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Dear Parents and Carers,
Thank you for your attendance at this week's Student Led Conferences (SLCs). The children are always really excited to welcome their families into their learning spaces and it was great to see the joy that having you here brought to them. For some of our families, this may have been a nostalgic experience and the last SLC, with Yr 6 preparing for their final term at Holy Name. Before we know it, they will be starting their first day at high school!
We had some exciting news last week, with the birth of Holy Name staff baby number 4 for this year! Mr and Mrs Whitlam welcomed Eliza Grace Whitlam on Thursday 8th September. Amanda and Sean said they are so in love and that everything is going really well. We can't wait for them to visit in Term 4.
The building work should be well underway when we return to school. The project has been delayed due to a problem with the new roof that needs to be repaired prior to commencing the work. I really hope that the plan for completion remains the same, with the work due for completion prior to the start of next year. There is a little part of me that knows we may need to continue adjusting our plans to accommodate the work into the start of Term 1.
Kindergarten numbers for 2023 are strong, with two classes commencing the transition visits in Week 1 of next term. The Parent Orientation meeting will be held on Wednesday the 12th October between 5.00-6.00pm, with the 5 student transition visits commencing the following morning between 9.00-11.30am. During this time, we are hoping to transition our current Kindergarten students to experience Year 1, our Year 1 students to Year 2, and our Year 2 students to Year 3. We may need to adjust the plans to accommodate the lack of spaces available due to the building work.
I think it's also important to flag with our families that the end-of-year functions may look a little different this year due to the use of the hall for storage and class spaces. We are trying to think of new or different ways to hold these functions and are considering off-site options as one idea.
Finally, our Parish Priest, Fr Peter Street, is hosting a meeting on Saturday 8th October in the Parish Hall to develop a strategic plan for the next few years. If you are keen to be involved in this work, please contact the Parish Office on 0475 242 695 and let them know you will be attending. They will also be able to provide you with the details for the day.
Best wishes for a wonderful holiday.
Brooke Stephens
Another Term has come to an end, and we have much to be thankful for. I hope you get to spend some quality time with your family and loved ones over the holidays.
SRC
Our SRC will meet 4 times in Term 4. They will also be supporting the Year 5 students in their Leadership Day in Week 5. Some of the things we will be working on to consolidate are:
- Environment - Our garden project: maintenance, planting, harvesting and donations to Community Kitchen
- Arts- Finish Garden pots for our garden space
- Technology – Come up with a plan to implement in 2023 for teachers to implement SCRATCH coding lessons into their teaching.
- Social Justice – Preparing a calendar for 2023 Awareness and fundraising opportunities, assist Mrs Loring with PBL process. Kindness Day initiative.
- Sports – Give the sports shed a good clean out, dispose of damaged gear, organise tabloid for Week 10.
The year 5 cohort will begin their leadership journey in Week 5 when they take part in the Leadership Day with Mrs Tull, Mrs Williamson and myself. The students will then be able to nominate for various leadership positions in areas that interest them.
Sport
Our athletes are off to the State Schools carnival next Term. Ashton Robertson, Levi Van-Haren, Aston Hodges, Charlie Gibson and Ashley Allan have been training at school under the guidance of Mrs Anne Evans. A huge thank you to Anne for the support of these athletes and I know they take on all your valuable advice.
BECOME ME
It’s a fun, interactive way to teach young people the adaptive skills and curiosity they’ll need to explore, design and navigate the fast changing world of work. BECOME.ME will be integrated with our regular curriculum.
The program isn’t designed to direct them to particular occupations but to inspire them:
- to reflect on their unique and evolving strengths, interests and aspirations.
- to broadly explore the dynamic, exciting world of work, recognising and breaking free of gender and social stereotypes.
- to come up with multiple possibilities for their future that excite them.
- to design and implement experiments that allow them to test out and adapt those ideas.
The students have had a taste of the program over the last few weeks and have found it very engaging and exciting.
Kyla Loring
First Holy Communion
The preparation dates for First Holy Communion will commence early in Term 4. All communicants families will have received an email from the Forster Tuncurry Catholic Parish Office. If you have not, please contact Danielle Kingdom, Parish Secretary, on 0475242695 for details and to update your contact details.
Preparation 1: Sunday 23 October at 10am in the parish hall
Preparation 2: Sunday 6 November at 10am in the parish hall
Sacrament of Eucharist at any weekend Masses on the weekend of 19/22 November, ie Saturday 5pm, Sunday 8am or 10am.
Great Learning Happening in Kindergarten!
Each fortnight I like to put a spotlight on the great learning happening in a particular grade in our school. In this report the spotlight is on Kindergarten.
During English lessons Kinder have been working hard on using their knowledge of single letter sounds and learnt digraphs to decode words in their readers. The teachers have been so impressed to see how far they have all come with their ability read more accurately and attempting to read more fluently. Each day the teachers read out a decodable sentence from the class focus book and the class hear and record the words they hear using their knowledge of learnt sounds, diagraphs and spelling rules. This week they introduced the ‘igh’ trigraph and were amazed how quickly the students were able to identify and record words they knew contained the trigraph. Such clever cookies!
In writing, Kinder have been learning to write sentences that inform. This type of writing has linked in beautifully with their focus on Living Things in Science and Technology. After visiting Billabong Zoo the Kinder students were keen to learn more about different mammals such as dingoes, koalas, wombats and echidnas. The students love watching informative videos on YouTube, reading informative books from the library and information packs provided to us from Billabong Zoo. This week we focused on learning more about elephants after a student told us some amazing facts about an how elephants use their trunks. Once the class has brainstormed the facts they would like to include in their informative sentences, the teacher models a sentence chosen by the students. The teacher refers to the co-constructed writing success criteria to ensure the sentence starts with a capital letter, has spaces between the words, makes grammatical sense and finishes with a full stop. Students refer to this success criteria when they are writing their independent sentence too. Check out some of the awesome writing from this week!
In Maths, Kinder have been learning to use effective counting strategies so they can count accurately. Students have been working in pairs and have been given a large collection of counters and asked to estimate how many they think they have. They then needed to arrange their collection in a way that was easy for others to walk past and know what their total was. Students used great strategies such as arranging their collections in groups of 2, 5 or most commonly 10s. It was great to hear that the students were excited to do a gallery walk to check out other groups clever ways of representing their totals!
As mentioned above Kinder have been learning about ‘Living Things’ in Science and Technology and have been investigating how animal habitats are recreated in zoos to ensure the needs of the animals are met. After visiting Billabong zoo a couple of weeks ago, the students came back to school filled with ideas and had a chance to recreate their chosen animal’s habitat in a zoo enclosure. The Kinder students were so creative and engaged during their design and make sessions and created some amazing enclosures! Check out the photos of some of their clever work.
Well done Kinder students, keep up the awesome work!
Last Thursday Crystal Simon and I attended training for the Heart to Heart Art and Wellbeing program. We enjoyed a day of art making with wellbeing and mindfulness woven into our learning and training so that we will be equipped to facilitate this program with students in our school.
As we move into the holidays, please keep the current Year 12 students in your thoughts and prayers. When they return from this break many of them will sit their HSC. At Holy Name we hold all our ex-students in our hearts and wish them well for their impending exams and future endeavors.
My wish for you as we move into Spring and the coming holidays. May you do what is right and kind for yourself and others. May you attend to your responsibilities but also remember to make time for rest and play. May you listen to your what your heart tells you and let it guide you. May you enjoy some time in the sun and be with your precious ones. May you find gratitude and hope in the smallest of moments.
Art Club
Our students have received some spectacular photos of the Year 12 cohorts from St.Clare’s and Great Lakes College Senior Campus upon receiving their word birds from us. The delight I see in the faces of our students is just priceless, knowing that they have brought smile to ‘big kids’ is so heart warming. We also recieved this beautiful message from the bursar at St.Clare's who was gifted one of our word birds. "Can you pass on my thanks and gratitude to the wonderful organisers and students who made the amazing colourful birds which were sent to us?
This is truly a lovely and inspiring thought. I have mine on display in the Bursars office for all to see. It brightens my day.
Thanks again." Maryann Hammond
Mini Vinnies
Our 5c Friday total continues to climb and our total is $585.00. Thank you so much for continuing to support our students and their efforts to support this in need. Mini Vinnies will continue to collect on Fridays next term and we look forward to sharing our growing total with you.
Take gentle care.
Kristie Banham
Pastoral Care Worker
On Thursday, 15th September, 15 competitors from Kinder to Yr 6 vied to be the Holy Name Public Speaking Champion in their relevant stage. All competitors are to be congratulated on their amazing efforts during the preparation time as well as their speech time.
We welcomed Mrs Gooley and Mrs Armitage as the adjudicators for this event and they were very impressed with each student’s efforts. They commented especially on the speakers’ methods of engaging the audience, the use of relevant language for the various topics and the ability of each child to speak to a large group of his/her peers.
In some instances, the ladies had a tough time selecting the winners with only 1 point separating the two top participants. In the end, our four winners were Ilijana Trautsch (ES1), Zara Rahman (S1), Chase Brooks (S2) and Tara Isbel (S3). Next term, these four students will compete in the Manning Catholic Schools’ Regional Finals against students from Bulahdelah, Gloucester, Wingham and Taree.
Thank you to Mrs Loring for being our MC on the day and keeping everything flowing. Our School Captains, Charlie Gibson and Marley Hodgess, did a marvellous job making our adjudicators feel very welcome and being excellent timekeepers. Thank you also to the parents and guardians who came along to support the competitors.
Lynn Redding
Here are the results of our school and the Regional Spelling and Maths Bees. Our Holy Name representatives did us proud!
Forster |
Spelling |
Maths |
Early Stage 1 |
Arden Cassar |
Luka Zic |
Stage 1 |
Amelia Moelker |
Zara Rahman |
Stage 2 |
Amna Omar |
Reuben Cassar |
Stage 3 |
Marley Donegan |
Marley Donegan |
Spelling
Early Stage 1
Arden Cassar |
Holy Name Forster |
1st place |
Cassian Gazecki |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
2nd place |
Maxwell Robinson |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
3rd place |
Kirra Muddle |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Stage 1
Susannah Healy |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
1st place |
Kiera Ma |
St Joseph’s Taree |
2nd place |
Amerlia Moelker |
Holy Name Forster |
3rd place |
Talya Gibson |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Stage 2
Emilie Obligado |
St Joseph’s Taree |
1st place |
Amna Omar |
Holy Name Foster |
2nd place |
Savannah Dawes |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
3rd place |
Lola Collins |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Eleanor Healy |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
5th place |
Stage 3
Marley Donegan |
Holy Name Forster |
1st place |
Cooper Nowlan |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
2nd place |
Angus Matheson |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
3rd place |
Lily Obligado |
St Joseph’s Taree |
4th place |
Xanthe Fenning |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
5th place |
Maths
Early Stage 1
Jai Neaves |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
1st place |
Luka Zic |
Holy Name Forster |
2nd place |
Avah Dumas |
St Joseph’s Taree |
3rd place |
Elliot Banyer |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Cassian Gazecki |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
5th place |
Stage 1
Max Kempe |
St Joseph’s Taree |
1st place |
Nathan Campbell |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
2nd place |
Reuben Cassar |
Holy Name Forster |
3rd place |
Georgia Morton |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Georgia Hardy |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
5th place |
Stage 2
Marley Donegan |
Holy Name Forster |
1st place |
Adena Campbell |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
2nd place |
Ewan Sheely |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
3rd place |
Mitchell Hardy |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
4th place |
Angus Moore |
St Joseph’s Taree |
5th place |
Maths
Early Stage 1
Jai Neaves |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
1st place |
Luka Zic |
Holy Name Forster |
2nd place |
Avah Dumas |
St Joseph’s Taree |
3rd place |
Elliot Banyer |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Cassian Gazecki |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
5th place |
Stage 1
Max Kempe |
St Joseph’s Taree |
1st place |
Nathan Campbell |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
2nd place |
Zara Rahman |
Holy Name Forster |
3rd place |
Harrison Morton |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Xavier Sumner |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
5th place |
Stage 2
William Lovern |
St Joseph’s Taree |
1st place |
Eleanor Healy |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
2nd place |
Reuben Cassar |
Holy Name Forster |
3rd place |
Georgia Morton |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
4th place |
Georgia Hardy |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
5th place |
Stage 3
Marley Donegan |
Holy Name Forster |
1st place |
Adena Campbell |
St Joseph’s Wingham |
2nd place |
Ewan Sheely |
St Joseph’s Gloucester |
3rd place |
Mitchell Hardy |
St Joseph’s Bulahdelah |
4th place |
Angus Moore |
St Joseph’s Taree |
5th place |