st patrick's primary school, tongala

St Patrick's Primary School, Tongala Phone: (03) 5859 0371

Fax: (03) 5859 0631

Email: [email protected]

Strength & Kindliness

St. Patrick’s will provide a child safe environment where all children have the right to be treated with respect and will be protected from harm.

Principal’s Message

Welcome to the end of Week 6.

A reminder that next Monday 9thth of March is the Labour Day Long Weekend and there will be no school that day.

Our Foundation students start their full week next week so there will be no more Wednesday’s off for these

students. We are looking forward to having them here with us full time.

We sent our Grade 5/6 students off to Queenscliff this week for a beach camp. We thank Miss Rass for her

organisation of this camp. Miss Rass travelled to Queenscliff last Thursday to ensure that we can be fully prepared

and aware of all of the opportunities and all of the risks that heading off to Queenscliff will present. The weather is

looking chilly but the activities and the experiences that the Grade 5/6’s will be engaged in look awesome. I will be

accompanying Miss Rass to Queenscliff and we will all look forward to sharing our stories and our photos with you

along the way on Facebook and when we return.

A shout out to all of the women out there. International Women's Day is annually held on March 8th to celebrate

women's achievements throughout history and across nations. It is also known as the United Nations

(UN) Day for Women's Rights and International Peace.

The theme for 2020 is #IWD2020 #EachforEqual

The focus is to help forge a gender equal world. The catchcry of this year’s International Women’s Day is that an

equal world is an enabled world. We are called to celebrate women's achievement, to raise awareness against bias

and take action for equality.

The challenge for us then, is how do we ensure that we create a gender equal world here at St Pat’s. I am called to

reflect on a really inspiring and provocative youtube clip that I have kept on my computer. The link to this clip is

attached below. I find this clip to be immensely powerful and a really important reminder that we need to keep

giving all of the students here at St Pat’s, male or female, all of the amazing opportunities to learn and grow and

achieve. Judo on a Friday is the best current example that I can think of where our girls and boys are in there

together, learning and laughing and most importantly, entering as equals to engage in this sporting opportunity.

Our vision at St Pat’s for all of our students, is that they dream big and have the skills and attitude to chase those

dreams. Our job is to teach the children to feel empowered, to strive for whatever will make them come alive and

whatever will help them to have meaningful and fulfilling lives.

I hope you enjoy the clip?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs


Prayer for Autumn Days God of the seasons, there is a time for everything; there is a time for dying and a time for rising. We need courage

to enter into the transformation process.

God of autumn, the trees are saying goodbye to their green, letting go of what has been. We, too, have our

moments of surrender, with all their insecurity and risk. Help us to let go when we need to do so.

God of fallen leaves lying in coloured patterns on the ground, our lives have their own patterns. As we see the

patterns of our own growth, may we learn from them.

God of misty days and harvest moon nights, there is always the dimension of mystery and wonder in our lives. We

always need to recognize your power-filled presence. May we gain strength from this.

God of transport trucks and fields of ripened grain, many gifts of growth lie within the season of our surrender.

We must wait for harvest in faith and hope. Grant us patience when we do not see the blessings.

God of birds going south for another season, your wisdom enables us to know what needs to be left behind and

what needs to be carried into the future. We yearn for insight and vision.

God of flowers touched with frost and windows wearing white designs, may your love keep our hearts from

growing cold in the empty seasons.

God of life, you believe in us, you enrich us, you entrust us with the freedom to choose life. For all this, we are

grateful.

Congratulations to our new School Board Chair, Kieran Brennan.

Kieran has been generous in his openness to taking up the role recently vacated by Rohan Garth. During my

conversations with Kieran, he has expressed his desire to build our community of families and be an active,

hands on Board Chair, who can be seen joining in school activities, helping out and providing an important link

between the families and the Principal and staff. We wish Kieran well and thank him for his anticipated

support of our school.

We still have a few spots left on the Board. If you are interested please let Kieran or the office know.

We would love to have you as part of this important team in our school.


We will be celebrating our patron saint, St Patrick on March 17th.

We will commence with a liturgy at 9.15am in the Cill Dara, followed by a shared morning tea and then fun

rotational activities. We really hope that you can come along?

A reminder to everyone to start getting your green clothes organised and your Irish memorabilia out. We always

look forward to St Patrick’s Day, the students just love it! Families are invited to join us at our liturgy and to be

part of our celebrations.

Learning Conversations

Thank you to our families for making the time to come to school to engage in our learning conversations. Thank

you also to the teachers who made themselves available before, during and after school at various times. As you

all know, our learning conversations are an important way to partner together, set goals, celebrate achievements

and make sure that all students are supported and challenged in their learning.

Have you started selling any raffle tickets? We look forward to each student bringing in some eggs to contribute to

our prize. We usually get lots and lots of eggs, which makes this raffle a delicious one to win. Thank you for your

support.

Hot Cross Bun Drive

Thanks to Tootie Brennan for organising this fundraiser. Forms were sent home on Monday and are due back on

MONDAY 16TH MARCH


BENDIGO BANK AWARD

Caylee Crilly – for changing her learning behaviour towards reading

Noah Marcon – for being excellent on the bus and being resilient

PBIS AWARDS

Connor Whitecross – caring for self – reaching his goal

Riley Mangan – caring for self- trying his best

Cyril Cleveland – caring for self- listening in class

CLASS AWARDS

Stefan Scammell-asking questions in class

Willow Young-settling back well after her holiday

Kane Pyke-completing homework to high standard

Caleb Greenshields-his volume of his voice when reading

Riley Mangan-great listener in class

Caroline Yang- contribution to Caritas box

Indi Wild – amazing SMART spelling

Charlotte Grant-caring for others in class

25 Nights Reading


Grade 1

All the Grade 1’s have been doing such a fantastic job in the classroom with everyone

demonstrating an excellent attitude to their learning.

Highlight of the week: We’ve started our religion unit “Daily life in Jesus’ Time”

where students have been busy researching what life was like when Jesus was alive

compared to what our lives are like. We had a blast tasting the food that Jesus used

to eat (see photos below).

The grade 3/4/5/6’s went to Moama to participate in the Open Waters Learning Experience and it was fun! The water was warm and the land was cold. We learnt heaps of interesting things… • River safety and what to do if we ever get stuck in a current or get into some other type of trouble in

the river. • CPR and to always wear a life jacket in the water. • That you should always check the depth of the water before you swim. • How to save other people in the river and what things you should use to save them. • The dangers around us when we are near open water. We all had a great time and we all really enjoyed it! By Lexie & Marcus


In the foundation class we have been doing our SMART Foundation

spelling program. Foundation students have been practising a word of

the week each week. The emphasis is on teaching the sound-letter

relationships in the word (phonics). We have also been practising the

letter formation of these letters and we are very proud of our efforts.

The weekly words take-home booklet is designed to give students

revision at home to form part of their home reading. Thank you all for

your support at home with this program!

Here is a picture of some of the beautiful suns we made for this week’s

learning experience.

Grade 5/6

It has been a busy couple of weeks in the 5/6 classroom. We have continued to learn about recounts as well as

write books for our buddies. We enjoyed reading our books with our buddies and giving them to them to take

home. We have been learning about whole numbers in maths which has included us reading 4 digit numbers,

rounding and exploring square and triangular numbers. Our skills continue to improve in Judo and we really

enjoyed the new throws that Louis taught us last week.

We have spent time preparing for camp, talking about the activities we are going to do, what to pack and also

learning about some of Queenscliff's history. We learned about William Buckley who travelled through the area

and used a save to take shelter when he escaped a penal colony. We also learned about the myth of buried

treasure in the cliffs of Swan Bay and a little bit about the history of Fort Queenscliff. We are all super excited for

camp and are just hoping for some sunshine when we get there!!

Zak and Jim with their buddy books. Caiden, Denzil and Archer with their books.


Students exploring square & triangular numbers in maths

In Art students have been working towards creating their Pete Cromer inspired

animals of their choice. The students will be completing these over the next few

weeks and they are really enjoying using overlapping skills, using different tones of

colours and being creative with their work. We cannot wait to see their finished

animals!

Birthdays! Happy Birthday to

1st March – Ruby Heald

7th March –Denzil Daniels

9th March –James Brennan

23rd March-Shila Cleveland

25th March-Tamara Brennan

26th March-Noah Marcon

27th March-Georgia Fitzallen


In The Middle Class

Writing: We have been planning our narratives. A narrative must have a setting,

characters, a problem and a solution. The story needs to follow an introduction,

a climax to the problem and a solution. The plot needs to be presented in an

organised manner to ensure that the reader is not confused. We have used

‘Story Mountains’ to plan our narratives:

Maths: We have been learning about place value- every digit in a number has a

place value. Place value can be defined as the value represented by a digit in a

number on the basis of its position in the number. We have been completing

number triads, these require us to present the number as a digit, word and

picture.

Inquiry: We are about to begin working on our individual projects. We will select

an animal and then make a poster to explain its life cycle and a diorama of its

habitat.

We continue to wait patiently for our eggs to hatch

Little Paddy’s

We now have 14 enthusiastic learners in Little Paddy’s who have been learning the letters D and C and the

numbers 3 and 4. We have continued our learning about things that live in the ocean. We read the book I’m The

Biggest Thing in the Ocean and also enjoyed a book about Sharks where we learnt facts about sharks. We have

been playing Co-operative games which have been improving our fine motor skills.

Italian

In Italian it has been incredible to see so many learners now being able to sing and recite the songs and poems

which we have been learning about. 7 days are in a week and 30 days has September. Students have been

enjoying the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Italian. The 3-6 have begun working on their matrix and some of

the grade 6’s have started applying their knowledge in higher order thinking activities in Tic Tac Toe.


Paddy’s Playgroup has had a wonderful start to 2020, with 10 new families coming along and joining us for our

new Friday morning session each week.

Our first story for term one has been The Tiny Seed, and we have had some fun craft activities each week to work

in with this, including making grass head characters and flowers with seeds glued in the centre.

The children have been having a great time with loads of sensory play, including water table fun, trucks in the

sandpit, and coloured rice in a tray.

This week we will be starting our second story for this term which brings new fun activities to do, including some

finger-painting!

Playgroup runs on a Friday morning from 9am until 11am.

All children aged 0-4 and their parents/guardians are very welcome to come along for a few hours of fun.

Please bring along a hat to wear and a piece of fruit to share.

st patrick's primary school, tongala

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