St Patrick's Primary School Gundagai eNewsletter

Dear Parents and Carers,

As usual the weeks are flying by, and we are already in Week 4!

WELCOME: A special welcome is extended to the Masikesa family, who have joined our St Patrick’s School community, along with Isla-Faith in Year 1 and Adriel in Year 2. It has been wonderful to have more families join our school community.

2025 OPEN DAY: Our 2025 enrolment campaign got off to a positive start last Friday with our first Open Day being held. Thank you to parents and families that are spreading the good news about our fabulous school and encouraging families to come and look. It was lovely to have some new families coming along to see what St Patrick’s offers. A special thank you to Mrs Bec Tobin who spoke to the families about her experiences at St Patrick’s. Another information session will be held later in term.

LITTLE LEARNERS: There has been lots of interest in our Little Learners program this year. The Little Learners program will begin on Friday 31 May from 9.00-11.00am. Any child turning 4 or 5 this year is welcome to join in the program. An exciting program with a variety of themes, has been developed to keep our Little Learners interested and engaged. Thank you to Mrs Johnson for organising the program and running it each week with the assistance of our Year 5 students.

DIRECTOR VISIT: Mr Ross Fox, Director of Catholic Education, visited St Patrick’s last Tuesday 7 May. Mr Fox was very impressed with the implementation of Direct Instructional programs and High Impact Teaching Strategies being utilised so successfully at St Patrick’s. Our data results are pleasing with significant growth being charted across all year levels. Mr Fox spent time visiting classrooms and enjoying conversations with students and staff.

LEAVE: I will be on leave from Monday 27 May to Wednesday 5 June. Mrs Lisa Wilson will be Acting Principal during this time.

Blessings for the week ahead

Christine Baron

Principal

On 24^th May we celebrate the feast day of our Patron Saint of Australia, Our Lady Help of Christians.

The Feast Day of Our Lady Mary Help of Christians has been celebrated in Australia since 1844.

The infant church in Australia had a special reason for turning to Mary. No priests were sent to the colony in its early days and Mass was not allowed except for one brief year until 1820. It was largely the Rosary in those early days that kept the faith alive.

The Australian Catholic community remained faithful to Mary and Australia was the first nation to choose her under the title, 'Mary Help of Christians' as principle Patroness.

Loving God, you place deep in our hearts the love of Mary, Help of Christians. Through her prayers grant wisdom to our leaders and integrity to our citizens. Under her protection may Australia be granted harmony, justice and peace. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Mary Help of Christians, pray for us.

On Friday Year Three will lead us in a special Mass to celebrate this Feast Day. We thank Mrs Carberry and the children for their preparation. We warmly welcome you to attend this Mass.

Altar Servers Picnic Lunch and Training

Our new and experienced Altar Servers gathered to enjoy lunch together and participated in a training session with Father Joe, Father Rofin, Mr Gain and Mr Reardon. We enjoyed a great afternoon.

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Please continue to pray for our twelve children who are currently preparing to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This will occur on the 31^st May in St Patrick’s Church.

Year Three have been preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We have been learning about choices we make and how we can be sorry for our bad decisions. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation we have the opportunity to confess our sins.

We know it is always best to make up for the bad choices we make and be sorry for our sins.

Kate Howe

REC

Welcome to Abby McDonnell and Finlay Bock who will complete Year 10 Work Experience at St Patrick’s over the coming weeks. Both Abby and Finlay are ex-students of St Patrick’s, and we are very excited to welcome them back in this new capacity. Abby will complete her Work Experience this week (Week 4) and Finlay will complete his next week (Week 5). Welcome Abby and Finlay!

Special thanks to Mrs Paula Butt who filled on the Front Office while Mrs Fairall was on leave. We were very grateful to Mrs Butt for her hard work during this time. Our School Captains made a lovely speech to Mrs Butt on her last day to thank her for her assistance.

Years K/1/2 will take part in the Biggest Morning Tea being held at the Gundagai Services Club this Thursday 23 May. The children will leave school at 10am and walk to the club. The students have been preparing some songs for the entertainment of those attending the Biggest Morning Tea. Parents are most welcome to come along and watch the student sing.

Thank you to Mrs Hughes for arranging the upcoming visit of well known Australian children's author and journalist Pip Harry to present at our school on Tuesday 4th of June. Pip Harry has many award winning novels including The Little Wave, August & Jones, Are you there Buddha ?, Because of You and many more novels.

Thank you to the Community Council for assisting to fund this visit. We are all very excited to have Pip Harry visit our school and speak to the children about her books.

A special Thank You message to Carla Barton and Bec Nicholls for their Mother's Day Raffle organisation. The raffle was supported by our families and outside our school community. We appreciate the donations and support for our school fundraising.

St Patrick’s annual Athletics Carnival will take place on Thursday 30 May. Parents are asked to please make ensure that consent is provided through the COMPASS portal for their child to attend the carnival. Students have been practising their Athletic skills during Thursday sport lessons in preparation for the carnival. Parent helpers most welcome!

Mickey Franklin from "Eat Out" Coffee Van will be at our Athletics Carnival for the morning supplying parents and staff with hot drinks and lots of yummy treats.

Congratulations to Taite Johnson and Denver Blundell who represented at the Archdiocesan Cross Country at Stromlo last Friday. Special congratulations to Taite who came second and will now head to Sydney to compete in the Mackillop Cross Country. Well done to Denver for a super effort on Friday. We were very proud of both boys on their wonderful participation.

Students in Years 3-6 are currently preparing their speeches for the annual WR Public Speaking competition. Class speak offs will be held over the next few weeks to select two students per class to represent in the speak off against Years 3-6 class representatives from McAuley Catholic College. St Patrick’s will host the speak off this year, to be held on Wednesday 19 June in our school hall.

Year Level Topics and Speech Length

Year 3 - If Kids Ruled the World (2 mins)

Year 4 - Australian Stories (2 mins)

Year 5 - Learning from the Past (3 mins)

Year 6 - Our Voices (3 mins)

Some preparation tips from Mr Peter Gain:

The aim of public speaking is to sell an idea in a way that is compelling, interesting and, if possible, with humour.
The speaker should be focused on the audience and the speech should be addressed to that audience not the adjudicator, teachers or parents.
Any speech should be started with something which grabs the attention of the audience.
NEVER NEVER end the speech with a thank you to the audience for listening, it has been their privilege to have been the recipients and to have had the opportunity to be convinced of the correctness of the speaker's proposition.
ALWAYS leave the audience on a high and with something to think about.

As previously advised in our last newsletter this term, the SRC have selected Jump Rope for Heart as our chosen charity. We will start practising our skipping at school in Week 6 with a jump off day scheduled for Week 10. The program might have changed since we last participated with each student’s donations now able to be collected digitally, reducing the paperwork and need to handle cash. Instructions will come out soon with how to set up your donation pages. As always students, and now even parents, can win prizes according to the amount raised.

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St Patrick’s will celebration National Reconciliation Week in Week 5 with a whole school prayer service during Monday 27 May, morning assembly. The National Reconciliation theme ‘Now More Than Ever’ reminds us that no matter what, the fight for justice and the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will must continue. Thank you to Mrs Hughes and Mrs Howe for preparing this special prayer service.

Tune into "Sounds of the Mountains" radio station (FM94.1) every Wednesday at 2.15pm to hear about what our classes and school has been up to over the week. Catch up with our Yr 6 leaders as they share our weekly news report:

Weerk 10 (Wednesday 3rd July) Chase Robinson and Skye Somerville

Our Winter Meat Raffles have returned during Terms 2 and 3. Thank you to the families for continuing to support our fundraising and to the parents for selling the raffle tickets at Lotts Family Hotel on Friday evenings. If you are rostered on to sell the meat raffle tickets they start selling from 6.15pm. If you can't do your rostered day could you please arrange to have it swapped.

Friday 7th June - Alex Tobin & Shaun Ryan

Friday 14th June - Craig Ferguson & Joey Smart

Friday 21st June - Aaron Johnson & Charlie Hufton

Friday 28th June - Ray Paton & Don Cotterill

Thank you to our parents and children for your continued support of Altar Serving duties. Mass during the cooler months is on at 5pm. If possible could the children arrive 10 minutes prior to Mass to allow time to get dressed.

If you have swapped could you please notify the office so amendments can be made to bullentin and roster.

6th July - Chase Robinson and Harry Barton

13th July - Archie McDonnell and Lachlan Barton

20th July - Nick Quine and Reuben Smart

27th July - Christyne Calub and Indi Cole

Mortimer Shield for Years 5/6: Thursday 23 May
Biggest Morning Tea Years K/1/2: Thursday 23 May
Year 3 Mass at 12pm in St Patrick’s Church: Friday 24 May
National Sorry Day: Sunday 26 May
National Reconciliation Week ‘Now More Than Ever’: Monday 27 May-3 June
Reconciliation Lessons: 3.30-4.30pm-Tuesday 28 May
SPG Athletics Carnival: Thursday 30 May
Little Learners Begins: 9.00-11.00am-Friday 31 May
Sacrament of First Reconciliation: 9.30am St Patrick’s Church Friday 31 May
Week 5 Awards Assembly: 2.30pm Friday 31 May
Pip Harry Author Visit: Tuesday 4 June
Jump Rope for Heart sport lessons begin-Thursday 6 June
Year 4/5 Class Mass at 12pm in St Patrick’s Church: Friday 7 June
Little Learners 9.00-11.00am-Friday 7 June

Congratulations to our Week 2 and Week 3 Class Awards

Week 2 - Friday 10th May

Kindergarten : Charlotte Kennedy

Yr 1 : Kayla Chen for listening well and focusing on all her work

Yr 2 : Lottie Worldon for her neat handwriting and trying her best in class

Yr 3 : Remi Taylor for positive class participation

Yr 4 : Leila Gaskin for applying feedback to improve

Yr 5 : Oliver Crowe for effort in Maths (absent from photo)

Yr 5 : Indi Cole for working hard to write a creative speech (absent from photo)

Yr 6 : Dylan Ryder for increased focus and commitment to all learning

Week 3 - Friday 17th May

Kindergarten : Michael Winters for being ready and willing to work

Yr 1 : Pippi Nicholls for her thoughtful responses in Religion both verbal and artistic

Yr 2 : Ryan Robinson for his participation during lessons answering questions

Yr 3 : Lane Johnson for 100% application to all class tasks

Yr 4 : Mackenzie Little for enthusiasm for learning

Yr 5 : Conor Cotterill for improved accuracy when spelling

Yr 6 : Emily Ryan for increased checking in and acting on feedback

Yr 6 : Denver Blundell for excellent reading with the novel "Us Mob Walawurru"

Congratulations to the children who have been awarded a WildCat Award

RESPONSIBLE : Lottie Worldon, Alfie Eccleston, Charleston Rizalde, Fred Miller, Olivia Smart, Chelsea Crowe, Toby Nicholls, Ryan Robinson, Billy Eccleston, Sam Hufton, Charlotte Kennedy, Harry Ryder, Juno Bock, Gus Hufton, Sophia Knight-Gregson, Zoe Morgan, Lane Johnson, Reuben Smart, Eliza Graham, Mackenzie Little, Lilly Ferguson

RESPECT : Lucy Nicholls, Imogen Graham, Isabella Melksham, Kevin Lyu, Ryan Robinson, Lance Crowe, Lola Eccleston, Sarah Gailey, Archie McDonnell, Conor Cotterill, Harrison Barton

SAFE : Lance Crowe, Josie Lott, Dale Paton, Remi Taylor, Lane Johnson, Reuben Smart