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Dear Parents, Carers and Friends of Holy Name,
It was a privilege to showcase our school last week during Catholic Schools Week. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to connect with staff, students, parents and members of the community in the variety of planned activities. I hope all our mothers enjoyed the Mother's Day breakfast and liturgy, and more importantly were shown the love and affection of their families over the weekend.
Our students commenced the week in an assembly acknowledging 200 years of Catholic Education in Australia. As a prompt for a competition, they watched a slideshow of many events that form part of any school year at Holy Name and were asked to capture the things that make our school great through their words, art or film. The entries were judged with the winning entries to be used in advertising for our school. Winners also received a book prize at the end of the week. Congratulations to the following students:
- Stevie Andersen & Baran Zanjani - Filim prize
- Georgia Sparks - Poster (Senior)
- Olivia Sleiman - Poster (Junior)
- Baran Zanjani - Persuasive Text
- Eamonn Donegan - Poetry
The staff versus student netball game was loads of fun, with some competitive banter and so many funny moments. The relationship and good sportsmanship between staff and students was really lovely to witness. Next term, we will challenge our students to a different game! Thank you to Mrs Janjic for umpiring this week's game.
Our P&F meeting was well attended and the following summary of items addressed was sent home via Compass.
- How effective it is to attend the Open Day options at St Clare's when your child is in Year 5 or Year 6 as they build a level of confidence and desire to participate in school life.
- Holy Name is becoming a BYOD school for our Yr 5 and Yr 6 students in 2022. A parent survey will be sent to our Yr 4 and Yr 5 parents this week and a meeting planned with parents in Term 3 this year to go over the finer details.
- The toilet block renovations will commence in the Term 3/Term 4 holidays
- The P&F are looking into an audit of their financials
- The P&F are looking at purchasing a banner to hang on the back fence to support the effective use of the Carawa Kiss n' Ride zone.
- The P&F are planning a Movie night for a Friday night towards the end of this term - 18th June. They are just working through the volunteer requirements and will then send information out to parents. A copy of our Volunteer Policy is attached so that interested parents might complete the requirements to be eligible to volunteer in different roles at school.
- The Parish will be sending out information soon regarding the Sacramental program.
- The government provided additional funds to catch up for lost time during COVID and our school will commence a program for students from Week 5 this term. The strategy will commence with Yr 1 & 2 students and move to Yr 3, 4, 5 and 6 as the year progresses. Parents will receive information if their child is included.
- The Athletics carnival is coming up - please see the note about the volunteer handbook and requirements for our school.
- The Canteen has been well received and is working for students and families.
- Greg Haire is retiring from full-time teaching at the end of this term. The interviews for the Year 5 teacher for Semester 2 will be next week so that a thorough handover can occur between then and the end of the term.
- Simone Maloney is resigning to relocate with her family at the end of Week 3 in Term 3. The LST position is currently advertised and interviews will be held later this term.
- The permanent Primary Coordinator Position will also be advertised later this term to commence in 2022.
The P&F meet twice each term on Tuesday at 6pm in the Learning Hub or online in Weeks 3 and 7 of term. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 1st June.
The Open Day sessions and Playgroup were again a wonderful way to invite visitors and members of our community into the Holy Name family and to begin to feel what our school has to offer them. If you know anyone interested in enrolling for Kinder 2022, please pass on that we are accepting enrolments now.
Congratulations to our Holy Name Heroes, who have resurrected our Champion status as they entered and were victorious in competing underfeated in the U10's Rugby League competition. A big thank you to Mr Hassett for iniating and coaching the team to victory...hard act to follow.
Farewell Fr Greg
Fr Greg recently celebrated 6 years as the Parish Priest of Forster-Tuncurry and just last week, we learned that the Bishop has asked Fr Greg to take on the Warner's Bay Parish. This means Fr Greg will be packing up and leaving our community in the coming weeks. Instead of rushing a celebration for Fr Greg, we will start planning a special event and work out a date in the future when Fr Greg can come back to be acknowledged in a fitting way by our school community. We will keep you informed of our plans.
During his time here has was also appointed as the Priest Supervisor of Krambach, Gloucester and the Myall Coast as well as the Dean of the Myall Coast. His wonderful contributions to our Parish included the transitioning from 2 churches to one, the completed renovations of the Holy Name of Jesus Parish centre and facilities, the establishment of Catholic Care in the Parish and the outreach provided through the collaboration of Catholic agencies such as the Parish, Catholic Care, St Vincent De Paul and our Parish school. Fr Greg has been a strong supporter of Holy Name Primary School and has supported our community on many occasions to ensure our students and families receive an outstanding education. His leadership of the Parish during the COVID pandemic ensured that as many people as possible had access to the Eucharist and that the vulnerable had options for community connection. Fr Greg works tirelessly in the community, meeting the pastoral care and Eucharistic needs of Catholics and non-catholics across the region. He has challenged many of us to be better versions of ourselves or to raise the expectations for our Catholic school. He will be really missed by our community.
This week is my final week before taking 3 weeks long service leave to do some travelling with my husband. Mrs Loring will be Acting Principal, Mrs Maloney, Acting Assistant Principal, Mrs Williamson our Religious Education Coordinator and Mrs Monks has been appointed as the Acting Primary Coordinator.
Have a great few weeks and I'll see you back in June!
Regards
Brooke Stephens
Student Representative Council
Our Year 6 leaders have been busy this Term!
We meet as a group on Friday’s of every even week and our Week 2 meeting was jam packed! We started our meeting discussing oration (public speaking) and how this was a skill needed in many areas. We watched some of Marthin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream" Speech and discussed his passion and his wonderful clear voice, the use of eye contact and gestures. The children then practised delivering a section of this famous speech to each other and received some constructive feedback. We will continue to practice these skills each fortnight.
We also firmed up our SRC groups. The children are in one of the following groups: Environment, Social Justice, Sport, The Arts and Technology. Our Captains, Stevie and Nash are the overarching leaders of all the groups. Last Friday, the Environment leaders talked to the students about litter and the proper use of bins at school. This group will also be working on a plan to reduce water usage at HNS. The Social Justice group will work on some anti-bullying news for Monday morning assemblies and will also be an integral part of our connection with the Community Kitchen. Our technology team will have an initial job of helping me sort out our robotics gear and get Coding Club up and running again. The Arts members will begin creating awareness posters for World Ocean Day which is on June 8th.
Gardening Club will commence this week with interested children being able to do some work in the garden. This will happen on Monday, Tuesday and Friday during second lunch.
Road Safety
I have mentioned in past newsletters that the grass at The Baptist Church in Carawa street is NOT A PARKING AREA. Please park in Carawa, Maneela or Cross streets.
Sport
Diocesan Cross Country
On Tuesday, April 27th, several HNS students travelled by bus with other Manning students to the Diocesan Cross Country at Maitland. Mrs Stephens was the Team Manager on the day and said all the children represented HNS with pride.
The children ran either a 2km or 3km course and all our students gave their very best effort on the day.
Rugby League
On Thursday 6th May, Holy Name Primary entered its first team in years to participate in the Manning Region All Schools Rugby League competition. We managed to scrape together a team of willing participants in the U10’s division with mixture of experience levels. Through regular lunch time training sessions, the children were keen to put their skills to the test against other schools in the region. Unfortunately, due to illness, the team had no substitutes. Despite this, all put in their absolute best and ended up winning all three games. There were some outstanding individual efforts and everyone played with great heart and courage. The team should be so proud of their efforts as they represented Holy Name with great pride and sportsmanship.
Catholic Schools Week
It was wonderful to begin catholic Schools Week with a Liturgy led by our Yr. 6 Leaders. Within this Liturgy we reflected on the journey catholic Education has taken over the past 200 years and gave thanks to the men and women whose vison for education has brought us to where we are today. As the week continued, we came together to celebrate Mother’s Day. Kindergarten and Yr1 shared special prayers about our mums and Fr Greg gave a blessing to all mum, grandmothers, and mother figures. A big shout out of thanks to the Holy name Staff for cooking and serving the Mother’s Day Breakfast.
Fr Greg’s New Appointment
At the end of last week Fr Greg Barker announced to the staff that he has been asked by Bishop Bill to take up a new appointment as parish priest of Warners Bay, Booragul and Boolaroo. Fr Greg has been our parish priest for 6 years and in that time Holy Name has celebrated may Liturgies and masses with him. Fr Greg is needed sooner than later in this parish so we will celebrate a farewell Liturgy for him later in the term.
Genevieve Williamson
Religious Education Coordinator
On Friday May 7, twenty six beautiful Mini Vinnies students were commissioned before our school community at our morning assembly. Mrs Robyn Metcalf, a representative of our local St Vincent de Paul Society, along with Mrs. W and myself proudly presented these children with their badges. The children constantly show their commitment to their positions in the way they continue to ‘do good’ with in our school, parish and wider community. It was a pleasure to listen to them recite their pledge and prayer.
Our Mini Vinnies Team has had a very busy year to date. Breakfast Club is a hive of happy, excited students each and every Monday morning, our Breakfast Clubbers always have beautiful manners and quite often love sharing the adventures of their weekends. We have lots of wonderful Year 5 Mini Vinnies students come to help and are proving they are washing up and toast making champions!!
Mini Vinnies meetings are full of robust discussion on ways we can make a difference in the lives of others and we look forward to sharing that with you in coming weeks.
Kristie Banham
Pastoral Care Worker