Term 3 Issue 1 29th July 2022

Principal's News

Welcome Back to Term 3!

Our staff have been busy working hard behind the scenes to ensure another engaging term of learning occurs for our students.

Catholic Education Week

This week is an opportunity for all Queensland Catholic schools to celebrate our distinctive mission and ethos.

The theme for this year’s celebration is: Communities of Faith, Hope and Love.                                  Catholic education strives to make a difference in the lives of those in our school and in our wider community to reach their full potential as compassionate, contributing, life-giving members of society.

St Patrick’s Mission is:

• Educate the whole person by giving everyone the opportunity to participate in physical, social, academic and spiritual learning.
• Guide students to be lifelong learners, mentors and active participants in school, parish and community life.
• Pray together, share the sacraments, model Gospel values and inspire hope in our students.
• Work in partnership with parents to enrich the learning outcomes for their children.

St Patrick’s Values:

• We are a Mercy school which strives to embed the Mercy Values in everything we do.

St Patrick’s Vision

• Jesus in my mind. Jesus in my heart. Jesus in everything I do.

Containers for Change

We are excited to announce that our containers for change money has been utilised to assist in the purchase of new classroom desks and chairs in our 3-6 classroom. We are expecting our new furniture to arrive in the second week of August. Our PPF has also contributed to the purchase of much needed new furniture. Thank you to our wonderful PPF.

State of Origin Pizza Night

Thank you to all families, community members and businesses who supported our State of Origin Pizza Night. We would like to give a special mention to Kymberlee, Claudia, Breanna, Mel, Pricilla, Kathy, Renee, Bree from the Spa, Foodworks, Mini Mart and Lawson’s Butchers. You all supported our fundraiser in some way and we are appreciative to have you support our school.

PPF News

Our PPF have been doing a wonderful job with our Friday Night Meat tray raffles. Thank you to Alison at Hotel Richards (aka The Rock) for providing our school with this wonderful fundraising opportunity. Thank you to our parents who are volunteering to sell raffle tickets on Friday nights.

PPF Meeting

The next meeting of the PPF Assn will be held on Wednesday, 17th August at 5.30 p.m. in the        Year 3 to 6 classroom. Everyone is welcome to come and share you ideas.

Camp Oven Dinner

Thank you to our staff and parents who assisted with our Camp Oven dinner. It was a great success and everyone enjoyed their meals. Thank you to Darryl for your hard work preparing the main meal, thank you to our parents who cooked the desserts and assisted on the evening and thank you to Major Mitchell Caravan Park for having us. We are looking forward to our next one on 6th August. Local community members can pre pay and order their camp oven dinner by contacting and paying at St Patrick's School office.

St Columba's Parish Mass Dates

St Patrick's Peace Garden Ceremony Dates

Student Protection

At St Patrick’s School the safety and wellbeing of our students is our highest priority. All children should grow up free of violence or exploitation and be able to learn in a safe and supported environment. Schools have a number of specific child protection reporting obligations that are detailed in our Student Protection Processes and Guidelines.

If a student wants to talk to someone about harm, abuse or inappropriate behaviour toward themselves or others, they can speak to a trusted staff member or one of our School Student Protection Contacts (SSPCs).  The SSPCs receive additional training and are identified in the student protection posters displayed around the school.

Felicity Ray, Jenny Bye and Kylie Millar are the Student Protection Contacts for St Patrick's School.

Summary documents have been developed for parents and caregivers about our student protection obligations and our broader strategy for maintaining safe school environments.

Further information on all of the above topics can be found on the Toowoomba Catholic Schools website at https://www.twb.catholic.edu.au/parents-and-community/student-protection/

Student Protection Contacts

Tuckshop Roster Term 3, 2022

School Photos

We have been advised by Country School Photos that the school photos will be available by end of August. More information will be supplied when it comes to hand.

Australian Army Band

The Australian Army Band will be performing at St Patrick's School on Monday, 22nd August 2022 at 11.00 a.m.

The Army Band connects with communities by sharing music, and are very excited to be able to travel into regional and country areas for the first time in over two years.

Their performances last for up to 20min and include a high-energy, interactive ensemble of around 10 people. We loo forward to welcoming them to our school to peform.

Bookfair 2022

Our annual Bookfair will be held in August.  The theme this year is "Paws for Books".

Dress up ideas – animals with paws, book characters and use your imagination.

Dates to be confirmed and dress up parade.

Class News : Years 3, 4, 5 and 6

Welcome to Week 3!

I would like to firstly thank our amazing Year 3-6 students for their dedicated approach to their learning and coping with unexpected changes this term. Our students have continued to display a positive and engaging approach in all areas of their learning this term and Mrs Gobbert and I have been enjoying working with our students each week. I am still working on recruiting  a replacement teacher for our class and all going well I will know more early next week. Thank you for your continued understanding and support with this. Teacher shortages is a challenge that is being faced by schools around Australia at present.

English

We have been consolidating our writing and focusing on ‘Quick Writes’ and Narrative text structures. Students have been increasing the length of their writing and focusing on their editing skills. Miss Millar has introduced our students to Promoting Literacy Development (PLD). Our students have been enjoying their daily PLD lessons and the positive challenges that it provides students with the literacy tasks.

Maths

We have been learning about angles. Students have been learning to identify and measure a range of different angles. They have learnt the angle names and their measurements and have identified angles in their school environment.

Religion

We have been learning about Mary MacKillop and her story. This week students were engaged in a range of discussions around ‘Faith, Hope and Love’ in support of our Catholic Education Week theme.

Science

We have been learning about physical changes and how heat can change the state of an object. Students conducted a chocolate melting experiment at home as part of their homework task and in class students investigated which coloured crayon would melt the quickest. We were very surprised by our end results with this experiment.

Library

Just a reminder that we borrow from the library on Thursdays, so please remember to return library books and bags each week.

Homework

This term homework will look a little different. Students will be completing a homework grid this term and they will be required to have various tasks signed off by families when completed. Students will continue to return their homework to school on a Friday and they will need to complete at least 2 grid squares each week.

Warmest regards,

Miss Millar and Mrs Gobbert

Class News: Prep to Year 2

Welcome to Term 3, we’ve officially made it into the second half of 2022!

English

In guided reading this Term, the students have loved buddy reading, where they choose a friend to either read to or listen to their friend read to them. It is so wonderful to see the student’s enthusiasm and engagement as they foster their independent reading skills.

We started this term off with writing a recount about something that has happened to us in the past. This began with thinking about what we did on the holidays and then we read the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, noticing that words were in past tense to help us with writing about an event that has already happened.

Maths

In Maths we have started the term refreshing our number value and counting skills. The Preps are using the counting and number sense skills that they have built throughout Semester One to extend their understanding of numbers beyond 10. The teen numbers can be a tricky concept for children to understand both the sequence and value of these numbers, so the students are figuring out the pattern and value of these numbers through comparing the teen numbers to the 1-10 numbers. The Year One and Two students have been using lots of hands-on materials such as unifix cubes and paddle pop sticks to represent and break numbers up into their place value (hundreds/tens/ones). They’ve really enjoyed using these to support their understanding that ten ones make one group of ten. Incidentally through this they have used their skip counting by 10 skills which they are becoming quite fluent with. 

Religion

The P-2 Class have been exploring how they can share the messages of creation in their world. To do this we delved into the messages of creation in the three different creation stories: 7 Days of Creation, Adam and Eve and God’s agreement with Noah. The students have loved exploring these stories through role plays, oral retells, songs and watching Lego videos.

The P-2 class are also very excited to be hosting the Peace Garden ceremony in Catholic Education Week to celebrate the theme 'Communities of Faith, Hope and Love' as well as sharing what they have been learning in Religion so far this term.

Science

Chemical Science is what we are focusing on this term in the unit Bend it, Stretch it! We will be exploring the physical changes to objects and how materials can be changed in different ways. The students have already started to observe and explore these changes in paper and tissue paper when they bent and folded it. The class will also get to explore and observe physical changes of an object by stretching it and scrunching it. At the end of the term the students will be conducting their own investigation of how playdough changes when it dries out.  

HASS

Our focus in HASS this term is History where we will be exploring and investigating how family life has changed or stayed the same over time and how we can show that the present is different or similar from the past. We have read books about families and discovered all the different people who make up our families such as uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents and stepparents. The class loved talking about their own families and comparing who makes up their families with their classmates.

I am looking forward to seeing how everyone progresses in their learning throughout Term 3.

Miss Ray

P-2 Teacher

Felicity.ray@twb.catholic.edu.au

Principal's Award

McKenzie Mitchell

For your positive attitude to all areas of your learning.

Mercy Awards

Patrick Batstone

For demonstrating the Mercy Value of Justice and Service in your first two weeks at St Patrick's. You consistently treat your classmates with fairness and respect and speaking and acting kindly towards them, setting a great example for your classmates.

Keep following in the footsteps of Catherine McAuley! 

Hallie Page

For demonstrating our Mercy Values of Justice and Compassion when delivering meals to our local community members for Meals on Wheels. Well done!  Keep letting our Mercy Values shine.

Awesome Achiever Awards

Wyatt Butler

For the hard work that you put into your "Reading Unit" task. It was wonderful to see the effort and dedication that you displayed during this independent task.    

Keep up the great work! 

Daniel Batstone

For using the Learning Powers of Courageous and Resilient in your first two weeks at St Patrick's. This was shown through the positive attitude you brought into the classroom, actively participating in whole class discussions, and having a go at new challenges.                                                  Keep up the great work!

Important Dates for 2022