Newsletter 2022/23 ~ 12 August 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

On Monday we celebrated the Feast Day of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop.

Mary MacKillop was born on 15 January 1842 in Melbourne. Her parents were born in Scotland and came to live in Australia.  She had three sisters and four brothers.

Mary cared about the people who had no one to look after them, such as boys and girls who just roamed the streets, children in the country who had no school to go to, people who were old and sick and people who had nowhere to live. More than anything, Mary wanted to help these people. 

Mary went to work as a teacher in Penola, South Australia, where she met Father Julian Tenison Woods who also wanted to do something for the poor children who could not afford to pay the money needed to go to school. 

Together, in 1866, they began the first St Joseph’s School in an old stable. On 19 March 1866 (St Joseph’s Day) Mary started to wear a simple black dress and began the Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph. Now as a Sister, she dedicated her life to doing God’s work.

As more and more young women joined Mary as Sisters, they were able to start more schools. All children were welcome at the Josephite schools, which provided free Catholic education.

Mary MacKillop died on 8 August 1909 in Sydney. After she died, the Sisters of St Joseph kept on doing the good work she had started. They also continued starting new schools, including St Patrick’s School, Nhill in 1949.

Mary is an important Australian who spent her life helping people, especially children. She is Australia’s first Saint.

God of all blessings,

You revealed in Mary MacKillop a sensitivity to the rights and dignity of every person, regardless of race or creed.

May we learn from her to overcome the obstacles of prejudice and fear.

Help us to value the goodness of each person and all the blessings of unity in diversity.

We ask this through the depth of unity of you, our bountiful God, who hold all things in being.

Amen.

St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, Pray for Us.

Circuit Breaker Long Weekend

A reminder that tomorrow (Friday) and Monday are School Closure Days.  This long weekend has been granted to all Catholic Schools in the diocese as we continue to deal with the effects of COVID and the winter ailments of colds and flu.

CURRENT & RECENT EVENTS

School Wide Positive Behaviour 

During play times, staff have been monitoring for students demonstrating aspects of Respect, Responsibility and Safety within the school yard.  Names were collated and shared during yesterday’s assembly.  A draw then took place from the names within each category and that student’s House received a token for their House jar.  The House with the most tokens later in the year will be rewarded.

Congratulations to the following children who were recognised for their actions around the school over the past week.

Daniel (Patrick), Doh Wah (Patrick) and Ben (Patrick) were randomly drawn out of the names listed for Respect, Responsibility and Safety respectively.

UPCOMING EVENTS

WWSSA Athletics

We wish the ten students who have progressed to the WWSSA Athletics Championships in Warracknabeal all the best for their events next Thursday.  The students have been selected to compete based on their performances at the Athletics Carnival held in Nhill earlier this year.

The students are:

Daniel -  100m, 200m, Long Jump, Shot Put, Relay

Ben -  Triple Jump, Discus, Relay

Jonas -  100m, Relay

Kaw Mu -  Long Jump, Relay

Jack C. -  Discus

Marnie -  100m, 200m, Long Jump, Discus, Relay

Sophie -  100m, 200m, Long Jump, Relay

Kelsey -  Discus, Relay

Georgia -  Triple Jump, Relay

Sienna -  Discus, Triple Jump

Reminder

Parents please complete the permission form in PAM by Monday 15th August.

Staff Retreat

On Thursday 15th and Friday 16th of September (the last two days of this term), staff will be having professional learning in Halls Gap.  There will be no school for students on these days.  

The professional learning will be focused on our Catholic Identity and Faith formation.  The two days will be facilitated by consultants from Catholic Education Ballarat.  Staff from Our Lady Help of Christians, Murtoa, will also be participating in these two days.  This will be a great opportunity for us to finally have some face-to-face professional learning in Religious Education as this has been a challenge for us the last two years due to the pandemic.  

Therefore, the last day for students this term will be Wednesday 14th September.  Students will finish at the normal time of 3.15 pm on this day.

Book Week

Book Week will be celebrated in the week commencing 22 August. The theme for the week is Dreaming with eyes open...  Students are asked to come to school on Thursday 25 August dressed in their pyjamas or something related to the Book Week theme.  This will also tie in with our assembly on that day.

Father's Day

An early notification that we will be celebrating our dads on Friday 2 September with a hot dog lunch and a game of Tee-Ball involving dads and students.  Dads and father-figures will be invited to come along for the afternoon's activities.  More details to follow soon.

Sunday's Gospel Reflection

Luke 12:32-48

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable about servants who are waiting for their master. Those who stayed ready and prepared made their master pleased. Those who did the wrong thing and were not ready for the return of their master, were punished and sent away.

This parable adds to the theme of watchfulness; it explains how to wait and reminds us of the reward for the faithful follower at the heavenly banquet after the judgment.

The Gospel reminds us that Jesus will return one day, but we don’t know when. It could be any day! We must always be ready and doing what He has asked us to do. Then, God will be pleased with us and will reward us.

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

It was quite revealing in our first discussions on the title ‘Dreamtime’, that the students could make connections to ‘dreams’ and ‘sleep’, but did not know much about this in relation to our Aboriginal culture. This book helps us to understand some of their creation stories. In our library session a book called ‘How the Birds Got Their Colours’ added to our knowledge. In Religion it has been a delight to revisit the parables in the scriptures. We watched a godly play of the ‘parable of the mustard seed’. As we wonder about how this helps us understand the kingdom of God, I loved the student’s drawings of the tree that grew so big from that seed of faith. From small steps our journey begins each day to learn about ourselves, others and our school community.

Middle Class

It was great to hear all the many positive stories and messages about the way the class conducted themselves last week in my absence. What wonderful children we have in the Middle Class and what wonderful stories they told me about their week as well.

In Reading this week we have been focusing on a reader’s theatre script called ‘Those Magnificent Counting Machines’. We have been learning how the script works and how to read them. We have also focused on the parts of the script where it tells us about the script, the characters and a vocabulary of words. We have been relating these parts to the glossaries, index pages and table of contents that we were learning about last week. We are also preparing ourselves to read and create a script to go along with our play at the end of the term.

In Writing we have continued to focus on procedure texts this week and making sure to read through them before we think they are finished. There have been many texts written about making pizza where the last step is to open the oven and enjoy. No getting to eat the pizza happening in our class! We have corrected and worked towards getting fabulous versions that we can follow along with when we made the pizzas and tested our work on Wednesday.

In Maths we have moved into working on chance and data. This has been a lot of fun this week working on chance and risking our luck to be the first person to finish or get the dice to land on 6 the most times with only 20 rolls. It’s been a very noisy maths class with cries of disappointment when one number is rolled so many times but the next time we try the same activity it’s all different.

In Art and Religion this week we have had a focus on Mary Mackillop. We created helping hands in art listing all the wonderful qualities Mary portrayed in her generous life and then related those qualities to our unit on 'call'. Mary had a wonderful calling to live a life of faith and giving to the community. We looked at these qualities and named people in our school community and local community who have received their own calling to give generously of their time. We specifically named Mrs Rintoule and Mr Dalgleish who have such a wonderful commitment to many local groups, to which we are so very thankful for.

Senior Class

By Jet and Stella

During this week we have been learning about glass for this year's science week. We’ve been looking at different experiments involving heaps of different materials.  Four groups will be demonstrating experiments to the whole school which is coming up later this month. 

In Writing we have been focusing on finishing our narratives. We were to make up fiction characters and their story to make a very interesting story. We have also been learning about similes and metaphors. 

Last Friday, we designed  our own pairs of jeans for “Genes for Jeans Day” and we look forward to finishing them. Also in art we have been making artwork with leaves. We found leaves outside and used those leaves to design a leaf print drawing on a piece of paper. We were then to colour it and do different patterns. 

For Mathematics this week we have been looking at chance and probability as well as following on our area and perimeter. To learn about chance, we collected data while playing rock, paper, scissors and we enjoyed it very much.

In Religious Education we have been busy focusing on hospitality and learning all about it. 

During PE we have had an amazing time playing “capture the flag”. 

We have had a wonderful time this week and we hope that continues into next week.

Little Joey Awards

This week we continue to acknowledge the significant role of the "Brown Joeys" in the establishment of St Patrick's School, and recognised Marnie with a Little Joey award.

Our Little Joeys receive a certificate, sticker and a voucher/goods donated by a local business.  We are very grateful for the contributions from our local businesses. 

Reading Achievements

The following students were recognised this week for their reading achievements:

50 nights - Elvi

 75 nights - Oscar

100 nights - AJ, Kaw Mu, Hannah E.

125 nights - Nile

Important Dates and Reminders

Term Dates

Term 3 11 July to 16 September

Term 4   3 October to 20 December

School Calendar

AUGUST

Friday 12

School Closure (Circuit Breaker Long Weekend)

Monday 15

School Closure (Circuit Breaker Long Weekend)

Thursday 18

West Wimmera Athletics Sports in Warracknabeal

Mon-Fri 22-16

Book Week

Thursday 25

Dress Up Day

SEPTEMBER

Friday 2

Father's Day celebrations

Monday 12

F-2 Athletics

Wednesday 15

Last Day Term 3 for students- dismissal time 3.15pm

Thursday 16

Student free day - staff professional development

Friday 17

Student free day - staff professional development

OCTOBER

Monday 3

First day Term 4

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.

Wimmera Bakery has advised that they have recently reviewed their prices, and the price of some items will increase in the near future.  We will provide an updated price list when this happens.

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 - Term 3 update

Rapid antigen testing

• The Victorian Government is providing up to three further deliveries of rapid antigen tests in Term 3 and again in Term 4 to schools.
• It is recommended that rapid antigen tests are used by students and staff when symptomatic.
• Household contacts are required to test negative using a rapid antigen test on at least 5 out of 7 days if they are attending or working at a school onsite.
• If staff or students receive a positive test result at any time, they must report this through the Department of Health system (a link is provided below) or via the coronavirus hotline at 1800 675 398.
• Students (or their parents) must also report a positive result to their school by phone or written notification; this is so the school can support them, record that they will be absent while in 7-day isolation, and let the rest of the school community know there has been a positive case onsite and that they should monitor for symptoms.
• Students and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, have completed their 7-day isolation period and are subsequently asymptomatic do not need to undertake surveillance testing for four weeks.

Face masks

• Current advice from the Victorian Government on the wearing of face masks is available (see the link provided below)
• Wearing a face mask can help protect you and those around you. Face masks stop droplets spreading when you talk, cough, sneeze and laugh, which lowers your chance of spreading or catching the virus.
• The advice also strongly recommends the wearing of face masks in indoor settings (noting that exceptions to the recommendation apply to teaching circumstances when clear enunciation or visibility of the mouth is essential).  Further, the Victorian Government is recommending that, through to the end of winter, students aged 8 and over and staff will wear masks when in class.
• Household contacts attending school who are over 8 years of age are required to wear face masks indoors unless they have a valid exception. 
• Everyone including students aged 8 years and above must wear a face mask when travelling on school buses, public transport, taxis or rideshare vehicles.
• If face masks are required, they should be worn for up to four hours and replaced after this time.

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.

Stay home if unwell

• 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

Postponed - new date to be confirmed

Our Mission