Newsletter 2022/25 ~ 26 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.

St. Patrick's School is a child safe school.

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

It has been disappointing to be away from school this week after COVID finally caught up with me. Like many others, I had happily managed to avoid the coronavirus for the past two and a half years despite it making its presence felt around us. On Monday evening however,  the dreaded second pink line appeared!

Initial thoughts turned to what I would be able to achieve over the next seven days in isolation.  Reality kicked in, however, as I’ve spent the next four days in bed and very few hours awake.

From chatting with others over the past couple of years, everyone has different reactions to the virus. Some have hardly any effects and are surprised to test positive, especially given how well they feel.  Others feel nauseous for a couple of days and have the aches and pains as commonly associated with the flu. For me, it has been constant tiredness and the inability to get up and do anything without feeling lightheaded and tired and having to return to bed. I’m looking forward to shaking this off over the next couple of days and returning to school next week.

I want to thank my colleagues at school for the wonderful work they continue to do.  One thing that has made this week easier for me is the knowledge that the professionalism, love and care of the staff of St Patrick's School, for our children and the school itself, would ‘keep the show on the road’ and once again I thank them for this.  

Thank you also to the parents for your emails and messages throughout the week offering your well wishes and support.  They have been greatly appreciated.

CURRENT & RECENT EVENTS

Welcome back

This week we welcomed back Ann Munro from her well deserved Long Service Leave.  Ann and Don managed to get away and visit family in Queensland during her leave, after a long period of time between visits due to the pandemic, and enjoyed their drive through New South Wales visiting many interesting places on the way. 

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 all children who were recognised for their actions around the school over the past week.  Jack M, Jet and Sophie were randomly drawn from the names listed for Respect, Responsibility and Safety, and have added tokens to their respective House's tallies.

Fr  Matt

It was wonderful to have Fr Matt visit us yesterday.  He met with staff during recess and also spent a little bit of time in each of the classrooms as well.

Fr Matt is hoping to visit all Parish schools regularly and is looking forward to joining us on a fortnightly basis.

Book Week

We were able to hold our Book Week parade in person this year (the last two years were remote) - bringing a love of reading and children’s literature to school.  Students were excited to display their imaginations with a fun parade on Tuesday morning.  Pictured are all our students and staff. We are all looking forward to next year’s Book Week.

Dreaming with eyes open ...

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Sport

Soccer

On Wednesday afternoon our Year 3 and 4 students travelled to Nhill Lutheran School for a friendly game of soccer. It was wonderful to see our Year 4 students take leadership and organise the team into positions and discuss what would be the best strategies to use. For some of our students who hadn't played soccer since our soccer clinics in Term 1, they showed some amazing skills and teamwork. Unfortunately, we were defeated by the Lutheran School  team, 4-0, but made up for this loss in team spirit, cooperation and sheer determination to have a go and have fun while doing it. Our Year 3 and 4 students are now determined to find more sports that we could learn how to play together to allow for more opportunities to participate in games against the Lutheran School. Thank you to Nhill Lutheran School staff, particuarly Mr Holt for initiating this fun activity for our students.

Athletics

Congratulations to our athletics team who competed at the West Wimmera level of athletics sports in Warracknabeal yesterday. The group returned proudly wearing the ribbons they had won. Events and placings were:

Daniel - 3rd Shot Put, 4th 100m, 5th 200m, 6th Long Jump

Ben - 2nd Discus, 5th Triple Jump

Marnie - 3rd Discus, 4th 100m, 5th Long Jump, 5th 200m

Jonas - 5th 100m

Sophie - 2nd 100m, 2nd 200m, 8th Long Jump

Kelsey - 3rd Discus

Georgia - 3rd Long Jump

Kaw Mu - 4th Long Jump

Sienna - 5th Discus, 6th Triple Jump

10 Year Boys - 3rd Relay

10 Year Girls - 3rd Relay

Many thanks to Mrs Bell and Mrs Dickinson for coordinating the event and accompanying the team to Warracknabeal. It was a fabulous experience.

Golf Clinic

Yesterday afternoon the students in Years 2-6 enjoyed a golf clinic organised by Tony Collier from Golf Victoria. Students enjoyed this opportunity to try a different sport which involved a different set of skills. There is a flyer at the end of the newsletter about an upcoming program facilitated by the Nhill Golf Club inviting primary school aged children to learn more about this sport. It starts next Monday and the contact details are on the flyer.

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Rapid Antigen Tests

Another issue of RAT kits was sent home with children earlier this week.

UPCOMING EVENTS

SunSmart

The sun protection measures listed in our SunSmart Policy are used for all outdoor activities during the daily local sun protection times or whenever UV levels are 3 or higher.  The sun protection times are a forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology for the time of day UV levels are forecast to reach 3 or higher. At these levels, sun protection is recommended for all skin types. In Victoria, UV levels regularly reach 3 or higher from mid-August to the end of April.

From next Monday students must wear a sun hat at school during outdoor activities and recess and lunch breaks.  We will implement a “no hat, no play” policy. Students without a hat must sit in the undercover area.

Father's Day

We are looking forward to celebrating our fathers, grandfathers and those like fathers to us next Friday. We will be enjoying a hot dog lunch followed by a game of tee-ball.  Please RSVP to the notes that were provided by next Wednesday.

Australian Catholics Magazine Schools Edition Spring 2022

Each year the spring edition is the youth edition, with articles planned and written by a team of guest editors from Catholic schools across Australia. Ten secondary school students joined the Australian Catholics internship program to oversee this year’s Youth edition.

Sunday’s Gospel Reflection

Luke 13:22-30

Sunday’s gospel passage reminds us that Jesus is still on his journey to Jerusalem and it appears that the journey is proving to be difficult. The question asked of Jesus centres on 'salvation'. Jesus 'saves' people in many ways and calls us to be involved in the process of 'salvation'. Jesus was always concerned about the condition of people's lives and how those conditions could be improved. Jesus wants us to be just as concerned about the condition of people's lives today. We may not be able to stop world wars but we can be peace-makers. We may not be able to bring unity and reconciliation to nations but we can be ready to forgive those who hurt and harm us. (Adapted from Liturgia website) 

The challenge for us is: 

How can I improve the life of others through acts of kindness and thoughtfulness? 

How can I show real concern and outreach?

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

We are enjoying Book Week stories throughout this week, starting with Amira’s Suitcase. She looks after a seed in her suitcase until it sprouts and becomes bigger. It reminds us of the Parable Jesus shared concerning The Mustard Seed. That a little faith shared goes a long way. A little kindness shared goes a long way too. We had fun and laughter at our Book Week parade and enjoyed practising bandaging others in response to the story about a visit to the hospital. Our shared story is titled Animals in the Billabong. The aboriginal style illustrations by Mike Ingram are amazing. Songs on arrays followed by making and counting groups continue.

Middle Class

Miss Williams

We have had an exciting week with Book Week dress up on Tuesday, soccer for the Year 3s on Wednesday, golf clinic on Thursday and three of our Year 3s headed off to Warracknabeal for Athletics on Thursday as well.

In Reading this week we focussed on books from the shortlist for Book Week. We have looked at The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, A Trip to the Hospital, Jetty Jumping, Walk of the Whales, and Alpaca Picnic Panic. Each day we read a different book and then completed an activity around the book.

In Writing we have continued to build interesting and engaging paragraphs around facts that we have gathered from the internet and books about different topics. We are presenting our paragraphs in ways that draw the reader in and leave them wanting to read more to find out more facts and information about our topics.

In Maths we have begun working on multiplication. We have made arrays using rows and columns of dots or the same shape. We even put our new found expertise of arrays to use to build an array city! Did you know that if we had 5x3 and flipped it around to 3x5 we still have the same answer of 15? This goes for all multiplication we do, we can change the order and still get the same answer. We investigated this in our maths lessons and it’s helping us to recall multiplication facts. We have also been working on recalling our multiplication facts quicker with games such as around the world.

In Art and Integrated Studies we have been completing our robots. They are all nearly finished. We have done the finishing touches of faces, buttons and extra features.

Senior Class

by senior students

During Science Week, the 4-5-6’s formed groups to do science experiments. In AJ’s group, they did hot glue glass fibres experiment under the leadership of Jet.  Jody’s group did invisible glass and her leader was Stella. Invisible glass is made from vegetable oil, water and 2 cups. Olive and Ma Thay Thay wrote about a Questacon lesson about magnifying. We saw different objects and figured out what can magnify and what cannot.

Grade 3s and 4s played soccer at Nhill Lutheran School.  Soccer is a game like football but dribbling a black and white round ball.  The objective is to kick the ball past the other team to score a goal, and our team tries to stop the other team from scoring.

It was also Book Week and we had a dress-up day on Tuesday. We dressed-up in pyjamas or a book character.

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 David, Max and Declan with Little Joey awards.

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:

 75 nights - Hser Wah.

100 nights - Nelson, Doh Wah, Moe Tha Zin, Liberty, Freddie, Jack M.

175 nights - Tyler, Lexi.

200 nights - Kelsey, Lexi.

Important Dates and Reminders

Term Dates

Term 3 11 July to 16 September **Students' last day is Wednesday 14 September

Term 4   3 October to 20 December

School Calendar

AUGUST

Monday 29

Excursion: Wimmera Science & Engineering Discovery Day, Horsham

SEPTEMBER

Friday 2

Father's Day hot dog lunch & tee-ball 1.30pm

Monday 12

F-2 Athletics

Wednesday 14

Last Day Term 3 for students- dismissal time 3.15pm

Thursday 15

Student free day - staff professional development

Friday 16

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

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