2021, Term 1, Week 3 Newsletter
Principal's Message
Dear Parents and Carers,
PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR INFORMATION REGARDING SCHOOLING ARRANGEMENTS FOR NEXT WEEK
Community engagement has been a key theme throughout St Patrick's this week with two key events taking place; a Community Conversation on Wednesday afternoon and a Learning Walk on Thursday morning.
The Community Conversation had 8 school parents, our 6 student leaders, myself and our facilitator Mr Tony Dalton. The conversation focused on three main areas; using a colour to explain learning at St Pat's, What we would never like to lose about learning at St Pat's and What is something you'd like to see the school do to share the power of learning at St Pat's. We had some very insightful contributions from our student leaders and parents. Responses were wide-ranging and thoughtful, from; using the colour pink to describe the warm, caring and loving environment people have experienced, to the importance of friendship and community as well as some poignant suggestions about suggesting the implementation of 3-way interviews as a more powerful approach to parent /teacher interviews and finding different and more regular ways to involve families with the current subject content in classrooms. We thank all parents and students for their valuable contributions on the day.
All new families to St Pat's in 2021 were invited to join a Learning Walk on Thursday morning. The focus of the Learning Walk was on children and their learning. Parents were asked to choose a focus for the walk and we referred back to this regularly throughout the walk. One of our parents commented that "I liked seeing what was supporting the learning at school, so I can incorporate this at home", indicating the walk enabled a flow between school and home learning. Our participating parents also witnessed classroom learning to be "encouraging for children", "supportive" and "educating the whole child" (eg: academic/social/emotional).
We plan to continue with these approaches to keep engaging and working with our community to ensure St Patrick's is the best possible learning environment and experience for students and families that it can be.
Kind regards,
Nick Murrell
Principal
My New Gallery
Students of the Week
Room 3 : Foundation Students: for their super start to school! I can't wait to see what they can achieve throughout the year. Bring it on!
Room 4 : Harvey Porter: for settling in so well to your new classroom and school, making lots of new friends and learning our routines very quickly. Thank you for the responsible way you approach your learning and the kindness you show to others. A great start to the year Harvey!
Mazie Fechete: for being a fabulous leader in room 4 and showing a very responsible attitude to all aspects of her learning. She is always organised, focused on the task at hand and consistently finishing her work to a wonderful standard, then helping other classmates. Keep up the great work Mazie!
Room 5 : Jaxon Leishman: for being a responsible leader in the classroom. He helps others with their learning by giving clear instructions.
Billy O’Connor: for being a responsible learner. He showed how interested he was in our maths and writing lessons by focusing, listening and volunteering answers.
Room 7 : Beau Porter: Welcome to St Patrick’s Koroit Beau. You have made an excellent transition into a new school. I commend you on your responsible learning habits and organisation.
Annabelle Foster: Annabelle shows respectful and responsible learning habits as a leader in class. She is prepared to work hard in Mathematics and share her knowledge with classmates.
Hall : Piper Fechete: Piper has demonstrated great responsibility in her learning by asking excellent questions, particularly in Maths and with our class novel. A great start to the year Piper.
Georgia Arthur: Georgia has been responsible, always trying her best in learning tasks. It has been great to see Georgia persist and achieve in reading a more complex novel. Well done Georgia.
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday to Lincoln Arthur and Poppy Martin who are celebrating a birthday this week.
POSTPONED - Parent-Teacher Interviews
3:40pm - 6:00pm, Monday 15th February, 2021
3:40pm - 6:00pm, Wednesday 17th February, 2021
To help start the year with a clear understanding of student needs at St. Patrick’s we conduct 10-minute parent-teacher interviews with all parents and carers starting next week. The first Parent-Teacher interviews allow parents to formally meet their child’s classroom teacher, discuss their child’s needs and to allow the teacher to feedback some recent assessment interview achievements.
Appointments with your child’s teacher can be booked online using PAM. There are links to PAM on SZAPP and the school website. Please see the below link to help show the process.
Booking_Parent_Teacher_Interviews_on_PAM.pdf
New families, your usernames and passwords have been emailed to you.
Allow 10 minutes between appointments to move from one classroom to the other to ensure you get the full 10 minutes with your child/ren's teacher.
A covid safe environment will still be in place; including mask-wearing at all times, social distancing and application of hand sanitisers. All families must register via the QR codes placed at classroom entry points. Waiting seats will be at classrooms as you wait for the previous interview to conclude.
We thank all families for your understanding and cooperation with this process.
Parents and Friends 2021
St Patrick's Parents and Friends invite you to come along to our first meeting of the year to be held on Wednesday the 24th of March 7.30 pm at Mickey Bourkes. This is a fantastic opportunity to discuss ideas and initiatives for the coming year. All are welcome.
Please RSVP (using the form below) by March 20th for COVID booking purposes. For those who are unable to attend, you can use the same form to share any ideas or initiatives that could enable the P&F to continue providing their incredible support to our school community in 2021.
If you are able to help with Friday canteen duty this year, can you please indicate using the linked form below.
POSTPONED - Shrove Tuesday Whole School Mass
St Patrick’s opening school mass this year will be held during school hours on Tuesday the 16th of February (Shrove Tuesday). Fr Corrigan is looking forward to utilising the opportunity to interact with all the students during mass and welcome in Lent. Our 2021 student leaders will receive a blessing and be congratulated by the school community. All families are welcome and encouraged to attend the mass which will be beginning at 2.40 pm.
Ash Wednesday
School Leaders will be attending the Parish mass and then helping to distribute ashes to students at our school liturgy.
POSTPONED - Shrove Tuesday Pancake Picnic
As a way to celebrate the beginning of the school year, we are planning to host a picnic tea on Shrove Tuesday, 16/2/21, 5.30-7.30pm, on the school oval. All school families are invited to bring along their own picnic tea and a picnic blanket on this evening. Due to current COVID restrictions, the event will be held outdoors with no backup to move inside. Families are asked to bring along their own food and not share food with others. We ask that families will be socially distanced for the picnic.
The school will also provide some free freshly made pancakes and condiments that will be prepared and distributed in a COVID safe manner.
If current COVID guidelines change the event may be cancelled with short notice.
2021 School Fees/CSEF
School Fees
As parents and carers were informed last year, there has been no increase from the 2020 school fee schedule. Please see the 2021 fee schedule listed above.
Health Care cardholders
CSEF is provided by the Victorian Government to assist eligible families to cover the costs of school trips, camps and sporting activities.
If you hold a valid means-tested concession card or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible for CSEF.
The allowance is paid to the school to use towards expenses relating to camps, excursions or sporting activities for the benefit of your child.
New applicants should contact the school office to obtain a CSEF application form or download the attached form or go to www.education.vic.gov.au/csef
If you applied for the CSEF at your child's school in 2020, you do not need to complete an application form in 2021 unless there has been a change in your family circumstances.
You only need to complete an application form if any of the following changes have occurred:
new student enrolments; your child has started or changed schools in 2020 or you
did not apply in 2020.
changed family circumstances; such as a change of custody, change of name, concession card number, or new sibling
Chromebooks
We apologise that Yr 4-6 students have not yet received their Chromebooks. We have had significant set backs with our school technology at the beginning of the year, with disruptions to services and our school server breaking down. All technology services are temporarily restored and a new server is in transit. This has allowed our attention to refocus on the setup and distribution of Chromebooks. They will be distributed in the very near future. We thank students for their patience, they are very excited!