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Dear Parents and Carers,
The love, support and resilience of our community has been obvious during the first 2 weeks of this term as we work through the sudden and tragic loss of Mary Therese Micua, one of our cherished Yr 3 students. We continue to pray for Mary and for her family, Jose and Mary Jane, and to envelope them with our love and support during this difficult time. We are grateful for the support our staff and students have received from our families and from our Catholic School's Office and Catholic Care. The funeral for Mary is planned for 11:00am Friday 14th August in the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church. There will be guidelines in place regarding attendance due to COVID-19. Our Parish will provide details as it gets closer to the date.
I know that when Jose and Mary Jane return to Forster, they are looking forward to hearing all of the beautiful stories about Mary from our students. They told me that Mary absolutely loved Holy Name School and enjoyed every moment of her time here with us. Students from Holy Name have been thinking about their memories of Mary and I have included some of their thoughts in the picture below.
This week, we were also devastated to hear that a sibling of one of our Year 1 students passed away. Jace, the 1 yr old brother of Summer-Rose Dalton died on Wednesday following complications due to an unknown short-term illness. Rachel and Summer remain in Newcastle with family while they make the funeral arrangements. We will remain in contact with Rachel and provide support for the family in every way we can. Please keep Rachel, Summer and Jace in your thoughts and prayers over the coming days and weeks ahead.
SCHOOL VISION & MISSION
For the first day of this term, our staff took a journey through the history of Holy Name Primary School, looking at how we came to be the school we are today. We looked at who was involved in the formation of the school, the underlying values and mission of their work, and the meaning of our 'Holy Name'. We read our current Vision and Mission statements and discussed what is important for us today in our work, why we do what we do and what is the important message we would like our community to get when they read the Vision and the Mission statements of our school. We took a long hard look at our identity over time and captured our current thinking to draft a revised vision for the school. In a few weeks, our staff will revisit this work and make some decisions about the final draft of our new Vision. At next week's P&F meeting, I will present some of the options to our parents and carers for your input. Please email admin@forster.catholic.edu.au if you would like to join the zoom meeting. We will send a link and some guidelines about the meeting when you make contact with our office. The P&F meeting will be on Tuesday night at 6pm.
COVID GUIDELINES
The uncertainty of the Coronavirus and the potential impact on our community is on my mind. This week, all Principal's from across the Diocese met with our Director. We were asked to plan and to practise with staff and students what we would do if Hunter New England Health phoned or came to the school to inform us of need to evacuate due to a positive COVID-19 test. Over the coming days, a notification will come to families via Compass about this plan and it will be really important that you understand the plan and provide any information we require to enact the plan should it become necessary. One of the key pieces of information will be for all families to inform us of who they have decided will be the person to call to pick up their child should the plan be enacted. It might be a good idea to start to talk about this over the next few days.
The following guidelines are in place for Holy Name School.
- All parents, carers and visitors to our school must sign a 'Visitor acknowledgement form' if they enter our school grounds for any reason. They must adhere to the hygiene, distancing and safety protocols of the school. Parents and carers are only to attend school if absolutely necessary and consider whether they can phone or have a meeting via zoom prior to coming into the school. Parents and carers should not be on the school grounds or at school events without the Principal's permission.
- Students are required to bring their own water bottles to school as we are not allowed to access the bubblers.
- External providers must demonstrate compliance with health and safety requirements.
- All adults must maintain physical distance from each other including teachers, support staff and parents.
- Parents must physically distance from one another at pick-up and move on once they have their child/ren.
- Regular hand-washing and use of hand sanitiser when entering and leaving the classroom.
- Additional cleaning of equipment, handles, handrails, tables.
- Face-face parent meetings are allowed when deemed essential.
- School assemblies are allowed for 15mins but without parents and carers attending.
- Choir and performing arts activities in school are allowed with safety protocols.
- School class photos but no staff photo.
- Online P&F Meetings and Parent-Teacher interviews
At this point in time, we are not allowed to have excursions, other than a day field trip with special safety requirements. At this stage, we have not cancelled our excursions to Canberra for Yr 6 or to the Aussie Bush Camp for Yr5, but this may become necessary. If this is the case, families will be credited the cost and our teachers will work with families to plan an alternate event that fits within the guidelines.
Semester 1 Student Reports
On Monday, your child's Semester 1 Student Report will be available on the Compass platform. These reports will not be in the same format as previous years due to the period of home learning, however, will provide parents and carers with a good idea of how students are tracking academically, socially and in their learning behaviours.
If you are aware of any families who do not access the Compass School App, could you please suggest they contact the school to get access so they will receive important messages, school updates and can access the student reports.
St Clare's News
Please follow this link to read about what's happening at our feeder high school, St Clare's.
Warm regards,
Brooke Stephens
At our recent staff retreat, we came together to pray, to give thanks and to plan together for an even better HNS. During a mindfulness art activity led by PCW Kristie Banham, our staff contemplated the ‘Why’ of our roles at school.
On day two of our staff retreat we took the very first step towards becoming a Positve Behaviour for Learning School (PBL). PBL is an educational process that brings together the whole-school community to contribute to developing a positive, safe and supportive learning culture. The PBL framework assists schools to improve social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for children and young people. The HNS PBL Team consists of the Leadership Team, a teacher from each stage, our school psychologist and an Education Officer from the Catholic Schools Office. There will be times that we welcome a parent or student representative and support staff onto the committee.
When PBL is implemented well, teachers and students have more time to focus on relationships and classroom instruction.
Students and staff benefit from:
- reduced problem behaviour
- increased time focused on instruction
- improved social-emotional wellbeing
- positive and respectful relationships among students and staff
- better support for teachers to teach, model and respond effectively to student needs
- a predictable learning environment where staff and students know what is expected to deliver effective practices that can be sustained over time.
The PBL framework helps schools identify and successfully implement evidenced-based whole-school practices that enhance learning outcomes for children and young people.
One of the key implementation aspects of PBL is developing and using a common vision, language and experience so it was ideal for us to have this day follow on from what we discussed on Day 1 of the retreat.
PBL will be a 3-5-year journey and we look forward to walking it with staff, students, families and the Parish community. We are currently exploring the 3-5 broader behavioural expectations of the staff which will in time, become part of the HNS Pastoral Care and Wellbeing Policy.
The PBL Team are looking forward to walking the journey with families and the parish towards a positve learning environment that focuses on supporting the social and emotional development of every child.
Kind regards
Simone Maloney
Primary School Coordinator
Mary MacKillop Feast Day
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop’s feast day is celebrated on the 8th August. This year this falls on a Saturday. Holy Name will celebrate Mary MacKillop’s feast day on Friday 7th August in our classrooms. Fr Greg will lead a liturgy honouring Mary MacKillop with Yr 6 in our MacKillop hall.
Mary MacKillop founded the Josephite order and travelled throughout the countryside of Australia opening schools to educate children, particularly the disadvantaged and the poor.
Holy Name has taken Mary MacKillop as our charism. We remember Mary Mackillop not only on her feast day but every day. Living out Mary’s words “Never see a need without doing something about it” is how we make Jesus present in our school.
Mrs Power’s Farewell Liturgy
After 42 years of service to Catholic Education, Mrs Power has made the decision to retire. Fr Greg will lead this liturgy in MacKillop hall with Yr 4 on Thursday 13 August. This liturgy will be streamed live into our classrooms for all students to be part of. I take this opportunity to thank Mrs Power for all she has done for the students she has taught and for the strong relationships she has built with teachers and our school families.
A big welcome to Term 3 to all our families!
The term has had a busy but smooth start and we are all hoping and praying that COVID slows down and learning can continue as normal.
SPORT
Inter school sport and sport carnivals are still restricted. Next Tuesday, we will take the children to Lake street in 4 groups to run our Cross Country event. The children will run a 2km (under 9 & 10) or 3 km ( under 11 & 12) course and this will allow us to allocate sport champion points for the end of the year. Due to COVID restrictions, parents won’t be able to be at the event.
All classes are now teaching Physical Education using units created from the new PDHPE Syllabus. This syllabus is divided into 3 sections: Health, Wellbeing and Relationships, Movement Skill and Performance and Healthy, Safe and Active Lifestyles and as the words suggest has a real focus on the importance of exercise in our lives. The children are learning the skills required to participate in a range of individual and team games and sports.
GARDEN PROJECT
Our classes have been tending their garden beds and they are all looking healthy and green! Next week, 1W will be ready to harvest their Asian greens. This beautiful fresh produce will be taken over to the Community Kitchen to be used in their meals next week. The weather should start to warm towards the end of the term so we will get some spring crops in which will provide lots of produce.
SRC
Our SRC will meet in weeks 3,5 and 8 this term to continue planning our new direction for the remainder of 2020 and beyond. We will be continuing to form partnerships in community, particularly with the Parish, Community Kitchen, Landcare and Take 3 for the Sea as well as exploring our school’s carbon footprint and working with the staff to create a new school wide rewards system.
All children in our community who are considering commencing Kindergarten in 2021 at any school are welcome to join us with an educator or parent/carer at the Holy Name School Playgroup. We meet every Thursday morning in the hall from 9:30-10:30am. Morning tea is provided for adults and children. Please join us for a morning of fun educational activities and a friendly get together. Everyone welcome!
The Early Learning Team
Mrs Stephens, Mrs Praschinger , Mrs Monks and Mrs Maloney
The Aspire production is an outstandoing Diocesan Creative Arts performance opportunity. Students from across our Diocese write the script, create the set, and perform in singing, dance, drama or as instrumentalists. We have had students take part in this production for the previous 2 years and I cannot recomment it highly enough if you think your child is talented in the creative arts. It does involve travel to Newcastle for reherasals, however, the students and families are never disappointed. I encourage families to give it some thought.