St Patrick's Primary School Gundagai eNewsletter

Dear Parents,

The weeks continue to fly by as we suddenly find ourselves halfway through another term. Winter has well and truly arrived with the polar blast that has already hit our region and will continue to bring adverse weather conditions over the week. Students have been reminded to bring jumpers and coats to school every day. Please ensure all clothing items are clearly labelled with your child’s name.

A wonderful day was held last Wednesday when we held our annual school Athletics’ Carnival. We were fortunate to encounter beautiful weather on the day. Congratulations to all our students on the enthusiasm shown on the day and for their positive efforts. It was great to have so many parents and grandparents present as well. Special thanks to all parents who assisted on the day as it was greatly appreciated.

This Friday, our 2023 St Patrick’s Open Day will be held for anyone interested in finding out more about our wonderful little school. If you know anyone interested in sending their child to Kindergarten next year, please encourage them to come along and see what we have to offer. The Open Day will be held this Friday 3^rd June commencing at 9:30am with an information session, followed by a school tour.

McAuley Catholic Central School in Tumut were delighted to announce last week that they will be offering Year 11 in 2023 and Years 11 and 12 in 2024. This is a significant step forward for Canberra-Goulburn Catholic education as it ensures there is now a Year 7-12 pathway for our local Catholic schools and provides an alternative option for parents considering Year 7-12 educational pathways. Please see information in the newsletter below about information sessions being offered by McAuley. Interested parents are encouraged to attend the Information evening.

Tell Them From Me (TTFM) is an online survey platform that is now open for all parents to provide feedback about St Patrick’s School. The information collected is a valuable tool to help us evaluate and plan ahead. Please use the link provided below to undertake the survey. We appreciate the input from our parents to help us as we plan for the 2023 school year.

Stay warm and enjoy the week ahead.

Christine Baron Principal

Sacrament of Reconciliation

On Saturday afternoon nine of our children – Chase Clout, Indi Cole, Oliver Crowe, Eliza Graham, Lachlan Hargreaves, Norah Lindley, Jimmy Lott, Molly Lott and Connor Manton received the Sacrament of Reconciliation with Father George officiating. Next Saturday afternoon Beau Jones and Chase Robinson will also receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time.

The children were supported by their families as they received the special Sacrament of forgiveness. Father George spoke with the children about the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the meaning it has in life.

The children were committed in their preparation knowing that Jesus’ loving presence will be with them always, as He is always ready to forgive when we are sorry for our mistakes.

May the Good Shepherd guide you on the right path and help you to make right choices in throughout your life.

Project Compassion

Thank you for the many families who returned their Project Compassion Boxes. Your generosity has meant that we are able to forward $267.20 to Caritas Australia who will use this donation to make a difference to the lives of many people in need.

If there are any outstanding boxes at home, you my still send these in and they will be forwarded on.

Friday’s Mass

This Friday Year 5/6 will present the Mass at 12 noon. We thank Mrs Wilson and her class for their preparation towards this Mass. Kindergarten will be supporting their buddies on Friday. We would love you to join the children for Mass.

Prayer for the Parish Mission

Father God, thank you for our Church and its people.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that our Church may grow.

Help us to see you in everyone we meet and fill our lives with your grace.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

We are inviting students, teachers and parents to provide feedback on their experience of our school using an online survey. The surveys are an important part of our whole school evaluation and planning process.

We would like to invite you to complete the Tell Them From Me (TTFM) Partners in Learning survey. As we value the role of parents and carers within our school community we would greatly appreciate your feedback. The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at St Patrick’s School Gundagai.

The survey is anonymous and will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. You are able to access the parent survey on your computer or mobile device by using the URL below:

www.tellthemfromme.com/p79dw

The survey link is open from Tuesday 31st of May and will close on Friday 10th of June

A date for the School Fete/Spring Fair has been set – 29^th of October 2022. Please let us know if you would like to be involved in the organising. All classes will be asked to run a stall and contribute to the fete.

Pete and Cal Reardon have kindly offered to run a Trivia Night as a fundraiser for the school…their final hurrah!! Pete and Cal have organised fabulously fun trivia nights in the past, however we have not been able to run them for 2 years due to COVID, so the CC was very excited by Pete and Cal’s offer. It is likely to be held in August…watch this space for a date and theme.

Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers who helped at the Western Region Cross Country Carnival. The canteen was a great success! We had lots of lovely cooking to sell, and we were lucky to have a great group of parents working on the day, there was a real team atmosphere.

Thank you to Belinda Hindmarsh for lending us her catering van, the food we could offer contributed to the success of the day. Also, thanks to Alicia Hargreaves and Lauren Gailey for running the van like pros. It was a huge effort by Sam Johnson to co-ordinate the day and we are grateful for her hard work and endless energy. We raised $2100 for the school.

The cultural space is progressing well. The painting has been completed. A story board is also being considered. Lighting will be installed soon. The sandstone blocks have been approved for use on the water tank. The official opening will take place at the School Fete later in the year.

The Bulb Fundraiser was well supported, thank you to Simone Jones for her initiative with this. $922 profit was made for the school.

The Meat Raffles have started at Lott’s Hotel. The roster will be sent out soon. It’s a great excuse for a night out. Thanks to Craig Hargreaves for organising the roster.

The CC are currently considering assisting the school to purchase a ride-on mower to make the job of Kristen Bartlett more efficient. We are looking at our options – which include sharing the cost with the Parish. In addition, the Parish are looking for help to mow their lawns. If you have a spare Sunday afternoon, please contact Pete Reardon to offer your assistance.

We are working towards funding a COLA (Covered Outdoor Learning Area) or shade structure for the black top playground area. We are in the process of organising designs and looking at funding options e.g. grants, as we cannot fund it solely through fundraising. This will be a large project and quite a lot of planning is required.

Kate Graham

Secretary

Community Council

After discussion with Catholic Education Canberra-Goulburn legal and governance team as well as numerous Western Region schools, the decision has been made to transition to parents providing transportation for their child/children to extra curricular events that are not directly linked to the curriculum or are an optional event. This takes into consideration sporting events and carnivals that in essence are optional for students to attend. However, for all educational excursions that are compulsory for whole classes to attend as part of the learning curriculum, the school will organise bus transport. The reason behind this change in transportation arrangements takes into consideration relevant legal requirements and restrictions around transportation of students to events.

For all future Western Region representative sport, gala days and any other non-compulsory events that require transportation, travel arrangements will be the responsibility of parents. In all future COMPASS events, the events information notice will ask parents for their consent and also ask parents to consider the following options:

Indicate if they can drive their child/ren or not
Indicate if they can also provide seats for additional children

This information will be collated to make it possible for those parents who cannot take their own child, to make contact with other drivers to organise transport for their own child. Parents may wish to organise this themselves or contact the front office for names of parents driving to organise transport for their child.

The school will facilitate parents being able to contact other parent drivers but will no longer place students in cars.

This change in travel requirements has been necessary due to a sharp increase in bus costs which makes it an unaffordable costing across a small group of students.

This decision is in line with Catholic Education legal policies and takes into consideration other Catholic schools current transportation practices.

If you have any questions or queries regarding this information, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Wilson and Mrs Baron.

Semester 1 reports to go home to parents - Friday 24^th June

Parent/Teacher Meetings-Tuesday 28^th June, Wednesday 29^th June and Thursday 30^th June

Helpful hints for using Compass

* Open your phone app and choose from top left menu "Open in Browser". This allows you to view Compass in full and see all user options.

* Is your Compass app updated? An update may be needed so as to get the most current version.

* If you are looking for an Event information eg excursions you've already given consent for, you neeed to refresh your screen and look in the Event Management tab.

We are extremely grateful of Mrs Alicia Hargreaves who has offered to volunteer her time to train Year 5/6 students for a school choir with the support of Mrs Anne Field and Mrs Kate Graham. Choir lessons will be held at lunchtimes for those students that have indicated an interest. A focus of the choir is to enter the WR Choir competition to be held later this term. Choir lessons began today.

Once again, we will attempt to bring our whole school production of ‘Alice the Musical’ to life this year. Students will begin practicing parts in their classrooms over the next term.

The following dates that have been set aside for the musical production in Week 9 of Term 3. Wednesday 14^th September for a matinee performance and Thursday 15^th September for a night performance.

Teachers will be in touch shortly to notify parents about costume requirements

Congratulations are extended to the Bock family on the arrival of their beautiful little baby son and brother, Soren who was born on Saturday 21st May.

Our Aboriginal Cultural Space continues to evolve and take shape. Robert our painter has put the finishing touches onto our mural that signifies the local indigenous actions and courage of Yarri and Jacky Jacky, during the great flood in 1852. The final touch to this mural will be by adding the students individual handprints as a symbol of the continued reconciliation and respect between indigenous people and our school community. This will take place on Monday 27^th June. Community Council will fund a storyboard to go with this mural and continue to develop the cultural space over time. Many thanks to Cheryl Franklin who has been our contact during the development of this Cultural Space for our students.

Please note these are Pupil Free Days

Friday 10^th June

Friday 1^st July

McAuley Catholic Central School, Tumut will be hosting a Parent Information Evening on Tuesday 7 June to outline the transition from Primary to Secondary school. We welcome all parents and carers of Year 6 students to come along and hear about the exciting opportunities offered in Stage 4 schooling at McAuley. Following our Information evening, we will have our first Year 7 orientation day on Friday 17 June. There will be an information pack going home to families outlining what will happen on the day.

2023 McAuley Year 11 Information Evening will also be held on Thursday 9th of June (Time to be Confirmed)

A very special thank you to the Gundagai Busking Group for the very generous donation to St Patrick’s School. Unfortunately, the Busking Group has decided to finish up and money from the group has been distributed among several community organisations. The $1500 donation to St Patrick’s will be used to purchase musical instruments. Thank you to Oliver Crowe and Eliza Graham who accompanied Mrs Baron to the presentation and accepted the cheque on behalf of St Patrick’s School.

Athletics Carnival

Thank you so much to the parents and volunteers who assisted with time keeping and field events at our recent athletics carnival. It was great to see so many helpers and family members being part of this event. Congratulations to the winning house DONOVAN who won by only around 50 points!

Well done to all students for their participation and their determined spirit on the day.

Congratulations to our Age Champions:

Junior Girl - Corby Rose R/U - Eliza Graham

Junior Boy - Taite Johnson R/U - A B Ryan

Intermediate Girl - Sophie Graham R/U - Montanna Manns

Intermediate Boy - Ryan Huang R/U - Jack Paton

Senior Girl - Gracie Peterson R/U - Tahlira Rose

Senior Boy - James Reardon R/U - Charlie Hindmarsh

SOFTBALL with Gecko Sports starts this Thursday for each class. This will be a 5 week program. We always enjoy having quality skills instruction with Scott and his instructors.

Western Region Athletics

Will be held in Cootamundra on Thursday 16 June. Consent will need to be given in Compass plus payment via Compass App or Cash to the front office. The Event will be sent out shortly for parent approval

Mackillop Soccer Trials

Congratulations to Charlie Hindmarsh for representing our school in the Canberra Goulburn Soccer team that played in Mackillop Trials held last Friday in Goulburn.

We are very proud of Charlie's efforts and from all reports the standard of play was high. Well done Charlie!

Mackillop Cross Country

We would like to extend our best wishes to Charlie Hindmarsh and Taite Johnson who will be representing our school at the Mackillop Cross Country on the 7th of June. Good Luck to you both

Cootamundra/Gundagai Regional Council have organised a Self Defence Winter Workshop coming in the July holidays. The workshop is free for women and girls. Participants will learn how to replace fear with confidence, making smart choices and using the poer of voice.

KYUP! Self defence WINTER WORKSHOPS 2022 holiday program.

GUNDAGAI - 12 July 2:00 - 4:30pm @ Gundagai District Services Club

Registrations can only be made via the link -

https://kyupproject.com.au/holidayworkshops/

Tune into "Sounds of the Mountains" radio station either FM96.3 or FM94.1 every Wednesday afternoon at 2.15pm to hear about up coming events, weekly awards or around the school news which is presented by our Yr 6 school leaders

Week 10 ( 29th June) - James Reardon & Anson Chew

Saturday Night Mass has moved to 5pm during the Winter Months. Could you please ensure the children who are rostered on are at the Church by 4.45pm. Thank you.

Saturday 4th June - Tahlira Rose & Corby Rose

Saturday 11th June - Hugh Ryan & Nick Quine

Saturday 18th June - AB Ryan & Joey Gailey

If your child is unable to do their rostered day could you please arrange to swap with another family then notify the office so we can contact Madeline Ryan to update the Bulletin. Thank you so much

Canteen orders need to be submitted no later than 8pm on Thursday evenings. Thank you again to our wonderful volunteers and cooks.

ROSTER:

Happy Birthday to the following students who have recently celebrated their birthdays:

18th May - Kaydee Smith

18th May - Zoe Paton

24th May - Harry Peterson

27th May - Tessa Crowe

27th May - Jack Paton

We hope you all had a lovely day with family and friends