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Welcome to Term 4 and what has already been an adventurous start to our final term for the year. With the return to school due to the high vaccination numbers, we also hope to return to some of our regular events and opportunities to build connections among the members of our school community. At next week's Parents and Friends Meeting online, I'm sure this will be a hot topic for discussion. If you would like to join us for this meeting, it's at 6pm and a link to join via Zoom can be made available if you contact the office.
I thank our families for their support during the Home Learning period and appreciate there will continue to be a period of transition for students as we return to face-face learning. If you or your child needs support in the transition back to school, please email your child's teacher to begin a conversation about how we can work with you to support your child.
With Coronavirus in the community and an easing of the restrictions, we will maintain additional cleaning and hygiene practices at school. We remain at Level 3 restrictions which means there are no assemblies, no parents or carers onsite except for transition and St Nicholas OOSH, no Community Use of our facilities, no singing, chanting, band, choir or performances, and no excursions. Hopefully some of these restrictions will ease when we get to the 80% vaccination rate.
Our School Canteen will open on the Monday of Week 4 which is the 25th October. I thank you for your patience and support of Niki and Gordon through what has been a difficult time for them personally and for their business.
During this time, I remind our families to keep an eye on the notifications through Compass about changes to planned events. It is a great idea to turn on notifications to Compass to ensure you receive an alert when new messages are posted.
Building Work
If you have been near the school, you may have noticed the refurbishment of the amenities blocks has commenced. There will be disruption to our regular operation during this time but I am so excited by the improvements we will see to these facilities for our students.
The roof on the main building facing Lake Street will be replaced during the Christmas break, meaning that the much needed refurbishment of the inside of these classrooms can then happen without fear of further damage by the rain.
The back glass doors to the Yr 1 classes have now been installed and look fabulous. They provide new life to these spaces that were more traditional and closed areas.
Classes for 2022
It is the time of year where our staff begin to revise the student, teacher and class placements for 2022. Our school uses the Cluster grouping model for class placement of students as this model supports all students by grouping them with like minded peers and/or students with a similar level of achievement. This researched based model of class placement has been shown to benefit our gifted, high achieving, average and support students to maximise their learning growth in a calendar year. It reduces the range of abilities in each class, providing the opportunity for targeted intervention for all students, supports students to connect with like-minded peers and challenges students at their point of need. If you have an educational reason that you believe should be considered as part of the formation of classes for 2022, please email admin@forster.catholic.edu.au.
It was with sadness that I learned of the oassing of Logan Webster's grandfather earlier this week. We hold Trish, David, Riley, Logan and their family in our prayers as they move through this period of loss.
Go gently with one another through these challenging times, as we can never be sure of what one another have going on in our lives and how we are managing.
Regards,
Brooke Stephens
It is always a good idea to stay in touch with the news from St Clare's. I was chatting with Mr Nicholls last week and the enrolments in at St Clare's for Yr 7 2022 are almost at capacity. There are some great things going on in our Catholic High School and if you're interested in staying in touch, check out their latest newsletter here.
In the coming weeks we will be 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 Holy Name Primary School.
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/holyname2021
Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL)
Welcome back to Term 4! It is wonderful that we have returned to school after weeks of home learning. Recently, Holy Name staff have collaborated to develop a new Positive Behaviour for Learning Skills Program (PBL) for our students to build RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY and RESILIENCE. Our previous merit system will be replaced to trial this new PBL program. Students will continue to receive their Merit and Principal Awards as part of this new process.
Every fortnight a new social and emotional skill will be unpacked and taught explicitly in each class across the school. This skill we believe will have a positive influence on your child’s educational, social, and emotional self. Each day teachers will reward 3 students in their class and 3 students they see on the playground who are demonstrating the social skill that fortnight, with a gotcha (a surfboard token). These tokens are collated by the class teacher. For every 5 tokens a student will be rewarded. After 20 surfboards a student will receive a merit award.
School Garden
The first two weeks of school have see us weed and mulch our garden beds. We are grateful for the recent rain. The Garden Club have harvested lettuce, spinach, cabbage, snow peas, sweet peas, broad beans, rocket, coz and fancy ettuce, sorell and herbs for the Cathoilc Care Community Kitchen. Because of COVID, the numbers of people needing meals has grown and Cathoilc Care now depend on our weekly harvest to feed the needy in our local community.
Yr 6 Student Representative Council
Yr 6 gathered in their SRC groups at the beginning of Term 4, focused on making a difference at Holy Name. Our Captains will share a fortnightly newsletter report as we can no longer meet as a school for assemblies and the art committe wish to share their posters to promote our social skill each fortnight. Week 1 and 2 social skill is "Get Along With Others". Other committees are working hard to keep our school tidy, and wish to contact Catholic Care Community Kitchen offering to make Christmas cards for their clients. The sports shed needed to be tidied and the sports committee created a sports shed supervision timetable and also wrote to our school groundsman to repair the sportsbox. Our garden committee, have written to Mrs Stephens to organise an emu parade, to tidy our school grounds of litter. The Social Justice group are researching the Cathoilic Mission website, for information about Thailand for the upcoming October Mission Month Appeal.
Acting Assistant Principal
Mrs Genevieve Williamson
Welcome to Term 4. It is shaping to be a busy and exciting time in our school community. It has been wonderful to see the children return to school this week and face-to-face teaching resume.
October is Mission Month and this year Catholic Mission’s focus country is Thailand. The Holy Name community will be celebrating Socktober Day to raise funds for Catholic Mission on Friday 29th October (Week 4).
On Socktober Day, the students will begin their day by participating in a class liturgy, before completing activities where they will learn about Thailand, including the location of Thailand in the world, games the children in Thailand play, information about refugees, and the impact of poverty on these children and their families.
Following the Liturgy, the children will engage in a Socktober event. Many children around the world play soccer with balls made out of recycled materials - even Pope Francis did as a boy in Argentina. Over the next fortnight, students will be encouraged to bring in recycled materials from home to build a soccer ball in small teams to use in a penalty shoot-out against their teacher on this day.
Recycled materials could include old t-shirts, used socks, plastic bags, paper, bubble wrap, string and shoe laces. The students can be as creative as they like with their products, but please do not buy anything for this!
There will also be a sausage sizzle on the day, and more details will be provided in a note next week.
Christmas Hampers
As a school community, we will again be creating Christmas Hampers this year, to spread Hope and Joy to those families in our school and local community who need it most. Each week, a year group will bring in long life products, such as:
- Fruit mince pies or small puddings (Aunt Betty’s)
- Fruit juice or tins of stewed fruit
- Jams, jars of cranberry sauce or apple sauce
- Coles or Woolworths Christmas bags
- Cereal
- Long life milk
- Crackers such as Jatz or Shapes
- Tins of baby potatoes or beetroot
- Tins of corn, four bean mix, peas or tomatoes
- Tea bags, small jars of coffee or hot chocolate
- Sugar
These products will be sanitised and wiped down by the class teachers in a Covid-safe manner, before being placed into a hamper. Products will be collected in the following weeks:
Week 3 – Kinder
Week 4- Year 1
Week 5 – Year 2
Week 6 – Year 3
Week 7 – Year 4
Week 8 – Year 5
Week 9 – Year 6
Thank you for your support,
Gary Pomplun
Acting Religious Education Coordinator