March 2 2023 Newsletter

Child Safety Statement

From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we reach the half way mark for Term 1. The teachers have been getting to know your children's academic abilities and personalities. We value what you have to contribute to this process, therefore I encourage you to complete the Wellbeing Forms that went home with the children and return them to the teachers as soon as possible.  

Our school community and Foundation families enjoyed watching our Foundation childen perform in their first Foundation Athletics events. Their enthusiasm and determination were a joy to watch. 

This week the teachers have worked in teams with an educational specialist to further develop their understanding of how to best utilise the Essential Assessment online tool to develop individualised learning programs for our students in mathematics and reading.  

I look forward to seeing families at our Street Race and BBQ this Friday after school. Please make sure that an adult accompanies children from years F-4. 

Olga Lyons 

From the RE Leader - Eliza Dwyer

3 Pillars of Lent

Lent is a time to prepare our hearts and minds for Easter, and the Church recommends prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as a way to focus our preparation. These are 'The 3 pillars of Lent'.

1. Prayer

Setting aside time for family prayer during Lent draws us closer to one another and to God. 

2. Fasting

During Lent, we “give things up” not to torture ourselves but to free ourselves! By making sacrifices (including meat on Fridays for family members 14 and older) and giving up things we find pleasurable during Lent, we are eliminating any stumbling blocks between ourselves and God’s love. 

3. Almsgiving

As a sign of gratitude for all God has given us, and as an act of love to those in need, Christians give generously to the poor and needy, especially during Lent.

Foundation Athletics

PE News - Tommy Greene

Warrnambool Region School Swimming Championships

Congratulations to all our swimmers for their great efforts at the Warrnambool Region School Swimming Championships today

Evie Oswin finished 3rd overall in freestyle and Luke Rayner finished 4th overall in backstroke. As a result they will both advance to the Greater Western Region Championships in Horsham on Tuesday 14th March. A fantastic result for the two of them. 

Our other competitors were also fantastic and finished in top 10 or top 20 for the region. 

Jacob Murray was last off the blocks but stormed home to finish in third place in his heat and 19th overall  in freestyle. Charlotte Versace finished 17th and 37th in breaststroke and freestyle. 

Ivy Condon won her heat to finish 14th overall in breastroke and 13th overall  in freestyle. 

Evie also finished 7th overall in backstroke and 10th in freestyle. 

Well done again to our swimmers for their brilliant efforts. Thanks to the mums and dads who attended to support our students.

Canteen Closure Days

The canteen will be closed on the following days:

• March 10th - due to Folkie BBQ preperation
• March 17th - St Patricks Day celebration special lunch

Sharing Food At School

It is our policy that we don't allow food sharing at school which means that we cannot allow children to bring food to share with classmates on their birthdays.  This is due to the large number of children in our school who have food allergies and aligns with our COVID Safe plan.  

Schoolzine

Schoolzine is a new platform that St Patrick's is now using. Our Website (not yet ready for the public!), Newsletter, Sporting Schools Form and lots more will now be through Schoolzine. Schoolzine will replace Skoolbag. At this time during transition we are still using Skoolbag for the Sporting Schools for but you can also use Schoolzine. You will find the Sporting Schools Form in Forms & Documents.

To download Schoolzine click on the link below. The passcode to get access to this App is 8137

7 Strategies Effective Readers Use

Research shows that skilled or expert readers possess seven strategies to construct meaning before, during and after reading a text. These seven strategies can be used with a variety of texts.

1. Activating: Students use their past experiences and/or knowledge to better understand the text.

2. Summarising: Students restate the purpose and meaning of a text in their own words. 

3. Monitoring and Clarifying: Students determine if they understand the text. If there are misunderstandings, they clarify and correct the confusion during and after reading a text. 

4. Visualising and Organising: Students create mental images of the text. Graphic organisers help to provide structure and allow students to generate ideas from the text.

5. Searching and Selecting: Students gather information from various sources to select to enable them to define key words, answer questions, or solve problems. 

6. Questioning: Students create questions about the text, ask themselves questions while reading the text, and answer different levels of questions about the text from their peers and/or teacher. (Example: question-answer relationship.)

7. Inferring: Students interpret the text and draw logical conclusions. 

Tips that will enhance children’s literacy development and reading enjoyment:

Make time to read together every day – the longer the better but even 15 minutes is better than not at all.

Read together in a place without distractions like television or computers.

If it is a new book, look through it together first and discuss what it might be about.

Choose books for shared reading that are more challenging than children are capable of reading on their own, which will expose them to words, ideas, themes, and concepts that will contribute to their vocabulary, and general knowledge.

Encourage children to be more adventurous in their own book choices, especially at the library.

Don’t insist on finishing a book if they are not enjoying it after the first few chapters. Put it aside and maybe come back to it another time.

Sustainability News - Benson Steere

This year we will be taking part in our annual Clean Up Australia Day. Mr Steere and Tom will be taking a group of sustainability students, as well as our sustainability leaders Jye and Charlie down to South Beach here in Port Fairy. We will be doing our best to help clean up our community. We have provided a link for you to donate to the Clean Up Australia Day Foundation. Any donation helps to ensure we are keeping our environment as clean as possible.

Weekly News - 3/4MM

Welcome to Pod Squad! 

Our classroom mascot is a wonderful dolphin called Splash. Did you know a group of dolphins is called a pod? That is why we are known as the Pod Squad!  

Did you know that a pod has 3 to15 dolphins in it but a super pod can have up to 500 dolphins? Dolphins are very clever. Instead of words they make clicks, squawks and whistles. A baby dolphin even knows the sound of its mum's call!

A baby dolphin is called a calf. Calves stay with their mothers for up to eight years. Dolphins have a blowhole that they use to breathe at the top of the water. There are more than 30 species of dolphins. 

- By Will and Harvey

 Lent and Easter 

Lent is a time when we countdown to Easter. Shrove Tuesday is a day when you get pancakes. In the old days you would bake foods from leftovers like flour, sugar, eggs and milk because at Easter you eat lots of chocolate and lollies. 

Ash Wednesday is a day of prayer and peace. It is the first day of Lent.

Easter is a colourful season. It is about Jesus and the biggest event on our church calendar, bigger than Christmas! Easter is the time that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

We celebrate Easter with eggs and chocolate because eggs are a symbol of new life and rebirth .

- By Lulubelle, Ines, Bonnie

Growing up

As we grow up, we learn, change, walk and we have fun!

We start as cute little babies, we dribble, cry, walk and we grow. It is amazing how fast we grow! When you are little you wear baby clothes and you giggle a lot!

Every baby is cute, nobody can say how cute a baby is! You change in your life and more things happen.You come to school and learn different things, then go to high school, then get a job and then maybe have a beautiful family and kids! It starts all over again! This is called the circle of life.

- By Maggie, Matilda and Grace

All about dolphins

Did you know that a group of dolphins is called a pod? A pod has 3 to 15 dolphins but a super pod can have up to 500 dolphins!

Did you know that dolphins have been swimming in the ocean for more than 15,00000 years?

Now dolphins die from pollution, orcas, sharks and fishermen/women. Fishermen/women harm dolphins with fishing rods and nets. Dolphins can die from developing bad habits if they are contained in a pool. It means they get lazy. The weather forecast can change and do harm to dolphins.

Did you know that there are 37 species of dolphins? One type is the spotted dolphin but they are spotless until they turn two years old.

- By Lewis and Isaac

Maths - Big numbers are easy and fun!

If you count up to the hundreds you can count all the other numbers easily.

We have been working on place value and larger numbers that we have no idea about but we are getting the hang of it! We have been expanding numbers and ordering them from large to small. We have talked about odd and even numbers too. We have been learning how to round bigger numbers and number lines with dice. 

We are using a new online games platform to play maths games - it is called SplashLearn! We love it! At St Pat’s we make the maths sessions fun and educational.

- By Maya, Tara and Freddie

Super Specialists

Art - In Art we are making beetles on leaves. Our theme is called  - Welcome to the Jungle. Most of us are up to colouring the beatles but some people are still doing the leaves, shading them using crayons and line work.

Sport - In sport we are doing bat and ball games like tennis and tball. We are learning the rules of the games and how to hit a ball.

Japanese - In Japanese we are learning about the weather and how to say words like sunny, rainy, snow and cloudy in Japanese. This year we have our own Japanese classroom. 

- By Hudson, James and Sawyer

Catholic Schools Parents Victoria Newsletter

Now we are well into the new school year, there are various topics of interest to share with parents. Please find a link below for our February issue of CSPV Connect News.

In this issue they have included two important surveys for parents to provide their voice and perspective for key issues in education. 

We hope you enjoy the information they share.

They would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading and look forward to supporting you and the families in our in 2023.

Parents and Friends News

Community News