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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
Waste Busters – St Patrick’s Primary School
St Patrick’s Primary School have a brilliant bunch of students who are taking on the challenge of reducing waste at school called the Waste Busters! They completed a waste audit of their playground landfill bin on the 15th September, 2020.
They discovered that there were lots of soft plastics coming to school as well as lots of food scraps ending up in the landfill bin. They then completed the action planning workshop with BEEC and came up with loads of great ideas to reduce the waste going to landfill from the school.
What are the Waste Busters going to do to reduce the amount of waste to landfill at their school?
- Provide FOGO bins for organic waste at lunch time
- Have kitchen caddies in all classrooms
- Create posters and signage for their FOGO bins
- Introduce Bin Monitors for the FOGO bins
- Start a FOGO media campaign – ‘Who you gonna call….Waste Busters!!’
- Conduct Kahoot! FOGO quizzes with prizes for students
- Create FOGO Board games for all year levels
- Create and present FOGO skits to classes
Currently 53% (by number) or 57% (by weight) of the waste in their landfill bin is organic waste. By providing FOGO bins for the students to use and educating all the students in the school community about FOGO they aim to greatly reduce the waste they send to landfill each week. If students correctly sort their FOGO waste the school will reduce what they send to landfill by more than 50%.
The Waste Busters completed their final waste audit on July 21st, 2021. The school are now sorting their waste into FOGO, recycling, landfill and Return & Earn. The bins are grouped together in a bin station at an easy access point for students to use. The Waste Busters have organised bin monitors to help educate all the students at the school about correct waste sorting. The students ran a colouring in competition to help advertise their new FOGO bins. The results from all their hard work are amazing.
The Waste Busters and their school community have –
- reduced the overall waste going to landfill by an enormous 71% (by weight) and 67% (by number of items)
- reduced the amount of FOGO in the landfill bin from 57% to 5% (by weight)
- 0% contamination in the new FOGO bin
- 0% contamination in the Return & Earn bins
Amazing achievement for the Waste Busters – well done!!
Inspiring kids to eat healthy, waste less and be change-makers in their local community
FEAST is a food waste education program from OzHarvest. The program runs for 7-10 weeks and is a STEM project-based learning program focusing on food and fibre and the cross-curriculum priority of Sustainability. Like any good FEAST, it’s designed to be fun, engaging and filled with good food! FEAST gets kids immersed in hands-on cooking activities in the classroom with our fully equipped kitchen kits. Our senior students began the program this week;
Upcoming Events
Week 3 Chapel Mass postponed
Friday 6th August 1/2M Chapel Mass
Feast of Mary Magdalene
Yesterday was the Feast day of Mary Magdalene. Mary was a friend of Jesus who showed courage, suppored his ministry and was transformed. Mary was not only confident in her faith but confident in living it.
"I was one way, and now I am
completely different, and the thing that
happened in between was Him"
Take five minutes over the weekend to reflect and connect with Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZvKJl1kK8g
The Breakfast Club
The Mini Vinnies team and senior students have been working hard to get the breakfast club up and running. Thanks to Bakers Delight and Woolworths Bega for their generous donations and partnership.
From next week the breakfast club will be running each morning to ensure students are ready for learning. If you have and questions or concerns about your child/children particpating in the breakfast club please touch base with Mrs Grant emma.grant@cg.catholic.edu.au
Breathe
Do you take your breath for granted? I know I do and its becoming clearer than ever in this covid climate how precious our breath is. Breathing freely is what keeps us alive, healthy and calm. Deep breathing can soothe our body, mind and emotions. Stop reading NOW….and take a deep breath. How good does it feel to inflate your lungs with fresh air and then exhale the toxic air from our bodies. Use your deep breathing when you need space to think, when you have to make a decision and before you speak. This is the practise of Mindful breathing, becoming aware of what we take for granted. Until our breathing is compromised as we are asked to mask-up, this awareness of how important our breath is has never been so obvious.
PEER MEDIATION
This week volunteers were invited from the senior classes to put their names down to be Peer Mediators this term. Thank you to all the students who are now on a two week rotational roster.
PASSION CLUBS
Calling all students in grades 3-6 who are wanting to lead a Friday lunchtime Passion Club please see Ms Spicer on Monday.
SHINE CONCERT ON LINE
Due to COVID restrictions the Shine concert, which is a celebration of the Arts for students who are learning instruments, dance and have talents to share, will go online. Five students have chosen to perform and share their talents. Watch this space.
“the light in me knows the light in you is AWESOME”
Alicia Spicer
Wellbeing
Unfortunately the Southern Region Athletics Carnival that was due to be held in Bega next week has been postponed. The Archdiocesan Carnival has also been postponed. This allows us to be able to push back dates a little. Everything is very much up in the air at this point. I will be having an online meeting with Catholic Education personnel next week to try to plan our pathway forward. As soon as we know more we will pass the information on to you. Thank you for your understanding.
Jannene Harnett
Sport Coordinator
If your child/children has been absent, parents/carers are required to provide a verbal or written explanation.
- Verbal explanations can be given by phoning the office on 6492 5500.
- Written explanations must include your child’s name, absence date/s and reason. Emailed to office.bega@cg.catholic.edu.au.
Alternatively complete the
- "Absent note" Skoolbag eform
Come and BUILD YOURSELF at Two Sheds Workshop, Woodwork for Women and Kids.
Places still available in Kids classes on Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday and Teens on Friday.
We accept Creative Kids vouchers and classes are for kids 7yrs+.
Build your own awesome projects and build skills for life!
GO TO www.twoshedsworkshops.com.au/workshops-and-classes/
