Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the final term of the school year. We continue to wonder how we arrive at Term 4 so quickly! This is always a poignant time for Year 6 as they move into their final weeks of Primary School life. Our best wishes are extended to Year 6 as they begin transition programs for Year 7 in preparation for their high school educational journey. Year 6 have much to look forward too over the next 9 weeks.

ARCHDIOCESAN ASSEMBLY: Mrs Howe and I along with Mrs Denise Reardon, Fr Joe and Fr Roffin attended the Archdiocesan Assembly on Saturday in Young. Over 550 people joined in the day with the main gathering held in Canberra and included 5 regional hubs. The assembly focused on celebrating the year of the Holy Spirit and explored the themes of Discipleship, Encounter and Mission. Ideas for moving the church forward and utilising more contemporary approaches were discussed. Positive discussions and opportunities to share our faith with other people, were enjoyed on the day.

WELCOME BACK: We have been delighted to welcome the Ryan family back to our St Patrick’s School community. AB has joined our Year 6 class, Maeve has joined Year 4 and George Year 1. Welcome back to Madeline, Tim and baby Thomas as well. The students have been delighted to welcome their friends back and have quickly rekindled old friendships.

FIRST HOLY COMMUNION: Our First Holy Communion program begins this afternoon. We have 14 students preparing for the sacrament of First Holy Communion this year. Thank you to Mrs Howe and Mrs Carberry for conducting these lessons after school and on Saturday afternoons over the next few weeks. First Holy Communion will be held on Saturday 9 November.

WIZARD OF OZ PRODUCTION: We’re Excitement is building as rehearsals begin in earnest for the Wizard of Oz presentation scheduled to take place in Week 6! Tickets will be available soon for families and friends to purchase.

WELCOME MISS HILLIER: We welcome Miss Casey Hillier to our St Patrick’s staff team. Miss Hillier is taking our Year 6 class while Mrs Wilson is on LSL. Miss Hillier is one of our regular relief staff and well known to our St Patrick’s community. We are delighted to have her with us.

ACTING ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL: Congratulations to Mrs Natasha Flanagan on her appointment as Assistant Principal while Mrs Wilson is on leave. Mrs Flanagan has held this role previously and will be a great addition to the leadership team.

2024 LEADERS’S DAY: I will be attending the annual Leader’s Day in Canberra this Thursday and Friday. Mrs Flanagan and Mrs Howe will be in charge while I am away.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead. The staff look forward to sharing Grandparent’s Day with families on Friday. It is always a wonderful time to share the very special bond between grandparents and grandchildren. Visitors and students are encouraged to wear a touch  of RED to honour the memory of Daniel Morcombe as we continue to advocate for child safety awareness.

Christine Baron

Principal                                                                                                                                                                

First Holy Communion

This week we begin our preparation for First Holy Communion. This Sacrament is a wonderous time in a Catholics life when they can fully be one with Jesus through receiving the Eucharist.

Please pray for this special group of children – Harry Barton, Lachlan Barton, Summer Clout, Conor Cotterill, Lilly Ferguson, Sarah Gailey, Parker Melksham, Kingsley McDonnell, Archie Peterson, Abigail Pigram, Fletcher Smith, Remi Taylor, Lane Johnson, Jimmy Robinson as they begin their preparation for this beautiful sacrament.

Set out below are the preparation dates. Please mark these on the calendar.

Week 2

Lesson 1 - Tuesday 22^nd October 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Lesson 2 - Saturday 26^th October 4:45 pm – 5:50 pm - 6 pm for Commitment Mass

Week 3

Lesson 3 - Tuesday 29^th October 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Lesson 4 - Saturday 2^nd November 4:45 pm – 5:50 pm - 6 pm Mass

Week 4

Lesson 5 - Tuesday 5^th November 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Lesson 6 - Wednesday 6^th November Preparation Day 9:15 am – 3:00 pm 

Sacrament of First Holy Communion - Saturday 9th November 6pm MASS

Starting after World Mission Sunday, Mission Week is a chance to have fun, learn more about important issues of mission and justice, and get active with Socktober activities.

Mongolia 2024

In 2024, Socktober will raise funds for programs like the Don Bosco Caring Centre in Mongolia, a safe home for children who have been abandoned, are homeless, or are fleeing desperate situations. The Caring Centre aims to provide hope for these children when they need it most.

*** At St Patrick’s we will celebrate Mission Week in Week 3***

We will participate in various activities that will support Catholic Mission. We want our children to realise how lucky we are to live in a country like Australia, in comparison to those children living in less developed countries. We want to build knowledge of social justice rather than just giving money.

Our activities will include a Liturgy, looking at case studies of conditions in Mongolia, making a coin line,  walking a distance to collect water, and some fun sporting activities.

How can we help?

• The children will come out of uniform on WEDNESDAY 30^th October and bring a gold coin donation.

• Please help support Catholic Mission by sending in some coins for the coin line.

• We need to collect materials such as – rags, old t-shirts, newspaper, bubble wrap, old socks, string etc for groups to make a Sockball

Grandparents Day

On Friday we will celebrate the very special people we call – Grandparents. How lucky are we, to be blessed, with Grandparents or honourary people who become like Grandparents to our children?

Our St Patrick’s School community invites these incredible people to join us this coming Friday 25^th October at 10:30 am for classroom visits, a delicious morning tea and a special Grandparents Mass.

Please RSVP by Wednesday 23rd October                                          

Archdiocesan Assembly

On Saturday 19^th October people came together throughout the Archdiocese, to meet for an Archdiocesan Assembly. People gathered in Canberra and in several location ‘Hubs’, to share openly and honestly, seeking to discern the inspirations, workings and promptings of the Holy Spirit, as a faith community. It was a time to explore new opportunities for evangelisation and synodality in the life and mission of our Church.

Some questions that were explored were:

• How have you experienced encounter in your community?
• Where do you sense the Holy Spirit is guiding our Archdiocese in becoming a community of encounter?
• How do you experience the call to discipleship in your faith community?
• Where do you sense the Holy Spirit is guiding our Archdiocese, in the area of mission?
• How can your faith community become more fully a missionary community?

Together, we aim to build a culture of Encounter, Discipleship, and Mission in our Archdiocese.

Kate Howe

REC

Year 5 students visited Gumnut Childcare Centre last Wednesday 16 October and enjoyed their time engaging with the children there. Unfortunately, we have had to cancel our next visit scheduled for Monday 26 October due to a clash of school events. Hopefully there will be another opportunity to visit Gumnut in the near future.

Tickets can be purchased from the front office as of next week.  No Tickets will be held or reserved. Tickets must be paid for and collected from the office at the time of purchase.

Calling any creative parents/carers to assist us with the following items for the Wizard of Oz production. If you have some spare time and energy on your hands we would love assistance for the following items:

1. Setting up the stage and backdrops - we have most of the props available
2. Entrance way ideas and set up
3. Advertising/promoting the play
4. Assisting with raffle sales for both productions
5. Make up assistance for both productions
6. Wizard of Oz program

Please contact our front office if you have any spare time to support our production. Thank you

We are excited to finally showcase our new representative sports uniforms. This has been a work in progress for some time and many thanks to our previous Community Council Board members for their donation and guidance with securing sponsorship from Squadron Energy (Kim Paton) to help with the cost of these amazing sports uniforms. 

We also need to acknowledge Riley Smith and Chase Robinson for their donation of $500 towards the cost of funding the uniforms.  Riley and Chase entered a competition back in 2022 and kindly donated $500 towards the cost of representative uniforms.

Thank you to our previous Community Council Members, Riley and Chase for your contribution and assisting with the design process we are so happy with the uniforms and will have many years of use. 

By now most of our families would have received the order form for our Tea Towel Fundraiser organised by our Community Council.  

This is a limited edition tea towel design made up of our students self portraits which they drew at the end of Term 3.  Each portrait is placed into class groups and printed onto certified organic 100% cotton tea towels.   A sample of the size and material is in the front office if any parents would like to have a look.  Its not our school design just a sample. 

Order forms and payment need to be sent into the office by Friday 1st of November. 

We are excited to welcome our 2025 Kindergarten children to St Patrick’s to begin their transition to ‘big’ school. Kindergarten orientation takes place on the following dates:

Our Annual St Patrick's SOCKtober will take place on Wednesday 30th October. SOCKtober is part of our Catholic Mission Appeal to help children around the world to have a brighter future.   With your help we can make a difference in the lives of many.

Over the next few weeks we are asking students to bring in any loose coins to build a coin line. Longest coin line wins. 

Students can come to school out of uniform and wearing Crazy Socks on Wednesday 30th October. Gold Coin donation will be collected by our SRC Members.

It is that time of year when some of our Australian reptiles are on the move! We ask parents and carers to please have conversations with your child/ren about how ‘to be aware’ and not to approach snakes. They are generally just as scared of us as we are of them! We are endeavouring to keep our school playgrounds free from any reptile visits but of course there may be the odd visitor. Areas of long grass have been sprayed and our wonderful grounds person, Ms Kris Bartlett is keeping the grass mowed. Thanks for your support.

Expressions of Interest are now welcome for members to join the St Patrick’s School Community Council (SCC) Executive Committee in 2025

Just resharing this anyone still considering joining our Community Council Executive Team in 2025.  Contact Mrs Baron to express your interest. 

The council is advisory in nature and has key role in supporting the St Patrick’s School community of parents, carers, students, and staff in building an open, inclusive, welcoming, and collaborative school community environment.

The School Community Council will advise the Principal on important matters and provide support to the Principal and school leadership team in their decision-making process.  The School Community Council is also responsible for overseeing the Canteen and Uniform shop, all fundraising activities and programming for school facility improvements.  Most importantly, they are the voice for the parent body.

In 2025 there will be several vacant positions on the Community Council and as a result of this we are asking parents/guardians/carers to show their interest in being part of this School Community Council Executive Committee via an expression of interest process for the following positions:

• School Community Council Infants Parent Rep x 3
• School Community Council Primary Parent Rep x 4

The School Community Council AGM will be held on 18 February 2025 to vote for the positions of:

• Executive Committee Chair
• Executive Committee Treasurer
• Executive Committee Secretary

Expressions of interest need only be brief. A few lines about yourself, your connection to the school, involvement in the school community and reasons for your interest in being part of the School Community Council Executive Committee.  Please also advise if you wish to nominate for one of the Executive roles.

Please email the expression of interest to Chris Baron by 30 January 2025

Gundagai Junior Cricket Summer 2024/25.

We would like to invite children of all ages and abilities to play cricket this summer.

There are a few options for different age groups.

Cricket Blast – An introduction to cricket for our youngest players from 4-8 years. Cricket Blast will be played on a Friday afternoon and introduces children to the basic skills of the game.

Sub Junior Cricket – Sub Junior Cricket is for children aged between 8-12 years who have acquired the basic skills of the game. A 20/20 game is played on Saturday mornings between teams from Adelong and Tumut. The games run from 9am until finish, usually around 11am. Training for Sub Juniors is also held on Friday afternoons at the Gundagai Cricket nets.

Junior Cricket – Junior Cricket is for children aged between 12-16 who have developed skills to a competent level. Games are played on Saturday mornings. This year the junior cricketers will be playing against teams from Young, Temora, Cootamundra and Ariah Park. The team will be made up of players from Tumut, Adelong and Gundagai.

For registration, please head to the Gundagai Junior Cricket Facebook page. Look for posts from Craig Ferguson. There are two different registration links, one for Cricket Blast and one for both Sub Junior and Junior cricket. Please head to the appropriate page and follow the links.

Junior cricket starts this weekend. Cricket blast and sub junior cricket will start in the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the Gundagai Junior Cricket Facebook page for regular updates.

For enquires please post questions on the Facebook page or phone/text below

Cricket Blast – Kate Hufton 0419 090 009

Junior and sub junior cricket – Peter Reardon 0417 409 551

Congratulations to our Week 1 Class Awards. Great start to Term 4

Kindergarten - Lilly Barton for thinking about her sounds when she writes

Year 1 - Gus Hufton for beginning the term with enthusiasm and participation in the play preparation 

Year 2 - Phoenix Rose for his application to Rocket Maths Assessments

Year 3 - Lilly Ferguson for her happy and enthusiastic start to school term 

Year 4 - Zoe Paton for her engagement during Literacy

Year 5 - Lachlan Hargreaves for his application during Maths 

Year 6 - Christyne Calub for her outstanding commitment and preparation for her role as Dorothy in our school performance

Congratulations and Well Done to our Week 1 Term 4 WildCat Awards.  Great start to ther term

RESPONSIBLE  - Isabella Melksham, Lucy Nicholls, Anna Nicholls, Noah Zhu 

RESPECT - Lottie Worldon, Claudia Worldon

SAFE - Ryan Robinson, Noah Zhu

We had quite a few birthday celebrations over the holiday period we would like to acknowledge the following:

28th September - Ammy Wu

4th October - Chase Robinson 

5th October - Sam Hufton 

6th October - Mackenzie Little 

7th October - Lilly Ferguson

10th October - Imogen Graham 

12th October - Conor Cotterill 

13th October - Riley Smith 

18th October - RV Calub 

20th October - Lotus Li 

22nd October - Ollie Crowe (TODAY) 

We hope you all had a wonderful birthday and celebrated with family and friends