CALENDAR AUGUST Mo 29 RSVP due (Father’s Day Breakfast) Pre-school reading program 9-10am SEPTEMBER Fr 2 Fathers Day Breakfast 8-9am Tue 6 WWSSA Athletics, Warracknabeal Parent Teacher Interviews from

3:30pm Mo 12 Pre-school reading program 9-10am We 14 PAC Meeting 7pm Fr 16 Last Day Term 3—Dismissal 2:15pm OCTOBER Mo 3 School Closure Day (Staff RE PD) Tu 4 First Day Term 4—8:55am Mo 10 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Th 13 Nhill Show—School Closure Day Mo 17 Pre-school reading program 9-10am We 19 PAC Meeting 7pm Mo 24 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 31 Pre-school reading program 9-10am NOVEMBER Mo 7 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Review Parent Meeting 2:30pm Mo 14 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 21 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 28 Pre-school reading program 9-10am We 23 PAC Annual General Meeting DECEMBER We 7 PAC Meeting 7pm Mo 5 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 12 Pre-school reading program 9-10am

Dear Parents and Members of St Patrick’s School Community,

21 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME—21 AUGUST—Last Sunday the Gospel reading from Luke (13:22-30) finishes with the sentence ‘Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.’ For an explanation of what that means to us in our world today I’ll leave you with these words to reflect on from Greg Sunter (Brisbane Catholic Education). 'Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.' These words of Jesus carry with them a major thrust of his ministry in the gospel of Luke. Jesus reminds his audience that their status in society means nothing when it comes to their status in the kingdom of God. What will make people ‘first’ in the kingdom is their acceptance of Jesus’ message, their faith and their compassionate actions toward others. To be Christian is more than a name; more than a title. If we put our hand up and claim the title of Christian, then there are consequences that flow from that. We can’t all live like Jesus all of the time. However, we are called to take Jesus as our model of the Christian life and to use his example as a guiding beacon. To call ourselves Christian is to try to be Christ-like in all our actions.

FATHER’S DAY BREAKFAST— We hope that our Fathers, and those like Fathers to us, can join us for breakfast on Friday 2 September from 8:00am. Come along and enjoy a delicious bacon and egg breakfast with your child/ren. (Mums are welcome to come with their children if dads can’t make it.) Don’t forget to RSVP by Monday if you intend coming.

STUDENT LEARNING—I was very fortunate to share Lucas’ learning earlier this week. He correctly sequenced a great sentence he had created and which had been written by Miss Farquharson. Well done, Lucas.

PRAYERS FOR MICHAEL CREEK—We wish Michael Creek (husband of Mrs Creek) a speedy recovery after surgery to his foot next week. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and Lisa.

ABOVE AND BEYOND—This week our focus was Achieving Academic Growth. Students were asked to persist with their learning, be organised, stay positive and stay on task while avoiding distractions. This week we have two deserving winners. Cooper Dickinson has been working very hard in English, especially in relation to his reading levels. Lucas Dunbar has also been showing great improvement in reading. He is able to identify his sounds and point to words correctly in books. He has also been creating fantastic sentences during his language experience lessons. Congratulations Lucas and Cooper!

Next week’s Above and Beyond focus is Embodying Saint Mary MacKillop. We are looking for students to be considerate, kind, caring, compassionate, courageous, respectful and committed.

ATHLETICS SPORTS IN WARRACKNABEAL—We had a fantastic day in Warracknabeal on Thursday. Our students were exceptionally well behaved and they all tried their best in all events. It was great to have a few parents and grandparents join us on the day and fortunately the weather was pleasant all day. Photos from the Athletics sports are included elsewhere in the newsletter.

St. Patrick’s

Church Sundays at

10:30 a.m.

28 August

Mass

Attached—

Australian Catholics

Magazine

Parent Teacher

Interviews

St. Patrick’s School is a Child-safe school. As a Catholic Christian community, we will nurture the children as they learn together to respond to the Gospel in their daily lives and explore their emerging role in Australian society.

Our Vision

This week’s

winner is Madi who was caught using our school

rules by displaying responsibility.

Nominated by Lani

Thar Shue

St Patrick’s School

is a child safe school St. Patrick’s School

29 Leahy Street, PO Box 113, Nhill 3418

Phone 03 5391 1575

Mobile 0419 929 271

Fax 03 5391 1506

Email principal@spnhill.catholic.edu.au

Web www.spnhill.catholic.edu.au

Term Dates Class Times Administration Office Hours 2016 Term 3 11 Jul to 16 Sep 8:55am Class time

2016 Term 4 3 Oct to 20 Dec 11am Recess Monday Closed

2017 Term 1 30 Jan to 31 Mar 11:30am Class time Tuesday 9am

3:50pm 2017 Term 2 18 Apr to 30 Jun 1:00pm Lunch Wednesday

2017 Term 3 17 Jul to 22 Sep 1:45pm Class time Thursday

2017 Term 4 9 Oct to 22 Dec 3:15pm Dismissal Friday 9am1pm

Newsletter No. 2016/26 Friday, 26 August 2016

Asthma app: The new Asthma Australia asthma app brings together a raft of resources in one convenient place to help you ensure your child’s asthma is managed as well as possible. Sections include information on medications, device technique videos and Asthma First Aid in an emergency. The app is free at the iTunes store (Android coming soon).

Asthma Kids Looking for a way to help your child understand more about their asthma or about a friend with asthma? Asthma Kids is an online, interactive tool to help primary school aged children understand what it’s like to have asthma and what they can do to help. Check it out at www.asthmakids.org.au

JUNIOR CLASS NEWS from Miss Farquharson

This week has been very busy in the junior classroom with a lot of work being completed. During writing, the students have continued writing narratives and many students are up to editing their drafts. It is great to see a lot of students including a good amount of detail in their stories and beginning to edit their writing independently. In Maths, we have continued with our topic of division. The students are becoming very accurate when they are sharing objects into different number of groups. They have been using a number of different strategies to help them to solve problems including drawing on a whiteboard or scrap paper and using counters to make their groups. In Inquiry, students have begun making a travel brochure about a country that competed at the Olympic Games. They have located maps of their country and identified its flag to start their research.

SENIOR CLASS NEWS from Miss Anson

This week in Literacy, the seniors are continuing to research the countries that competed in the Olympics for their writing. The students are going to use this information to create a brochure on their county in Inquiry time. We are reading ‘Mammoth Surprise’ for our shared reading text which is an information report from a newspaper/magazine. Our vocabulary words this week are ‘global’, ‘intact’, ‘expert’ and ‘specimen’.

In Numeracy, the seniors are beginning the topic of order of operations BODMAS (brackets order division multiply add subtract). The students have been learning which order to work out different number sentences/sums. In Inquiry, the senior students are putting together the information they have researched in English to create a brochure for their Olympic country to persuade tourists to visit that country.

Full colour version of newsletter is on our website spnhill.catholic.edu.au/newsletters-2016.html and tiqbiz

FIONA SKENE SELF DEFENCE CLASSES—St Patrick’s School students joined other primary students for a Self-defence class at Lowan Sports Centre on Monday morning. The children learnt the importance of being assertive and some techniques to employ if they need to.

BOOK WEEK PARADE—The theme for Book Week this year is Australia! Story, Country. We had some amazing characters at today’s parade from shearers to cricketers to Cyril Rioli, to snakes, kangaroos and even a convict and Ned Kelly. The winners of the awards were

Most Popular Costume Riley Philip—kangaroo Most Creative Costumes Zara Polkinghorne—platypus Lucas Dunbar—Gum Nut Baby

Well done to all students, and naturally their parents, for creating such wonderful costumes. Thank you also to the parents and grandparents who viewed our parade on Friday morning. We can’t wait for next year’s Book Week parade.

MINISTERIAL ORDER No 870—CHILD SAFE STANDARDS—...

Code of Conduct—Thank you to families for responding to our request to have these documents signed and returned in a short time frame. We have now received most of these. Those that are missing will find them attached to the newsletter, with a reminder that each parent/legal guardian must sign a Code of Conduct. Please read the document, sign and return it to school as soon as possible. The Code of Conduct is a particular requirement of the Victorian Government’s Ministerial Order No. 870 - Child Safe Standards - Managing the risk of child abuse in schools, which all Victorian schools must comply with. The fundamental purpose of this requirement is the safety of your child, and all children at St. Patrick’s School.

Child Safe Standard 4: Screening, supervision, training and other human resources practices that reduce the risk of child abuse by new and existing personnel

Standard 4 establishes the human resources practices that schools should adopt in order to reduce the risk of child abuse. Both newly recruited and existing staff and volunteers in schools need to understand the importance of child safety, be trained to minimise the risk of child abuse, and be aware of the school’s relevant policies and procedures. Recruitment processes should be stringent in ensuring that relevant checks have been made. Induction processes need to include information on the school’s policies, commitment and practices in regards to child safety. Ongoing training, supervision and monitoring of suitability to work with children should be part of the school’s human resources practices. St Patrick’s School has developed a comprehensive document that outlines the requirements for Standard 4. Should you wish to know more about this, please contact Kathy.

Each week, for the rest of this term, there will be a little about the remaining Standards in the newsletter. A new Child Safe page has been created on the website where you will find all of our School’s documentation in regards to the Child Safe Standards.

UPCOMING EVENTS

READING COUNTS 1, 2, 3 .....read with me—A reminder that our exciting new pre-school reading program commences next Monday 29 August , 9-10am, and will continue to the end of the 2016 school year. It’s not too late to let your families and friends (who have pre-school aged children) know about this great learning opportunity. They can join us at 9am in St Patrick’s Community Hall. There is no cost to participants and we look forward to seeing many of you there on Monday.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS—You are invited to attend Parent / Teacher interviews on Tuesday 6 September between 3:30 and 6:00pm. More information and a reply slip is contained in a separate letter attached to this week’s newsletter. Please remember that interview

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times are allocated on a ‘first in, first served’ basis and RSVPs need to be returned by Friday 2 September at the latest.

MONDAY 3 OCTOBER—PAC has recommended to our Governing Authority that Monday 3 October, the first day of Term 4, be a school closure day for staff to attend a Religious Education Professional Development day. Please be aware that student’s first day of Term 4 will be Tuesday 4 October.

SCHOOL FEES—Statements for overdue school fee are attached today. We remind families of the commitment made to meeting financial obligations to the school when you enrolled your child. We offer very flexible payment options to facilitate payment in as convenient a manner as possible for all families. Payment by pre-arranged instalments is acceptable. We are also happy to arrange direct debit instalments - contact the office for the relevant form. If you are having difficulty meeting this obligation, fee assistance is an option. Please do not hesitate to contact me to arrange a confidential appointment to discuss suitable payment arrangements.

As always, please contact the school if you have any questions about what is happening at St Patrick’s School.

Kathryn Bendall, Principal.