimenting with writing or finding compound sentences in texts.
• Religion – We have been looking at our local parish community and the significance of those involved in our parish.
• Science – We are continuing our learning about change and growth. We began our bean seed experiment last week and have been observing it each day. Students have been excited to check their experiment and discuss the changes they have seen.

Important:

• Information regarding Term 1 parent teacher interviews in Week 9/10 will be coming out very soon. Keep an eye out.
• If you need a hand with Parent Portal, please drop in and I can see if I can help you.

Upcoming dates:

• Monday 11^th of March – I am away at South West netball trials.
• Friday 15^th of March – St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

Kind Regards,
Miss Beth Daly

Year 2G

Students of the Week

Week 5– Cooper Lambert Simpson, Jules North.
Week 6– Billie Fuller, Sean Martin.

Welcome to Week 6!

Here are some highlights and important information:

Math: We have learnt about length as part of our mathematical discoveries and will continue our mathematical discoveries, looking at the concept of fractions. We have introduced this concept this week and will continue learning it in the coming weeks by creating a pizza shop to help connect our learnings in a real-life, hands-on scenario. We will continue looking at the mathematical concept of place value throughout the year.

English: We are exploring and analysing fairytales. This includes the features of a fairytale and has broken down the details within fairytales and what they incorporate—looking at critical concepts such as title, setting, characters, beginning, middle, end, problem, and solution.

HASS: We have continued looking at our local community, St George. We are talking about local places and places of significance. 

Science: We have continued discussing and exploring our science focus for the term. The topic "Change and Growth" has invited us to discover how growth occurs, looking at the life cycles of a bean plant and then growing our bean plant in our own mini greenhouse in the classroom. We cannot wait to see what happens to our beans in their mini greenhouse!

Religion: We have continued looking at the local parish and making connections between Jesus' mission and ministry. Discussions have continued surrounding who serves in the local parish here at St Pat's Parish, what the parish looks like, and the inside features of our parish.

Art: We have continued to look at our identity through art and have continued to incorporate self-portraits to represent this focus.

Please note that school photo day is this Friday (1/3). Please ensure your child wears the correct uniform and looks "school photo ready."

Question to ask your child: What is the life cycle of a bean plant?

Kind regards
Miss Merryn Gaggi

Year 3C

Students of the Week

Week 5– Riley Bradley, Ruby Dalton, Sophie Luck.
Week 6– Danielle Fuller, Tillie Hyland, Tilly Willoughby.

Welcome to Week 6. It’s hard to believe that we are past halfway through the term. Here are some of our learning experiences this week. 

English:  In our reading of Matilda this week we are looking at the parts a sentence needs to make sense and we are also beginning to learn about persuasive texts. 

In Spelling we are practicing the long e sound with the patterns “ee” and “ea”. Our vocab words have included fond, witty, mild, and eccentric. 

Maths: We are continuing our work on number and this week we have started working with 5-digit numbers. The students have quickly discovered that this is not hard because it’s just like adding the next layer of learning to 4-digit numbers. 

Science: This week we are learning more about day and night and tried to answer some of our wondering questions about the relationship between the sun and the earth. We introduced some scientific words to use when we talk about how we get day and night and drew diagrams to show our thinking. 

Religion: This week we started our unit on Prayer. We had some reflection time thinking about what prayer is, who prays, when and where people and why they pray. A focus in this unit will be understanding the Our Father, The Glory Be and prayers of praise and thanksgiving. 

Other news: We welcomed Mrs Harrison into our classroom as she spent the day getting to know our class and our routines. 

School Photos this Friday – please ensure students are in full formal uniform with correct shoes and socks. 

Snack attack – please remember to send preferably a fruit snack in a named container or zip lock bag. 

Kind regards
Mrs Annette Colley
(Classroom Teacher)

Year 4R

Students of the Week

Week 5– Jake Kingston, Addison Avery.
Week 6– Noah Ballin, Abbey Duffin, Cohen Curtis.

Dear parents and caregivers,

Only four weeks are remaining in term four! This week's newsletter provides a brief overview of our students' recent academic experiences.

Subject Overview:

Maths:

Students have been working on understanding odd and even numbers and honing their times tables, focusing especially on 2, 3, 5, and 10. I encourage families to practice these tables at home. Additionally, Year 4 pupils have been learning about capacity and how to interpret scaled measurements.

English:

The class has been engaging in a group reading of 'The Twits.' The students have been studying the varied language features in the text and gaining a deeper understanding of how author Roald Dahl has constructed tension and developed engaging beginnings throughout his chapters.

Religion:

This week in our religion class, we explored the life of St Paul. The pupils learned about Paul's conversion to be a follower of Jesus, the miracle that introduced him to his faith, and his subsequent journeys and missions.

Visual Arts:

Over the past two weeks, Year 4 has been delving into the elements of visual arts. So far, we have unravelled the elements of line, shape, and form. Students have been experimenting with creating unique line patterns and crafting a mini art piece using geometric and organic shapes.

Science:

Year 4 students have been exploring how gravity and magnetic forces act from a considerable distance, as well as push and pull forces.

HASS:

Students have been investigating the distinctions and definitions of Laws and Rules. They have been studying various examples and categorising them under the respective headings of rules and laws.

Upcoming events:

Week 8, Tuesday 12th – Year 4 Bake Sale.
Week 8, Friday 15th – St Patrick’s Day.
Week 9 – Parent-Teacher interviews will occur. More information will be shared soon.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Kind Regards,  
Miss Alice Rathie

Year 5W

Students of the Week

Week 5– Emily Webster, Audrey Donges.
Week 6– Olivia Harch, Parker Gale.

Good afternoon, Parents and Caregivers of Year 5W,

Welcome to Week 6.

This is a pertinent week as we are now just over halfway through the first term. We have also passed the initial stages of the school year, where students were settling in and becoming familiar with school routines and expectations.

Meeting classroom and school expectations is the focus now, until everyone is on board with how we behave and what is required to function successfully within any classroom setting.

Thank you to all parents for your continued support with encouraging your child to meet these expectations of being polite, being kind and participating in school and class tasks.

I am pleased to say we have begun to really understand further our number facts and we are practising these weekly. Please support your child with learning their multiplication number facts by asking them regularly. Begin with x 5, x 10, x 2 then move to x 0, x 1, then x 3, x 4, x 9, lastly to the harder facts x 6, x 7, x 8. We have created strategies for each. Ask your child what strategy they are using for learning these. Help them further by giving your strategy. Practice daily. As we all know, knowing number facts is very helpful in life.

We are also focussing on reading daily. Please check that your child is reading each night either independently or to you. Daily reading practice is essential as well, as we all know.

Homework was nearly 100% last week. Please continue to support your child in completing and handing in homework. We can modify the homework at any stage-just let me know. We want every student handing in their homework regardless of how difficult or how much. The point is consistent routines and following instructions.

Kind regards
Mrs Christina Wardle 
(Year 5 Classroom Teacher 2024)

Year 6M

Students of the Week

Week 5– Joe Mace.
Week 6– Reagan Cross, Willow Marcos.

Welcome to week 6 newsletter! The term is flying, and we have been busy in year 6. Students are working well this time of year as we get to the middle of the term. Students have been enjoying Buddies on a Friday and running Assembly.

They are writing their own Animal Information report in English and working on understanding the different types of complex sentences.

Students are enjoying Visual Art as they create their ‘animal eyes’ to complement their English reports.

In Science, students are investigating the health and growth of plants by completing investigations on watering plants with different concentrations of salt and different watering techniques.

In HASS, we have been learning about Federation and writing a news article about the significance of Sir Henry Parkes.

Mrs Claire McDonnell 

Sport & Library News

Eley Elite

Week 5– Evy Tattam.
Week 6– Avril Easton.

SPORT 

Netball

Congratulations to the following girls on their selection in the Balonne District Netball teams.

10-11 yrs - Amelia O’Toole, Karlie Alderman, Brooke Hams, and Hannah Nott
10-12 yrs - Georgie Nott and Hannah Acton.

These girls will trial in St George for the SW team.  Good Luck!

Swimming

Last week several children attended the SW Swimming trials in Miles.  Hannah Acton was successful in selection for the SW team and will now travel to Brisbane for the State trials.  Well done, Hannah.

LIBRARY

BOOK FAIR is coming to our school in week 9.  18^th – 22^nd March.

Opening hours will be:
3.15 – 4pm:  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
8.15 – 9am: Friday

All classes will be borrowing on Thursdays.  Please ensure you child has a library bag for borrowing.  Book return day is Wednesday so the books can be processed before borrowing again on Thursday. 

Reading is Power and Knowledge.

Happy borrowing and reading,
Binnie Eley & Julie Pike
(St Patrick’s Library Staff)

COMMUNITY NEWS

Have Your Say

Parents of children aged 0 – 8 years.

Share your experiences of being a parent in St George.

Riversands Wines

Easter in the Vines

Two days of family fun!
Free Entry 10am – 6pm. Bookings required.