2022, Term 1, Week 3 Newsletter

Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to this week’s newsletter. There is a lot of content in this week’s edition, when time allows I encourage you to read each section please. 

St Pat’s Folk Festival BBQ

We are currently busy organising, thanks to Trish Watson,  the St Pat’s Folk Festival BBQ and we need your help. As one of our major fundraising events for our School your contribution would be greatly appreciated by the P&F and the whole school community. Please indicate below of preferred days/shifts. Please fill in the form on this link to register your availability.  If you are a successful volunteer, more information will be sent home within the coming weeks. Please include your mobile numbers and also email as this makes communication easy. This fundraising event is a very big part of our P&Fs annual contribution to our school and your support would be greatly appreciated. 

School Advisory Council 

Last year we had four members of our School Advisory Council who finished their tenure with the council. We thank Adele MacDonald (chair), Ted Phillips (secretary), Mick McGoldrick and Andrew Foster for their long-serving commitment to our school’s SAC. The past two years have been challenging for many sectors, including Education. I sincerely value the pragmatic, honest and fair advice that the whole group has provided to me as Principal over these very challenging times. Mr Darren Lloyd will obviously also be moving on from his role as staff representative. This leaves Erin Holscher and me as part of the council. If you have an interest in and would like to be part of the School Advisory Council (SAC) please contact me principal@spkoroit.catholic.edu.au expressing your interest in the role. We will formalise and announce the new group members as soon as the group is formed. 

To let our school community know, the first item on our SAC agenda for 2022 will be school uniform direction this year. 

Further in this newsletter, there are other important items of information about Learning Walks, Community Conversation, Learning Letters, Traffic Safety, and our Chromebook program. 

Enjoy a great weekend,

Kind regards,

Nick Murrell

Principal

Students of the Week

Room 1 &  2

Isla Lilley for putting on a brave face, being organised and ready to start the day in a positive way! Keep up the great work. 

Oliver Van Kempen for being responsible and respectful by following the 6L’s during learning time and being a great role model for his peers. Well done Ollie, keep up the fantastic work!

Room 4

Harvey Porter -for the responsible way you have helped and made welcome our new students to our classroom. You have shown great maturity, kindness and leadership skills in making sure our class flows smoothly and everyone is included. Thank you for being such a great role model Harvey!

Mazie Fechete-for being an amazing responsible and respectful leader of our classroom. Mazie always leads by example and offers to help her peers, new teachers to our school and other students of the school without being asked.  Your kindness is always noticed Mazie, thank you!

Room 5 

Allira Askew and Jess Kelly for the responsible way that they have settled into their new school. You have been friendly and respectful in building new relationships with your classmates and we certainly hope you enjoy your time at St Pats.

Zahlia Monnier for the responsible way in which she has welcomed our new classmates. Zahlia you have been a great host, which shows your maturity and kindness, both great personal qualities to have. Thank you.

Room 7

Niamh McGoldrick for demonstrating that she is an outstanding and responsible classroom leader.  Thank you Niamh, for being a trusted student and for always setting a higher expectation for yourself in the completion of work tasks.  An excellent start to the year. 

Logan Harlock for the respectful way he has settled into our classroom routines.  Logan, you engage in discussions, try your best in work tasks and clearly care for and help your classmates. Thank you for your positive attitude at school.  

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Lincoln Arthur who is celebrating a birthday at this time.

Learning Walk - Marvellous opportunity

Thursday 24/2/22 @ St Patrick's School - Meet at the front office

We are inviting families of our school to join us for a learning walk on Thursday 24/2/22 at 2.30pm.  Learning walks are a marvellous opportunity for parents to come to the school to see “the children’s  learning in action” and in a small group be guided around classrooms by one of the school leaders. If you are interested in attending please RSVP to Nick Murrell by emailing principal@spkoroit.catholic.edu.au. Please see the flyer for more information. 

Community Conversation

Thursday 24/2/22 7.30pm - School Library

We are inviting any and all interested parents to come along and continue our Community Conversation.

Over the past few years, we have been engaging with expert, Tony Dalton, in community conversations about our fantastic school. We have been lucky enough to book Tony to come along and facilitate the session. 

What is a Community Conversation?

A conversation between people is the starting point for improved understanding. Within the community of a school, such conversations occur between all members of that community, about any areas of common interest: the family, the child, learning, growing, the ways in which the school operates the community, its priorities and hopes. Community Conversations provide a process that extends and develops those informal moments and builds and changes relationships within the community. The process involves having intentional and inclusive conversations between members of the community, in which participants listen to each other, in order to understand and explore what is important to and valued by that community.

At our previous conversation, we discussed items such as;

- Identifying & naming some possible flagships in promoting St Patrick's.

- Defining and Classifying all the stakeholders in the school.

- Identifying and naming how the school describes itself to the community through our Website, newsletter, advertising, and participation in the community. 

- We began to explore the reputation the school would like to have. Where is our school now in people’s minds?

This next conversation will pick up from here. 

If you are interested in attending be would be absolutely delighted to have you come along and can you please RSVP to Nick Murrell by emailing principal@spkoroit.catholic.edu.au. 

Or pop in or call Nick to discuss the event futher if you'd like more information. 

Learning Letters

Each term classroom teachers provide a learning letter to all families. The purpose of this letter of to provide information about the learning topics that will be undertaken for the term plus some helpful reminders about the routine in your child's classroom. Please see the links below to our learning letter for this term.

Important Traffic Safety information

To ensure the safety of our students as we begin this year we are alerting new families and reminding existing families about school pick-up procedures.

Please read the attached letter for full details. 

Thank you for your support.

Reconciliation - Expression of Interest for current Year 6 students

Dear Year 6 Families,

This is an invitation to revisit the sacrament of reconciliation this year, 2022. The program is called 'Turn Around' and is a senior reconciliation program. St Patrick's is now part of the Star of the Sea Parish and sacraments have been aligned throughout the Parish. Reconciliation in the past was celebrated in Year 2, it is now Year 6. Hence, the opportunity to revisit the sacrament. 

We are opening expressions of interest. If you would like your year 6 child to participate in this program, please email Ms Tegan McDonald tmcdonald@spkoroit.catholic.edu.au

The commitment will entail;
1. Participation in a one-hour parent/student information formation meeting, date TBC.
2. Commitment to completing the program at home with your child (4 x weekly sessions at home).
3. Participation in the sacrament liturgy - Date: Monday 4th April after school.

We look forward to working with you and supporting you and your child on this journey.

Kind regards,

Tegan McDonald

Rolling Quarantine Requirements (Household contacts – multiple exposures)

We have received some information and clarification from DOBCEL regarding Rolling Quarantine Requirements, which may be helpful to some families. 

We have had a few questions as to whether a household contact needs to begin their 7-day quarantine again if another person in the household tests positive during this period – refer to page 9 of the School Operations Guide.    

According to advice for contacts on the Victorian Government Coronavirus website, this is not required. Specifically, the advice provides:  

If another person in your household tests positive:  

• If another person in your household tests positive during your 7-day quarantine period as a household contact (in addition to the initial case) your 7-day period doesn’t start again.  
• You can complete the rest of that 7-day quarantine period, and you are cleared from quarantine if you have a negative result from a test taken on Day 6.  
• However, if you test positive on Day 6 (or on any day of your 7-day quarantine period) your quarantine period will start again because you are now infectious with the virus. You must isolate for another 7 days following your positive result.  

Chromebook Program

This week Year 4 -6 students have brought home the St Patrick’s Cyber Safety and Technology agreement for discussion with parents and carers. We encourage all families with students in these year levels (and others) to discuss safe usage of technology devices, in particular, Chromebooks. This strep is vital in the process for Year 4s receiving and beginning to use their new device. 

There are two documents attached below that provide full information about the Chromebook program and the Cyber Safety agreement.

Dates to Remember

REMINDERS

February

 22nd -  Moyne Tennis Hot Shots 

March

2nd - Ash Wednesday

11th - District Tennis Competition

11th - 14th - Port Fairy Folk Festival

14th - Labour Day Holiday

17th - St Patrick's Day

18th - Athletics Sports Carnival

30th - Moyne Athletics Carnival

Kids Community Gardening

Warrnambool Junior Soccer

Girls Footy Clinic