20 October 2023

From the Principals Desk

Welcome Back

We are extremely grateful to see our staff and students return safely from holidays. After my time in Israel, I am counting my blessings for the country we live in, the freedoms we have and that we returned from the Holy Land when we did. We met wonderful people, adults, university students and children who will be now grossly affected by the onset of war, even being hundreds of kilometres from Gaza.

While in the Holy Land, please know that our community was in my prayers at every site we venerated as part of the life of Jesus. It was such a special experience for my own faith, building relationships with like-minded people and being witness to the way of life for those living in the Middle East conflict and what their normal day is like.

photo

Camp Preparation

Yr 5 and 6 are hastily preparing for camp. These are part of our school curriculum and help build independence and team dynamics in learning to work together.

Student Absences

Student absences must be explained within 7 days of your child being away. This is legislation for documentation and recording purposes for schools. You can still contact the school with a reason for absence, but it will remain unexplained in the student report. You can enter the reason using the compass APP within the week they are away. Parents receive a notification on the day of absence that is unexplained and will also receive an email from the school if unexplained absences accumulate.

NEW SYLLABUS English and Mathematics Y3-6.

In 2024, the new syllabus documents for English and Maths will be taught across all NSW schools. This year our staff have spent a lot of time learning about the new syllabus documents and the differences between what they have been teaching and updated expectations for grades. K-2 are already using the new documents. There is a lot of emphasis on oral language and vocabulary, especially in the early years.

Link to parent information

Kindergarten 2024

We are very excited to host our Kindergarten information session on Monday 30^th October for our new families starting with us. Our teachers for kindergarten in 2024 will be Mrs Campbell and Miss McNamee. They are busily preparing our full orientation days in the coming weeks.

Welcome New Staff.

We welcome Kristy Iuliano (Social Worker) and Beatrix Napier (School Psychologist) to our St Paul’s community. They are part of our Wellbeing Team to support both students and families at various times of life and unexpected changes.

Assistant Principal

PBL  (Positive Behaviours for Learning)

Each fortnight we focus as a whole school on one specific positive behaviour. During our Monday morning assembly our Year 6 leaders introduce the positive behaviour focus and share examples with the students. This fortnight our focus is: Learn and Let others Learn. To support our students’ development of these behaviours, each class participates in a PBL lesson about that specific behaviour focus with their class teacher. With the guidance of their teacher, students create a class goal and a personal PBL goal to work towards achieving each fortnight. All classroom rules are based on our school rules of being;

Respectful, Responsible, Learners.

Each fortnight our teachers hand out PBL Tokens “Gotchas” to students who are observed following the fortnightly focus. These tokens are randomly drawn at each Monday assembly where students receive a gold token worth $1 to spend at the canteen. Students from the winning colour house at the end of the term receive a special treat.

The winning colour house for Term 3 is: McAuley (Red)! All students from McAuley will receive extra play and an ice bock at the end of lunch on Friday. Congratulations to these students!

Fortnightly Rotations

Last term we bid farewell to Mr Ben Diamond who has moved closer to the Newcastle area. We welcome Mr Anthony Lee who will be teaching our fortnightly P.E. rotations until the end of the year. Mr Lee has previously worked at St Paul’s on a regular casual basis and already knows many of our students.

Mrs Jessica Stefanish-Smith will continue teaching our PD/H rotations until the end of the year. Throughout Term 4 Mrs Stefanish-Smith will be teaching mindfulness techniques in addition to focusing on strategies that build resilience and help students to overcome challenges.   

Peer Support

On Tuesday we held the final session in our Stronger Together Peer Support module. Here, the Year 6 leaders reviewed the skills learnt in previous sessions. The aim of this module is for students to be able to identify personal goals to further address bullying behaviour and to build their own resilience.

Our Year 6 leaders did a fabulous job, demonstrating maturity, organisation and initiative in leading their groups each week. Well done!

I encourage parents and careers to ask their child/ren what they have learnt in this year’s Peer Support and what else they can do to have good relationships. 

Regional Debating

Congratulations the following Year 6 student who represented our school at the Lower Hunter Regional Debating Competition at St Patrick’s Cessnock last Wednesday: Mia Bridgwater, Ashton Taylor, Rubi Walters and Alexis Hague. This was the first experience that these students have had with debating, and we could not be prouder of their growth mind set and ‘can do attitude’. Fantastic work!

Polding Athletics

Last Friday we were proud to have two of our students represent the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese at the Polding Athletics Carnival at the Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre. The boys competed in the following events:

Logan Gruber – 100m sprint
Curtis Rollason- Long Jump

Congratulations to both boys for their wonderful achievements!

Student Awards Weeks

Religious Education Update

Welcome to Term 4

Welcome back everyone to Term 4. I pray you had a restful holiday. Looking forward we have a very busy term ahead! See below for some significant celebrations/events:

Week 2 – Friday 20^th October – Socktober Mission Day/Crazy Sock Day
Week 3 – Tuesday 24^th October – Parish Mass – 9:30am in the church – Yr 5 attending
Week 4 – Thursday 2^nd November – All Saints/All Souls Liturgy – Time TBC – Yr 3 leading
Week 5 – Friday 10^th November – Remembrance Day – Time TBC – Yr 6 leading
Week 8- Tuesday 28^th November – Parish mass – 9:30am in the church – Year 2
Week 8 – Friday 1^st December – Bishop Michael Visit & Vinnies Christmas Appeal
Week 10 – Wednesday 13^th December – Yr 6 Graduation Liturgy – 12pm Cola

Socktober Mission Day

As you read this, we will have run our Socktober Mission Day. Stay tuned for photos and news of the day in the next newsletter. For the meantime, head over to the Catholic Mission Socktober website here: 

FORTNIGHTLY CATHOLIC LESSON: HOW IS HOLY MASS CELEBRATED?

The topic for this fortnight’s edition – How is Holy Mass celebrated? This topic will run over a couple of newsletters as there is so much within the celebration of Holy Mass!

How is Holy Mass celebrated?

God holds a feast for us. As you enter his house, the church, you make the sign of the cross with holy water and think about Baptism, which was the door you entered to become a Christian. There is a red light next to the tabernacle. It is a sign that Jesus is present and waiting for you. As you pass by, greet him by genuflecting.

The first part of the Holy Mass is the Introductory Rites. 

The bells ring, the music starts and the priest and alter servers process to the alter. They wear special clothes as they are doing divine things and together, we greet God with a song. At the beginning, we always confess our sins. If we are truly sorry for them, God says ‘forgiven and forgotten!’ (Very serious sins, however, must be confessed to a priest before receiving Communion.)

Following this it’s time to rejoice with the Gloria! Angels sang it in Bethlehem when Jesus was born: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men (we sing – peace to people of good will.)

Once this is done – it is time to sit down and open our hearts, minds and ears to the next section: The liturgy of the Word which we will cover in the next newsletter.

GOSPEL REFLECTION

TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR A
Matthew 22:15-21
Render to Caesar what is Caesar's.

Primary Coordinator/Gifted Education Mentor

Safeguarding

NCSS 2.2.1 – Children are provided with age-appropriate information about safe and respectful peer relationships 

Safe and Respectful Peer Relationships 

The Kids Helpline website has a number of great resources that are child friendly to help support safe and respectful relationships.  Some topics include: 

• Fights with friends 
• Bulling is not ok 
• Making friends 
• Being ok with being different 
• How to be happy being yourself 
• My friends are fighting 
• Wanting to fit in 
• Treating others well 

Please take some time to show your child the Kids Helpline website so they can learn to navigate through these resources should they ever want to know more information on some of these topics or others.

NCSS 2.1.1 - Age-appropriate strategies are used to engage with children, seek their views about what makes them feel safe; and enable them to participate in decisions that affect them. 

NCSS 2.1.3 - The organisation makes children and adults at risk aware of their rights, including their right to be safe from abuse, and who to contact if they are concerned about their safety or the safety of others. 

Library News

Welcome Back to Term 4!

We currently have a lot of students with hundreds of overdue library books. Overdue slips were sent home in Week 10 of last term. Please have a good ‘parent’ look for these at home and return when found. Books don’t only need to be returned on borrowing days. Students can return these during lunch times into the returns tub situated at the circulation desk inside the library.

If books are unable to be found, then please make written contact to the library.

This can be done in an email (katrina.howard@mn.catholic.edu.au) or in handwritten letter form. Occasionally books are returned back onto shelves without being scanned back in and we are able to locate these and return them to the system. If missing, then we mark the book as missing. Currently, we do not expect unreturned books to be paid for though we would appreciate parent written communication about the missing books. Thank you in advance for your co-operation in this and respecting the operations of our school library.

Library Cup

Congratulations to 4W for being the class winners for Term 3 as the recipients of our Library Cup. The trophy is award to the class with the highest percentage or borrowers for the term. Well done 4W on remembering to return your books each fortnight!

Digital Citizenship

During Library Lessons this term classes will be learning about Digital Citizenship. Learning how we can be safe and healthy when using/watching devices and listening to our bodies when interacting on devices. Lessons will be used from Common Sense Media website.  This is an excellent online resource also to inform and support parents when navigating device use within the home. Please take the time to ask your children about what they have been learning in class and how they can be a safe and healthy digital citizen. The following PDF link provides a start to healthy device communications that can be had at home. Or use the weblink for more information.

Author Visit

This term we are excited to welcome author Tim Harris in Week 5 on Thursday 9^th November. His book series Ratbags and Mr Bambuckle’s Remarkables have been thoroughly enjoyed during lessons. We look forward to learning from him about some ways we can all improve our own writing.

BOOK CLUB

Issue 7 of Book Club was sent out last week. All orders are due in on Thursday 26^th of October. If you’re starting to think of Christmas ideas check it out as there are lots of great books in this issue for everyone. Included is a whole Christmas book section!

Orders can be placed online via the Parent LOOP portal or correct money with order form can be sent into the office. Thanks

IF Maitland – Indie Writers and Arts Festival THIS WEEKEND!

Junior Indie Festival Funday Sunday 22^nd October at the MRAG (Art Gallery) green space. Follow the link for details and program download. Sessions for Parents and Children.

Home - if maitland

 Library Lunchtime Activities

The library has been very busy during lunch times with this term's activities. Reading scripts for drama club have been lots of fun.

Guitar, Bass & Ukelele Lessons available at school

Term Dates 2023

Term 1 Friday, 27^th January – Thursday, 6^th April
Term 2 Monday, 24^th April – Friday, 30^th June
Term 3 Monday, 17^th July – Friday, 22 September
Term 4 Monday, 9^th October – Tuesday, 19^th December

Term 4 2023

Week 3 23^rd Oct – 27^th Oct

NCCD Meetings Week 3 & Week 4
Tues 24^th Oct – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 24^th Oct – Stage 2 Rotations
Tues 24^th Oct – Parish Mass 9.30am Year 5
Wed 25^th Oct – Stage 1 Rotations
Wed 25^th Oct – Kinder Rotations
Wed 25^th Oct – Year 5 Great Aussie Bush Camp – departing 9.30am (day 1)
Wed 25^th Oct – Year 6 Canberra Excursion Day – be at school 5.30am (1day)
Thu 26^th Oct – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Thu 26^th Oct – Year 6 Canberra Excursion (day 2)
Thu 26th Oct – Year 5 Great Aussie Bush Camp (day 2)
Fri 27^th Oct – Year 6 Canberra Excursion (day 3) - Arrival back 8pm Approximately
Fri 27^th Oct – Year 5 Great Aussie Bush Camp (day 3) - Arrival 2.30pm
Fri 27^th Oct – Netball Gala Day – Maitland Netball Courts
Fri 27^th Oct – 2M Assembly 2pm

Week 4 30^th Oct – 3^rd Nov

NCCD Meetings Week 3 & Week 4
Mon 30^th Oct – Kinder 2024 Parent Information Night in the Library 6pm – 7pm
Tues 31^st Oct – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 31^st Oct – Stage 3 Rotations
Wed 1^st Nov – Mini Vinnies Opal Visit
Wed 1^st Nov – All Saints/All Souls Day Liturgy Year 4
Thu 2^nd Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Fri 3^rd Nov – Kinder Orientation Day 9.30am – 1pm
Fri 3^rd Nov – Yr5 Buddies

Week 5 6^th Nov – 10^th Nov

WELLBEING WEEK
Mon 6^th Nov – All Saints Cluster Regional Basketball – Maitland Basketball Stadium 9am – 12.30pm
Tues 7^th Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 7^th Nov – Stage 2 Rotations
Wed 8^th Nov – Stage 1 Rotations
Thu 9^th Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Thu 9^th Nov – Tim Harris Author Visit Year 2 – Year 6
Fri 10^th Nov – Remembrance Day Year 6
Fri 10^th Nov – Lochinvar Year 7 Orientation
Fri 10^th Nov – Yr1W Assembly 2pm

Week 6 13^th Nov – 17^th Nov

Tues 14^th Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 14^th Nov – Stage 3 Rotations
Wed 15^th Nov – Opal Visit Mini Vinnies 10.30am
Thu 16^th Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Thu 16^th Nov – P&F Colour Run
Fri 17^th Nov – Kindergarten 2024 Orientation Day 2 - 9.30am – 1pm
Fri 17^th Nov – Yr5 Buddies
Sun 18^th Nov – International Men’s Day

Week 7 20^th Nov – 24^th Nov

Tues 21^st Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 21^st Nov – Stage 2 Rotations
Tues 21^st Nov – P&F AGM
Wed 22^nd Nov – Stage 1 Rotations
Wed 22^nd Nov – Kinder Rotations
Wed 22^nd Nov – Leadership Day Yr5
Thu 23^rd Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Fri 24^th Nov - Rugby 7’s Gala Day 12yr Boys and Girls
Fri 24^th Nov – 6M Assembly 2pm

Week 8 27^th Nov – 1^st Dec

Sun 26^th Nov – Family Sunday Mass
Mon 27^th Nov – Yr7 2024 Information Night St Peters?
Tues 28^th Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 28^th Nov – Parish Mass Yr2 9.30am
Tues 28^th Nov – Stage 3 Rotations
Wed 29^th Nov – Opal Visit 10.30am
Wed 29^th Nov – Kinder Rotations
Wed 29^th Nov – Let’s Love Water Show Kinder – Yr2 12.20pm – 1.10pm
Thu 30th Nov – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Fri 1^st Dec – Bishop’s Visit 9.30am – 10.30am
Fri 1^st Dec – Vinnies Voucher Day
Fri 1^st Dec – 1M Assembly
Fri 1^st Dec – P&F Disco

Week 9 4^th Dec – 8^th Dec

Mon 4^th Dec – All Saints’ College Junior Campus (St Peters) - Yr7 2024 Orientation Day
Tues 5^th Dec – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 5^th Dec – Stage 2 Rotations
Wed 6^th Dec – Stage 1 Rotations
Thu 7^th Dec – Dio Debating
Thu 7^th Dec – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Thu 7^th Dec – Carols Evening 5.30pm – Bottom Playground
Fri 8^th Dec – Report sent out via COMPASS
Fri 8^th Dec – 4W Assembly 2pm

Week 10 11^th Dec – 15^th Dec

Tues 12^th Dec – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Tues 12^th Dec – Stage 3 Rotations
Tues 12^th Dec – End of Year 2023 Student Award Assembly ES1 9.30am, S2 10am, S3 10.30am
Wed 13^th Dec – Yr6 Graduation Mass 12pm
Wed 13^th Dec – Yr6 Farewell Dinner Telarah Bowling Club 5pm
Thu 14^th Dec – Breakfast Club 8.20am
Fri 15^th Dec – LAST DAY FOR STUDENTS TERM 4 2023
Fri 15^th Dec – Yr6 Clap out 2.15pm

Week 11 18^th Dec – 19^th Dec

Mon 18^th Dec – Professional Learning Day – Pupil Free Day
Tues 19^th Dec – Professional Learning Day – Pupil Free Day

Summer Holidays 20^th Dec – 26^th January 2024

Term 1 2024

Week 1 29^th Jan – 2^nd Feb 2024

Mon 29^th Jan – Pupil Free Day – Staff Development Day
Tue 30^th Jan – Pupil Free Day – Staff Development Day
Wed 31^st Jan – Students Return – Yr1 – Yr6
Fri 2^nd Feb – St Paul’s Swimming Carnival 2024

Term Dates for 2024

Term 1 Tuesday, 30 January - Friday, 12 April
Term 2 Monday, 29 April - Friday, 05 July
Term 3 Monday, 22 July - Friday, 27 September
Term 4 Monday, 14 October - Friday, 20 December

School Student Travel Passes 2024

Uniform Shop News - September

Uniform Shop Hours 2023

Monday 2.15pm – 3pm
Wednesday 8.30am - 9.30am
Friday 8.30am - 9.30am

Elissa Purdon
Uniform Shop Coordinator

Canteen

Opening days will be Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, CLOSED MONDAY. Please order via the Qkr App.

Lunch orders will be sent to the classrooms as normal.

Please ensure your child has their current class.

Healthy Lunchbox

Kindergarten Orientation Video

Our 'How to pack a healthy lunch box video' is perfect for kindergarten orientation programs. This fun, 3 minute video will inspire parents and carers and teach them how to easily pack healthy lunch box. Here are some ways you can share the video:

1. Show the video at a parent information night 
2. Email the video weblink to parents
3. Include the video weblink in electronic kindergarten orientation packs
4. Share it on your social media channels

New recipes

• Tuna pilaf
• Vegetable chow mein
• Basic burger patty

New blogs

• What’s in season for spring?
• Taking the pressure off feeding fussy eaters

Have you seen our Nutrition Snippets? 

Nutrition Snippets are bite-sized nutrition tips, facts and recipes designed to be used within newsletters. 

If you have not already signed up, you can sign up to receive our FREE Nutrition Snippets (5 snippets every 5 weeks of the school term) here.