Newsletter 2022/15 ~ 27 May 2022

As partners in Catholic Education and open to God’s presence, we pursue the fullness of life for all.

St. Patrick’s School is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all students.

We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Victoria and pay respect to the ongoing living cultures of First Peoples. 

This newsletter comes to you from the lands of the Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagalk Nations.

From the Principal

Catholic Education Week Prayer

You sent your son, Jesus, to be our hope.

We feel his promised spirit at work within us.

We recognise his risen presence among us as we gather in his name in prayer, and celebrate the Eucharist.

He is the hope which inspires us to share as members of the Catholic educational community, in your Church's mission to announce the Good News to the whole world.

We thank you for the gift of Catholic Education.

May it continue to be a place where Christ ignites within us, an abiding confidence, in a future filled with hope.

We make this prayer through the same Christ, our Lord.

Amen

Across the Diocese of Ballarat this week, sixty-four schools educating 18,500 students, are celebrating Catholic Education Week.  The theme this year is Share the Good News.  

Imagine, just for a moment, if every single contact we had with another showed the other true respect, upheld their human dignity and demonstrated genuine love and care for them, no matter what their race, gender, social class, religion or sexual preference was. 

Sadly, the tragic event in Texas earlier this week, together with the ongoing wars and persecutions around the world, demonstrate to the world that humanity has a long way to go in the endeavour to establish peace, hope and love across all communities.  If we truly believe in the dignity of all human persons, that all of us are loved unconditionally by the Creator, then we must stand in solidarity with those who experience persecution, hatred and extremism and say with conviction that anything that diminishes human dignity is “not welcome here”.

Imagine if we accepted everyone just as they were, like Jesus did, and showed them the kind of welcome and acceptance that Jesus would. If we can do that, then we truly will be bringing the Good News of Jesus to those we meet; we will be showing that Jesus is still alive and living through us.

Catholic Education Week provides a wonderful opportunity for deep listening, for dialogue with our extended community and for sharing the Good News that Catholic schools are places of inclusion, respect and dignity for all.  

Today we venture to Warracknabeal to share in the celebrations of Catholic Education Week with staff and students from St Mary’s Primary School (Warracknabeal), St Joseph’s Primary School (Hopetoun) and Our Lady Help of Christians (Murtoa).  As we gather as one, we will be reflecting on how we can share the Good News in our world: in our families, in our school community, in our wider Nhill and district community, in our nation, and on a global level. As a Catholic School Community, we acknowledge that Christ is the foundation of Catholic Education.  With this knowledge, we aim to support the children as they learn to respond to the Gospel in their daily lives and we aim to support the children as they come to value learning and assist them to explore their emerging role in society.  That is truly something worth celebrating this Catholic Education Week!

We will share stories and photos from today on next week’s newsletter and on our Facebook page.

RECENT EVENTS

National Simultaneous Storytime & Australia's Biggest Morning Tea

On Wednesday at 11.00am our students joined with other students around the country for National Simultaneous Storytime.  We had fun dressing in the Family Tree theme, and Mrs Dickinson read the story Family Tree, along with an Auslan reading of the story also.  Following the story, parents/friends celebrated Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea.  Our donations totalling $506.25 support the Cancer Council’s raising of vital funds for life-saving research, prevention programs, and information and support services.  

Online donations can still be made at this link.

Family Tree

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Questacon

All students will be attending a science show presented by Questacon next Thursday 2 June at the Nhill Lutheran School.  We are fortunate to be able to have this travelling show visit Nhill and we look forward to their presentation with enthusiasm.  Students will travel by bus at 9.40am and return to school at 11.10am.  

Please complete the permission note in PAM by the due date.

Along with bringing the show to Nhill, Questacon are also holding pop-up science centres throughout their visit. These events include over thirty interactive science exhibits as well as a range of spectacular science shows and are FREE for our students given that they will be attending the school show.  Details are setout in the following flyers. Book online to arrange free entry.

Winter Lightning Premierships

Next Friday our Years 4-6 students will be participating in the Winter Lightning Premiership Tee-Ball competition at Nhill College.  Games will commence at 10.00am and conclude at 1.30pm.  Notes will be sent out via PAM (SIMON Everywhere) soon.

Kinder Visits

Current 4-year-old Kinder students and their families are invited to visit our school on

Friday 17 June

from 9.15am until 11.00am

Children and their parents will be able to join our Foundation-Year 1 class during the morning session.  There will be an opportunity for a short walk-through of our school to see our classes in action.  Parents will then be invited to an information session in the hall whilst the children continue with the classroom activity.

An information letter has been distributed to all Kinder families regarding the possibility to visit each of the local schools over a three week period.

I invite all families who are considering their Primary School options for 2023, to come and take a look at what we have to offer at St Patrick’s School.  

If you are unable to attend on 17 June and would like to arrange an alternate time, please contact me on 0419929271 or principal@spnhill.catholic.edu.au

We look forward to nurturing your child’s future.

Enrolments for 2023 are now being accepted. 

Please contact the front office for an enrolment package.

Sunday's Gospel Reflection 

John 14:23-29

Sunday’s Gospel reminds us that the Christian's life is not shaped by Jesus' absence but by God's abiding presence; God's presence overcomes anxiety about Jesus’ absence; and the present holds in it the seeds of a fresh future shaped by love, not fear.

Jesus' relationship with the Father and the disciples' relationship to Jesus connect the disciples to the Father as well. Jesus promises to send an Advocate or intercessor who will remind the disciples of everything that Jesus taught them and bring them peace.

Jesus is preparing his disciples in advance for his absence so that they will continue to believe in him and not feel all alone after his return to the Father. After the initial excitement of his Easter appearances, Jesus will remain with his followers in a very different way throughout the centuries.

As our celebration of the Easter season is coming to an end, the liturgy reminds us that Jesus remains with us through the Holy Spirit, who teaches us everything we need to know, reminds us of all that Jesus taught, and brings us peace.

Our Josephite Heritage

The Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, often called the "Josephites" or "Brown Joeys", were founded in Penola, South Australia, in 1866 by Mary MacKillop and the Rev. Julian Tenison Woods. In 1949, three Josephite sisters arrived in Nhill to open St Patrick’s School. In 1978, the Sisters of St Joseph informed the Nhill Parish that they would no longer be able to maintain their role within the school.

We endeavour to honour our Josephite heritage through the regular presentation of the Little Joey awards at our assemblies. In support of this we also include a reflection from Mary MacKillop on our newsletter each week.

Classroom and Student News

Junior Class

Mrs Creek

Our shared story this week is titled, The Ice-cream Truck by Lalie Harcourt. Every night at 6’clock the grown-ups put their hands on their heads and cry “Oh, no, Mr. Bumble is here”! They are not pleased that their children want ice-cream but then don’t eat their tea. A meeting is called and they come up with a plan. Our class discussed lots of plans between themselves. I’ll let them tell you what happens. It’s rather a funny end to the story.

With our first week of ‘Show and Tell’ underway, students are learning to present in front of an audience. This helps to build confidence and self-esteem.

In Mathematics, we have sorted picture scenes into time segments-seconds, minutes, hour, and week.

Reflecting on our Corinthians scripture for Religion this week, which starts ‘Love is patient, and love is kind’, we have been able to draw times at school when we can show forth love to others.

As we gather at Warracknabeal for Catholic Education Week, I know your children will enjoy joining with the other schools to sing the songs we have been learning.

Middle Class

Miss Williams

This week we have had a fun and exciting week, from National Simultaneous Storytime on Wednesday, a day off school on Thursday, Celebrating Catholic Education Week at Warracknabeal today, and everything else in between!

In Reading this week have continued to follow on with both narrative information texts and poems through our shared stories Neville the Devil and The Happy Humpback Whale. Both texts explore information about animals in the form of a narrative that also has some rhyming aspects.

In Writing we have continued on with our poetry and have looked at shape poems. Each shape or object we drew, we had to come up with words that we associate with the shape or object. We have also had a go at finishing off some of our amazing rhyming poems from last week.

In Maths we have come to the end of our unit on money. We have thoroughly enjoyed playing with, earning, spending and saving money. We had some wonderful purchasers who were able to not only add up the total of their purchases but were also able to calculate change as well. This week we focused on some games to highlight how we can make collections of coins add up to the same value in different ways.

In Religion this week we looked at scripture pieces about love and have progressed onto what else God loves other than people. We have identified that God also loves nature and animals. This week we began important conversations around how we can love and care for nature and are going to be working towards identifying more about how we can love nature in the following weeks.

Senior Class

Ms Murphy

This week we have continued our journey with reading to find information and writing information pieces. Our focus turned to writing an informative piece around a person of our choice negotiated with the teacher, so far these are looking rather impressive. I applaud students on the work ethic shown in the classroom this week. We have had three very full days on a tight schedule. It is really pleasing to see most students in the senior room maximising their learning time and verbalising the challenges they face in their daily tasks. Remember there is no such thing as a silly question (unless you already know the right answer!). 😂

It was an exciting day on Wednesday with many ‘trees’ walking around our school, so many wonderful, colourful outfits and happy faces. We all enjoyed Mrs D reading to us at our Morning Tea event and it was fascinating to watch Auslan in action with all those fabulous illustrations looming in the background. Thank you to those who were able to come along and enjoy our combined National Simultaneous Storytime and support the Cancer Council's Australia's Biggest  Morning Tea event. Most of us have had fun singing along to our Catholic Education Week celebration songs and are enjoying the opportunity to share our school spirit with others at our celebration day in Warracknabeal today.

We are looking forward to a local farm visit in the near future with further details provided to you via our PAM system. Mr Keller will join us for his final week and will take the helm for some half day sessions. We are currently planning reading and writing tasks around ‘Farm Safety’ and what farming looks like for us in Nhill. I am very excited to learn more and welcome all to contribute in any way they may think useful to us!

Students are to be reminded not to draw on their skin and to remove nail polish and jewellery prior to school, thank you.

Important Dates and Reminders

Term Dates

Term 2

26 April to 24 June

Term 3

11 July to 16 September

Term 4

3 October to 20 December

School Calendar

Reminders

Lunch Orders

Lunch orders should be written onto an envelope with correct money sealed inside.  Please don’t use plastic bags or waxed bags.  The writing wipes off these and the staff at the bakery find it hard to read.

Parent Access Module (PAM)

We strongly encourage parents to use the Parent Access Module PAM (SIMON Everywhere) to inform us of student absences. These notes can be set in advance (if, for example, you know that your child will be absent a week in the future). Notes written in the diary are for communicating with teachers. Absent notes need to be directed to the office.

Please speak with office staff if you have any questions about PAM.

Simon Everywhere

The Simon Everywhere app delivers instant notifications to parents' mobile phones, delivering the functionality of PAM (SIMON Parent Access Module) in an easy to navigate app.  

We request that all parents please download the Simon Everywhere app, add St Patrick's School, Nhill and login using your existing PAM credentials.  

We will use Simon Everywhere for all important notifications.  

You will be able to manage all your day-to-day school needs from the Simon Everywhere app - notify us of absences, view the lunch orders menu, read the newsletter ...

Please contact the office with any questions.

Bus notes

Parents of bus travelling students please note that Nhill College has requested that any changes to travel arrangements (e.g. if you are picking up your child after school) be notified before 3.00pm on that day.  You can do this by -

• calling our school office 53911575
• sending an email to principal@spnhill.catholic.edu.au or krintoule@spnhill.catholic.edu.au
• use the Bus Change Notification Form on their website - this is a quick and easy process on your mobile phone (hint: add this as a quick link on your phone's home screen)

Remember to follow us on Facebook

Those who are on Facebook are encouraged to follow our page at St Patrick's School, Nhill.  'Like' our page, enjoy our posts, and share them with your friends.  Stay connected through our Social Media page.

Coronavirus information

New information

Face masks

• Face masks, while recommended, are not required in any school setting. This means students in Years 3 to 6, staff and visitors in primary schools are no longer required to wear face masks. 
• Any student or staff member who wishes to wear a mask may, however, do so.
• Everyone over 8-years-old must wear a face mask when travelling to and from school on school bus services,  public transport, taxis or rideshare vehicles.

Screening requirements

• Students and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, and have completed their 7-day isolation period, now do not need to undertake rapid antigen test (RAT) screening for 12 weeks after their release from isolation. This was previously 8 weeks.

Household contacts

• Students and staff who are household contacts of a COVID-19 case are no longer required to quarantine. They can return to school as long as they undertake rapid antigen tests (RAT) 5 times within their 7-day period and wear face masks indoors if they are aged 8 and above unless they have a valid exemption.
• Household contacts are required to inform the school that they are attending during the 7 day period.   
• If any household contact returns a positive RAT result during this period, they must isolate for 7 days and not attend school.
• Students who report a positive result must isolate for seven days and not attend school during that period. 
• If a student tests positive or is a household contact of someone who tests positive, the school must be notified as soon as possible. They must also  follow the Checklist for COVID cases.

Vaccination requirements for visitors to schools

• Parents, carers and other adult visitors (not performing work) are no longer required to show evidence of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.  

RAT screening program extension

• Twice a week RAT testing is no longer required.  Instead, RATS are required by students who are household contacts to attend school (5 negative tests over a 7-day period), or who have symptoms.
• The supply of RATs will continue for the remainder of this term.  Please contact the school office if you require another RAT kit.
  

Practise good hygiene

• All staff, students and visitors to schools should undertake regular hand hygiene, particularly on arrival to school, before and after eating, after blowing their nose, coughing, sneezing or using the toilet.
• Hand sanitiser is available at entry points to classrooms.
• Sharing of food is not permitted.

The most important action school communities can take to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 is to ensure that any unwell staff, parents / carers and students do not attend school sites even with the mildest of symptoms and get tested.

School Advisory Council

Parent Representatives

Helen Cannell

Moo Khu James

Zanther McEldrew

Emily Gladdis

Nathan Wheeler

Appointed Representatives

Ann Munro - Parish

Ex Officio

Mons. Glynn Murphy - Parish Priest

Kingsley Dalgleish - Principal

Next Meeting

Tuesday, 19 July 2022, 7.30pm

Our Mission

Community News