2022, Term 4, Week 10 Newsletter

Acknowledgement of Country

St. Patrick's School acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we work, the Koroitch-gundidj people of the Maar Nation. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. 

Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

One week to go! I have had several conversations with people in our community this week, and there is an overwhelming consensus that the term has completely flown. Perhaps we are not 'match fit' to a regular term 4 given what the past two years have delivered us. Needless to say, the end of year is fast approaching. Thank you to all in our community who have contributed to such a successful Term 4. 

End of Year Mass

This morning we celebrated a beautiful end of year mass to acknowledge the wonderful year we have had. The mass was celebrated reverently by students, staff and our wider community. During the mass we acknowledged departing students, symbolically represented the leadership handover between Year 6s and Year 5s and announced and presented badges to our 2023 school leaders. Thank you to Ms Tegan McDonald and Fr. John Corrigan for preparing and leading this lovely celebration. Thank you also to Monique and our amazing choir.

Fairytale Christmas

What a sensational performance our Fairytale Christmas was last night in the school hall. I spoke last night about how blown away I was by the way our students memorised the songs, learnt the dance moves, rehearsed their lines and danced in time. The 4/5/6 students who had so much content to retain for their performances were a credit to themselves. I also spoke on the night of three values that were abundantly evident throughout the performance; Teamwork, Collaboration and Interdependence. Our students relied on each other and others relied on them to deliver what was an incredible fairytale end to our 2022 Arts program. 

I would like to publicly thank Mrs Regina Cassidy for her concept, vision and hardwork with our students to ensure the performance was a great success. Thank you Regina.

I would also like to thank all the parents who contributed to our sausage sizzle at the conclusion of the concert. Without support from our parents and friends we are unable to provide such catering. Thank you!

Employment updates

Recently we advertised a part-time Learning Support Officer position. I am pleased to announce that Mr Seamus Brady has accepted this position and will return to the St Patrick's Community as a Learning Support Officer next year. Seamus was our school's first ever trainee and has since applied his LSO qualification in a variety of school settings. Welcome back Seamus.

I am also pleased to announce that Miss Ella Lewis and Miss Monique Brown will be staying on at St Pat's in 2023 in part time LSO positions. We are very lucky to retain these two LSOs who have given so much to our students and school in 2022. 

All three of these appointments are excellent news for our community as they ensure a high level of support to student needs at our school. There will be no trainee LSO position in 2023. 

Carols at the Stage

Congratulations to all students and staff who represented our school at the Koroit Carols at the Stage last weekend. Our choir performed Jingle Bell Rock and Go Santa Go!, doing an amazing job! Thank you to Miss Monique Brown for her guidance and tutelage provided to our students in the choir. 

Have a great weekend everyone.

Kind regards,

Nick Murrell

Principal

No Awards this Week

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Charlotte Lilley and Hunter Erwin who are celebrating their Birthday at this time.

Last day of Term 4

Next Friday December 16th will be the last day of school for the year. School will finish at 3.30pm on this day. 

We had previously advertised an earlier finishing time, this is not the case. All Warrnambool Network Catholic Primary Schools will be finishing at 3.30pm on this day. 

2023 School Leaders

Over the past few weeks Year 5 students have had the opportunity to apply for the 2023 student leadership team. Students interested wrote a letter of application to myself and subsequently delivered a speech to their peers on Tuesday. All students who chose to apply for the positions did an amazing job speaking in front of their peers giving their pitch! At the conclusion of the application and speech process students in Year 3, 4, 5 and staff voted for 6 students each. I am pleased to announce our 2023 Student Leadership team is: Esther Gleeson, Addy Fechete, Niamh McGoldrick, Lincoln Arthur, Beau Porter and Jaxon Leishman.

My New Gallery

Updates from last newsletter

School Uniform update

Thanks to our Parents & Friends and Bronie for coordinating our school uniform sale on Tuesday. It was a great opportunity for our families to purchase uniform at a reduced cost. 

The uniform sale raised some questions in our school community which I will do my best to address in today's newsletter. 

The purpose of the uniform sale was to help the school reduce its stock levels in order to make the transition to Directwear, as our new school uniform supplier, quicker. Our school is currently holding uniform stock in excess of $10,000. In order to balance our school finances we would like to sell as much of our stock as possible before we transition. 

There is currently no plan to alter our school uniform policy. Any item purchased from our school uniform shop will be able to be worn for the foreseeable future, including, once we have transitioned to Directwear as our primary supplier. 

Our current uniform policy makes it hard to achieve uniformity on school photo day. This is a school based issue, regardless of what is required for students to wear on school photo day, the school will provide uniform items to those who may not have a particular required item for the purpose of 'uniform' school photos. 

We are hoping to transition to Directwear sometime in term 2 2023. 

2023 Class Structure

Orientation day is coming up on Tuesday December 13th 11.30-1.30, on this day students will gather and complete activities with their 2023 classmates. Our class structure for next year will be:

Room 1 - Foundation 

Room 2 - Year 1/2

Room 4 - Year 2/3

Room 5 - Year 4/5

Room 7 - Year 6

There are many different factors that are considered each year when we arrange our multiage structures. These include the possible best learning outcomes for all students, learning needs, curriculum delivery, class sizes, social factors, staffing, physical school spaces and others. We believe this structure for 2023 provides, as best we can, positives for all of the aforementioned factors. 

2023 School Calendar

We are currently in the process of creating a 2023 annual school calendar to ensure as many foreseeable events are included, planned and communicated for next year. Once this has been finalised, all dates will be transferred to our school calendar on SZAPP and an A3 paper copy will be provided to families early in 2023. 

2022 KK in classrooms - Community focus

This year we are asking students/families to provide a gift to the wishing tree for St Vincent de Paul at Koroit IGA as our classroom KK.  We believe that as a Catholic School it is important to emphasize giving at Christmas time as being more important than receiving. We also empathize that receiving is fun for our students too, each student will receive a Christmas gift from their child’s classroom teacher. There will be more detailed information coming from your child/ren’s classroom teacher very soon.

Rapid Antigen Tests

This week, we sent home a supply of RATs with your child.  While it is no longer a requirement to test, we were advised to distribute the supply we had at school prior to the end of the school year.

Families may find these useful while catching up with family and friends over the festive season and keeping vulnerable members of our community safe.

Congratulations Myra Quill

Congratulations to Myra Quill on her first place at last week's Junior 100m dash at the Warrnambool Gift. The dash was a handicap event which had Myra starting behind a number of her fellow competitors. Myra was able to sprint past them and hit the line first! Myra this achievement is an absolute credit to the training and commitment your have shown to athletics. We wish you all the best as you continue to represent yourself and the school in future athletic events. 

Library Report

Have you bought your library books back?  Now is the time to return all library books so Mrs. Brown can complete stocktake of our school library collection.

The class that brings all their books back first gets a prize!!!

Dates to Remember

REMINDERS

December

12th - 5/6 Open water swimming 10.30-11.30

13th - Orientation Day

14th -  5/6 Open water swimming 10.30-11.30

14th - Yr 6 Graduation Lunch Yr6 Grad evening

15th - 5/6 Open water swimming 10.30-11.30

16th - Students' last day 3.30pm finish

Sports Uniform

ACTION REQUIRED - PAM (Parent Access Module) Accounts

Over the Christmas holidays your PAM account will be updated to provide better security and allow for further functionality. This change will involve moving to a PAM account per parent rather than an account per family. To help us prepare for this change, please answer the questions in the survey on PAM as soon as possible.

Parish Bulletin

Community News

There is a lot happening in Koroit and Warrnambool! Check out the flyers below and join in some of the fun!

To view full information click on this link