Dear Parents and Carers,

Today, Bishop Michael visited our school and was welcomed with open arms. Since commencing in his role in 2023, Bishop Michael has made it his business to visit all of the 58 schools in the Maitland Newcastle Diocese. Bishop Michael studied to become a High School teacher and it is wonderful that he is passionate about education. He spoke of his leadership role as teacher, as leader of prayer and governing across the Diocese. Bishop Michael's capacity as 'teacher' was evident when he spoke with the students, and one of the important messages he shared was that doing what's good makes you happy, not necessarily what's easy. Bishop Michael likened it to how difficult students sometimes found school but how many of them also agreed that they loved being at school. It was a pleasure to have Bishop Michael meet our students and spend time getting to know our staff and community.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday and signals the final week of Lent in the Catholic Church. We call this time, 'Holy Week' as it is the period of time that we reflect on the final steps in the journey of Christ's life in Jerusalem. Last year, I was fortunate to be part of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to walk in the actual footsteps of Jesus during this time, visiting the Garden of Gethsemane, the place of Jesus' arrest, and to follow His journey in the week leading up to His crucifixion was an amazing experience. There are many special places in the Holy Land and I will be holding the people of Palestine and Israel in my prayers this week as we prepare for Easter.

Goal Setting Conversations feedback

The purpose of the Goal Setting Conversations is to engage our parents and carers in the learning journey of their child early in the academic year. The conversations are an opportunity for students to demonstrate their assessment capability and for teachers and parents to share their wealth of knowledge about individual students and how they learn. It is a time to collaborate on the best next steps to take for the student and to celebrate the progress made.

Thank you to all who have taken the time out of their busy schedules to meet with our teachers. The informal feedback that teachers and I have received from parents about these opportunities has been very positive. We would love your feedback about what's working well and how we can continue to improve this process for parents or students. Thank you for assisting us by completing the survey.

Goal Setting Conversation Survey

Moment of Gratitude

Among our staff at Holy Name, there is a consistent sense of gratitude for moments, people and/or places in our days and weeks that we are grateful for. This week, I have been thinking about our School Canteen and how lucky we have been to have Gordon and Nikki Cooper provide for our students and staff each day. Their flexible and calm approach to what I'm sure is sometimes a stressful role is appreciated. They are always open to supporting the changes in our calendar or additional requests we make of them. Thank you Gordon, Nikki and crew who support them.

Holy Name students shine their light in the world

Last week, I was approached by a member of our Parish community who wanted to tell me a beautiful story about the impact that one particular act of kindness by our students had on her personally. This is the story...

"During a community lunch, I  picked up a hand written note from Minni Vinnies.  I was given a very  serious health diagnosis on the  20th July 2023.  I took my special note with me to all my treatments in Port Macquarie and Newcastle over the last 8 months. I kept it in my bible when away and on my fridge at home.  It's words gave me hope and happiness, giving me a very joyous feeling knowing that young people have taken the time to care about someone they may not have met or may never meet. Because of the beautiful words, I believe this note, Jesus had there for me that day due to the serious difficulties I was to face. I would personally like to thank the children and teachers of Holy Name School for showing our youth the true meaning of being Christian. In our Catholic faith.  God bless and I'm sending my love to all. My surgery is on the 22nd March 2024. I ask could you all hold me in your prayers as I will be praying for all the staff and children at Holy Name School. I will also have your words of comfort with me in my bible in hospital."

This is the note...and I am incredibly proud of the difference our students are already making in this world.

New netball goal posts a hit!

Thank you to David Rankin for organising new netball posts for our school court. It is great to see that a couple of netball teams, coached by Holy Name parents, are using this court to train in the afternoons after school. We appreciate the continued support of the Rankin family and honour the memory of their beloved Shannon, who was a student at our school. 

Wishing our families a wonderful fortnight.

Brooke Stephens 

We were very excited to learn that Crystal Simon, one of our very own Aboriginal Education Workers, won the 'Sisters of St Joseph' Award at this year's Diocesan Awards evening. This award was even more special for Crystal because of the connection between the Sisters of St Joseph and members of Crystal's family and the Elders of the Worimi community. Crystal won the award because of her work with the Buuranbal Marray project in 2023 that provided a new opportunity for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living on Worimi Country to share stories through artworks that were exhibited at the Forster Art Gallery. The exhibition itself was a wonderful celebration of Culture and a tangible experience for students, community members and Elders that shone a light on the rich Cultural knowledge present in our community. 

The award itself said, "Crystal is an outstanding, innovative leader in faith. She connects Culture, spirituality, life and work to serve her family, community and school community. She is humble and prepared to have the difficult conversations to achieve what she thinks is best. Crystal led the Buuranbal Marray initiative from a community perspective, which connected her work with schools through the Forster Local Aboriginal Education Consultative Group with her role at Holy Name as one of our Aboriginal Workers, and her life as a member of the Worimi Community...The project involved Elders and community members sharing stories, schools using resources available to them to share stories and to build Cultural knowledge by visiting the special places that bring these stories to life. All students, community members and Elders were invited to share their own stories through visual arts and participate in the Buuranbal Marray Art Exhibition. Crystal led this process in our school and in community, making sure the conversations, permissions and engagement of community was encouraged, promoted and accessible. Crystal's leadership in faith epitomizes our call to work for equity and justice in our communities. Through the project, Crystal engaged with Catholic Care, the Forster Neighbourhood Centre, Homebase, the Catholic Parish of Forster-Tuncurry, Aboriginal Affairs and Hunter Local Land Services...Crystal worked in collaboration with the volunteers of the Forster Art Gallery to ensure the exhibition was a success and with the Worimi Elders and Dance Group to ensure the appropriate Cultural protocols were followed on the day....As a result of her work, Aboriginal members of the community reconnected with their passion for the visual arts and joined as members of the Forster Art Gallery...This process wasn't an easy one for Crystal and she had to demonstrate courage, persistence, and wisdom throughout the project's duration."

We are so proud of you Crystal!!

Attendance

Attendance continues to be a concern at HNS. Children are legally bound to be educated and our CSO has made attendance a focus. Each Monday, I analyse an attendance report and send relevant correspondence to families.

Students need to be at school more than 95% of the time to access the most out of their educational journey. Having a day of a fortnight, means students are missing 20 school days a year - the equivalent of 4 weeks of learning!

Please ensure that your child/ren are at school each day to start lessons at 8.50. If children are unwell, you can inform us on Compass, a phone call to the office, an email/seesaw message to the class teacher or send in a note.

It is preferable that extended holidays are taken in the school holiday periods. If you need to take your child out of school for 10 days or more, you will need an exemption form from the office.

WHS

This week saw the first of our WHS drills for 2024. We practiced a whole school lockdown drill and the students and staff were very calm and followed the procedure carefully. We have practices each term for lockdown and evacuation procedures.

PBL

Our PBL focus for the past 4 weeks has been "I can Listen to the Teacher." Sadly, we have a huge number of students who find it very hard to stop speaking and listen to instructions. Please help us at home by teaching your child/ren not to butt into the conversations of adults, to wait their turn and to be patient when waiting in a group. It is also important that children have their eyes on ypu when you speak to them so they gain meaning from what is being said.

Garden

Another huge thank you to Mrs Amato and her enthusiastic band of gardeners. The garden space looks wonderful and some beds are planted out with beetroot, beans, herbs and corn just to name a few.

It is wonderful to see our students helping in the garden and showing their Concern for Others by looking after our environment and growing fresh food to share with those less fortunate than ourselves.

Easter raffle

Our P&F Easter raffle will be drawn next Wednesday, March 27 at 8.50. The children have been given tickets to sell and all monies need to be returned to the school office by Tuesday afternoon. We are still taking Easter Egg and chocolate donations at the office.

Cross Country

Our HNS Cross Country will take place at Pebbly Beach on Monday, April 8th (Week 11.) All Primary students are expected to take part in this event. Notes have gone out to the children and we would love some parents to volunteer to supervise around the course.

Under 9 & 10 year olds run a 2km course and our 11 & 12 will run the 3km course. All students are expected to take part in the event, even if they walk.

da Vinci Decathlon

On Thursday, Max Isbel from 6M, took part in an academic decathlon supported bu the Gifted Ed team at our CSO. It was a great achievement and honour for Max to be chosen as only one of 8 students in our Diocese.

Here is a report from Max:

My experience at the Academic Decathlon:

Hello, people that read the newsletter! I’m Max, and I went to the decathlon for the virtual academy. If you didn’t know, the virtual academy is a group of people that meet on computers every week and do things to learn and stretch our minds. For the decathlon, a select 16 people are chosen to participate in 10 different subjects, 8 for year 5 and 8 for year 6, and it is VERY fun. You take breaks, do 3 sections where we do different things, like Engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, English, ideation, creative producers, cartography, and legacy.

Our group did all of them, and I did engineering and code breaking (I forgot the others), and we got a *drumroll please*… 3^rd place for one and *more drumrolls*… 2^nd place for another and finally *this time there’s no drumroll* one 1^st place!!!! Yes, we got first place for code breaking! We all got a certificate for our group!

Uniform 

We are still noticing some students not following our uniform policy. In particular, students are to wear plain black joggers and plain black socks. Socks are NOT to have pictures or logos on them. The other thing I have noticed of late is the number of children wearing their hair out. If hair is shoulder length or longer, whether a boy or a girl, hair must be tied back.

Celebrating Holy Week

Next Thursday is Holy Thursday. Holy Name will be celebrating our Holy Week Liturgy in the school hall at 12 noon. This is a whole school liturgy. Led by our Yr 6 SRC and dramatised by Yr3. Children will listen to the stories of Holy Week, the Resurrection of Jesus and celebrating the Risen Lord.

Bishop Michael's Visit

Today Bishop Michael visted Holy Name. It was wonderful to listen to Bishop Michael explain his role in our Diocese and share stories of what he was like as a student growing up in a rural community about the size of Forster. Bishop Michael inducted our Mini Vinnies leadership group (30 students in total), after this the group were presented with their badges and read their pledge of service and prayer of St Vincent de Paul. Congratulations to all children involved. 

Bishop Michael then shared morning tea with our Yr6 SRC, Mrs Stephens, Mrs Loring and Fr John. Mrs Stephens then took Bishop Michael and Fr John on a tour of our school which included visited several of our classes.

Congratualtions to Klahra Ridgeway who began our assembly with a Welcome to Country in Gathang.

Mini Vinnies Members 2024: Evie Barnett, Dakota Bowen, Makayla Bowie, Skye Brennan, Alexis Carrigan, Reuben Cassar, Ebony Clarke, Mia Collins, Summer Rose-Dalton, Sasha Dempsey, Alessandra Devescovi, Jack Dexter, David Drummond, Larah Farr, Scarlett Garrard, Ava Hallinan, Haya Hamdy, Aubrie Jimenez, Nanma Joy, Maddie Keegan, Xavier Laurie, Eli Lea, Eden Lucenti, Harry Naughton, Grace Negulic, Amaya Pucci, Rashmika Singh, Isabella Sleiman, Elijah Suckling, Isla Ware McKay, Eva Wilson, Jorja Zabell, Aaliyah Ridgeway.

Genevieve Williamson

Religious Education Coordinator

Great Learning Happening in Year One!

Each fortnight we like to put a spotlight on the great learning happening in a particular grade in our school. In this report the spotlight is on Year One.

In English, the Year One classes are engaging in their reading lessons with a high level of engagement and motivation. The students are enjoying having their own copy of the class decodable reader each week, which enables them to use the reader during group sessions and practise reading the text at home. The decodable reader the students have week is linked with the class sound focus which assists the students in building their knowledge of more complex letter sound combinations. Each day students read the class reader with their small group to build reading fluency and work towards their goal of reading a target amount of words per minute. Students take part in a daily dictation within their groups where words containing the sound focus are included in the sentence the students need to record.

During writing our Year One students are learning to construct quality sentences to include in their narrative writing pieces. Over the past fortnight teachers have been modelling how to include adjectives to sentences to make them more interesting. The students have enjoyed using think/pair/share to verbalise their interesting sentences before attempting to write them in their books. The students have been listening to a variety of different fairytales to gain inspiration to write their own fairy tale narrative. During this process the students were so keen to share their thinking and discuss their progress with their peers. When students were happy with their story plans in draft form, they were able to progress to drafting the orientation of their fairytales. 

In Maths, Year One been developing their measurement skills, through calculating area and estimating the capacity of containers and other objects. The Year One teachers have been impressed with how confidently the students can make educated estimates and explain their reasoning for their prediction. Teachers have been using prompting questions to identify if the students know the most efficient ways to measure the area or capacity of an object. The lessons have been hands on with lots of freedom to use a variety of objects from around the room, this prompted great discussion and a good understanding of what an informal measuring unit can look like and which ones are more efficient and effective depending on what you are measuring.

In Science, Year One have been working on a unit titled ‘Materials and Change’. In this unit, the students have observed the external features of living things. They are learning to describe the features of both animals and plants. Students now understand the reason why plants are classified as living things and have recorded their observations in their Science Journals. Students have enjoyed investigating how living things can be grouped according to their external features. The highlight of the unit was investigating a sunflower by looking at it through through a hand lens. 

Students were then introduced to the elements of close observation and scientific drawings. After investigating the sunflower, they drew a detailed image of it, labelling the parts that they know. So clever!

 Well done Year One students and teachers keep up the awesome work!

K-2 English Reading Groups

This week our Reading Groups started in all Kindergarten to Year 2 classes. This involves a team of Classroom Teachers, Learning Support Staff, EALD, Aboriginal Education Workers coming into the classroom and supporting individual groups to work on Phonics, high frequency work identification, work on heart words (words that have tricky spelling and unique sounds that need to be learnt by heart) reading of the decodable reader, comprehension and a set dictation. The wonderful part of this process across our K-2 classes, is that students are working in small groups with other students of a similar ability which enables the teacher is able to target specfic skills that need to be worked on. Check out these photos of the groups in action!

Mrs Suzie Monks

Primary Coordinator

The following procedures relate to the administering of medication at Holy Name Primary School. We remind parents of their obligations in the provision of medication to the school for the regular days at school and/or on excursions.

1. Any person delivering a student to the school must not leave any type of medication in the student’s bag. Medication must be given directly to a staff member of the school and the nominated person/s notified for appropriate storage upon arrival.  
2. Ongoing medications (such as Ritalin taken for a prolonged period) should be provided to the school on a weekly basis wherever possible to limit administrative load and manage amounts held in stock. 
3. Where a student is transferring from school to service or vice versa, the person in charge of this transfer must ensure medications are given to the person in charge of the respective school or service. 
4. The administration of any medication is authorised by a parent/guardian in writing and the medication, including packaging must adhere to the following guidelines:  
   • Medication is prescribed by a registered medical practitioner (with instructions either attached to the medication, or in written form from the medical practitioner)  
   • Medication has the original label clearly showing the name of the student and name of medication 
   • The dosage of medication to be administered is provided by medical practitioner, and is supplied in the correct dosage (tablets will not be cut up, crushed up etc)  
   • Frequency in administration is specified. 
   • Medication is from the original container (Note: Medications supplied in Pharmacist packed Dosage Administration Aids such as Webster Paks® are acceptable).  
   • Medication is within the expiry/use by date. 
5. The parent/guardian is responsible for supplying any associated equipment needed for administration of medication such as a spacer or diabetes testing equipment and must ensure the school remains in stock. 
6. Parents/guardians are required to update the school at the earliest possible occasion where changes to medications, dosages or similar occur. These should be communicated in writing in the first instance and the school may require the parent/guardian to sign a new consent form and provide an updated Health Care Plan where necessary 

Thank you for helping us to keep your children safe.

The “NSW Police Legacy Child Safety Handbook” is a comprehensive and free resource to assist parents, carers as well as teachers on a range of topics essential to child safety.  

The updated digital edition (link below) includes important content updates from: Fire and Rescue NSW (home fire safety), Transport NSW (school bus and seat belt safety), NSW Department of Communities and Justice (keeping children safe), eSafety Commissioner and NSW Rural Fire.

Please click on the cover below to view the digital handbook.