NEWSLETTER 18 - June 22nd 2021

Acting Principal's Reflection

Our upcoming Student Free Day next Friday 2 July will provide an opportunity for all of our teachers and teacher assistants to engage in our next whole staff Visible Learning professional learning. This day will focus on the necessary dispositions and beliefs required for students to be Visible Learners, as well as what is required from the teachers, teacher assistants and leadership team to make this a reality. As mentioned in a previous newsletter earlier on in the term, being a learner is more than just being a student. A good student may sit quietly on the mat and appear to listen well. They may respond to questions and do all of their work on time and get good results. A good learner (Visible Learner) on the other hand will do much more than this. They will:

• Apply habits of thinking and doing
• Seek, receive, act on, and give feedback
• Understand and develop strategies and skills that assist their learning
• Know where they are at in their learning, where they need to get to next, and what their next steps are to get there

In essence, they become one of their own teachers. Of course, an environment and culture needs to be created where these mindsets and skills can be developed and fostered in our students. Building this culture and assisting students to build the skills required to be learners is not something that just happens. Educators require the correct mindsets, knowledge and skills to actively enable this to happen.

“Every student deserves a great teacher, not by chance, but by design” Fisher, Frey & Hattie 2016

The above quote from Fisher, Frey & Hattie, all extremely respected researchers and educationalists (with Hattie’s research being the catalyst for Visible Learning), tends to bug me a bit, as I think that it is easily misinterpreted. We have great teachers and teacher assistants at St Patrick’s already. They are supremely dedicated, they care deeply about their students in all areas of learning and they are extremely professional. And, importantly, they all consider themselves as learners. Being a learner allows us to be open to new ways of knowing and doing, but it also means that we are reflective. As educators, we know that we can always improve, but we are smarter about the choices we make. This is where the above quote comes in. We have much greater access to reliable research driven information that indicates to us what ‘best practice’ in schools looks like. Visible Learning is ‘designed’ to build in educators, research driven ‘best practices’. We are very much looking forward to learning how we can develop our students as learners.

Parent-Teacher Meeting bookings will open today at 3:30pm and will close on Friday at 3:30pm. Bookings can be accessed via the Compass App. Please see the section in this week’s newsletter regarding how to make a booking. 

Reports will go home on Thursday and will also be available in the reports section of the Compass App. Your child’s report will show areas of strength and also areas for growth. We encourage you to have a discussion with your child about their report, celebrating the successes and encouraging them to pursue their areas for growth.

Kind regards

Kurt Atkins

Acting Principal

Upcoming Events

JUNE

Thurs 24th

• School Board Meeting
• School Counselor available

Mon 28th

• Morning Assembly - All Welcome

JULY

Thurs 1st

• Last Day of Term 2 
• School Counselor available

Fri 2nd

• Student Free Day 

Mon 19th

• Term 3 Starts 
• Morning Assembly - All Welcome

Tues 20th

• Kinder & Prep Excursion
  

Staffing Changes Term 3

Mrs. Temple is finishing in her position as Year 5 teacher at the end of Term 2. Mrs. Temple has secured a full-time contract at another school. We thank her for her time at St Patrick's and wish her all the best in her new role.

Mrs. Halley will be teaching Year 5 on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from the beginning of Term 3. She will also continue in her role as Religious Education Coordinator.

We will be welcoming back Mrs. O'Brien from maternity leave. Mrs. O'Brien will be teaching Year 4 on Fridays and will also be taking Library with Mrs. Carter on Tuesdays from the beginning of Term 3.

Year 2 News - Mrs Fenton

Students in Year 2 have been busy exploring multiplication. They worked together, and individually, creating groups and using repeated addition to represent multiplication problems. An exciting end to our multiplication unit was the creation of our Array City! Students carefully placed colourful towers along a nightscape, adding windows in neat rows and columns to create arrays. Year 2 demonstrated their understanding and problem-solving skills by using number sentences to represent the sum of each array.

 In English, we have been exploring informative texts. Students compared texts, discussing the differences between fiction and non-fiction. We enjoyed our shared reading of ‘Turtle’s Song’, written by Alan Brown and illustrated by Kim Michelle Toft. Year 2 identified and explored the language and text features of information reports and, as a whole class, we researched green sea turtles. Students also created their own information report of a native Australian animal. In Visual Arts, we explored Kim Toft’s unique silk paintings. We viewed her online art gallery and enjoyed comparing her illustrations from other picture books. The students noticed how Kim uses a range of materials and techniques to capture the brilliance of Australia’s underwater world. The class enjoyed a video tour of Kim’s art studio in Ballina, New South Wales – they were excited to notice a copy of ‘Turtle’s Song’ sitting on her shelf! Everyone enjoyed experimenting with oil pastels, crayons, and watercolours to create their own green sea turtle. Well done, Year 2!

Literacy - Mrs Badcock

The reading component of our school literacy program focusses on The Big 6: Oral language, Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension.

Letter-Sound Knowledge (Phonics)

Phonics instruction is an essential component of the literacy program at St Patrick’s. All students are taught how to develop increasingly sophisticated and independent decoding skills throughout their primary school experience. Our alphabetic system is based on 26 letters and approximately 44 sounds (phonemes). Students in Prep to Year 2 work with the InitiaLit program which uses a synthetic phonics approach. Prep students are introduced to single letter sounds and move on to blending the letter sounds in three letter words. Year 1 students consider initial blends and common vowels. Year 2 students build on the vowel representations and less common letter and sound patterns to decode longer words. Once the foundation skills have been developed teachers can move on to expanding students’ structural analysis skills by focussing on how to decode multisyllable words, words with affixes (prefixes and suffixes0 words that have Greek and Latin roots and compound words.

Mid Year Reports and Parent-Teacher Meetings

Printed copies of Mid-Year Reports will go home with students on Thursday 24th. One report per student will initially be printed and sent home, please contact the school office if you require a second copy. Reports will also be available to view through your child's Compass page from 3.30pm Thursday. 

Parent-Teacher meetings will be held next Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th, Bookings can be made via the Compass app and will open at 3.30pm today and close at 3.30pm Friday 25th. After this date/time the booking platform will close and you will be unable to make any further bookings. 

2021 Tasmanian All Schools Cross Country

Congratulations to Monty Manion who competed at the All Schools Cross Country today in Symmons Plains. Monty came 4th out of 233 Year 6 boys competitors. Well Done Monty! 

School Photos

Our school photos have now arrived and have been sent home with students today. Please contact Pied Piper directly on 03 6228 6878 if you have any queries in regards to your order. 

Catholic Education Transportation Survey

We want to know how to improve student transport.

Please take five minutes to let us know what you think about how students get to and from school.

The review will also be looking at the attitudes families and students have towards bus transportation and reasons why they may or may not use bus transportation.

The survey closes Friday 2 July 2021.

Accessing Child Care during School Hours

We ask that parents who need to access the childcare center during school hours (8.50am -2.55pm) please do this via the outside childcare entrance and not through our open area. This is a shared space amongst our classes and Library which has students participating in specialised programs and this can cause unnecessary disturbance to these lessons during core learning time. We thank you for your understanding in regard to this request. 

Staff News

Ms Stuart was away today, Mr P taught Year 4. Mr Atkins attended a Principal WHS meeting today.  Mrs Leonard and Mrs Harris will be away on Thursday and Friday attending a Business Conference, Mrs Tueon will cover reception. 

WEST Award

Congratulations to Monty Manion who received a WEST Award during today’s morning assembly. We will continue to acknowledge those students who exhibit WEST (Welcoming, Encouraging; Sorry; Thankful) qualities and Mercy Values (Hospitality, Compassion, Mercy and Respect) by presenting awards at our Monday morning assemblies. 

Student of the Week

Prep: Dawson Furley for his excellent application to all lessons.  Thank you for trying your best, Dawson. 

Year 1: Ross Crawford for his outstanding effort and attitude towards all aspects of school and for always putting 100% into everything he does. Great work Ross.

Year 2: Aleks O'Toole for consistently producing work of a high standard and approaching her learning with a positive attitude. 

Year 3: Leon Garrad for his application and enthusiasm towards Maths tasks and for his consistent effort in presenting neat book work.

Year 4: Oliver Parry for his consistent application to learning the four times tables. Well done, Oliver.

Year 5: Lincoln McQueen for applying himself positively and actively engaging with all comprehension activities. 

Year 6: Nathan Davis for displaying his fantastic WEST values when visiting St Brendan Shaw College’s Year 6 Taster Day.

House Raffle Winners

Byrne House: Kashaf Kapila

Dooley House: Jovi Rand  

Martyn House: Gideon Barker 

P&F - Pie Drive Fundraiser

The pie drive was a very successful fundraiser.  We raised almost $3000.  A huge thank you to Kirrilly Jones and Anita Tueon for helping with sorting the huge amount of orders.  A special thank you to Kristian Kelly from Chas Kelly Transport for supplying a truck to collect the baked goods and Andrew Marshall for driving the truck for us.  The generosity of these people is greatly appreciated, taking time off from their employment to volunteer for our school.  We are lucky to have families like this within our school community.  Finally, thank you to everyone who supported the fundraiser. We hope you all enjoyed your goodies. 

Pyjama Day - Thursday 1st July

We are having a cosy, warm PJ Day to raise money for Vinnies winter appeal.

When: Thursday, 1st July - last day of Term 2.

What: PJs, warm clothes, house pants, dressing gowns, onesies, slippers (inside only, bring sneakers for outside) and remember it's okay to have bed hair this day too!  Casual clothes or PE uniform are acceptable if you don't want to wear your pj's.

Bring: Gold coin/s donation. 

All money raised will go to St Vincent de Paul to help with supplying warm clothes, pjs, warm bedding, blankets etc to those who are less fortunate than ourselves this winter time. 

Run by the 2021 Mini Vinnies Kids! 

School Holiday Program - Devonport and Ulverstone Libraries

Nut Aware School

A reminder to parents that St Patrick's is a Nut Aware School and that we ask that parents not pack nuts or nut products in their children's lunchboxes. 

Photos of Sporting Events

If any parents or guardians have photos of students from school sporting teams and would like to see these included in the newsletter, please email them to stpatslat@catholic.tas.edu.au 

Inquiring Minds - Birth to 5 Years

‘Inquiring Minds’ Birth to 5 program - a ‘Set-Up for Success’ Catholic Education Tasmania initiative.
Our ‘Inquiring Minds’ birth to 5 program operates each Friday during school term time from 9.00am to 10.30am. This program involves a considerable focus on communicating to parents the learning intentions of important activities that are associated with early years learning. Mrs Klug will be working to engage parents in early years learning experiences that will ensure children who are enrolling in Kindergarten, will be informed in regards to developing key social, emotional, physical and cognitive skills and understandings. Parents or an adult family member stays for the duration of these sessions; there is no cost, however if you would like to donate a gold coin it would be appreciated. Please feel welcome to participate.

Care and Concern

Please feel welcome to be included in our Care and Concern Volunteer List - thank you to the many school community members who are already on this list and are assisting others: Always please contact your child’s teacher, the office staff or Mr Atkins if you feel we could offer support in any way to anyone in our school community in need.

Check in TAS App

It is now a requirement, as part of our COVID Policy, that any adult that visits the school for longer than 10 minutes must sign in using the 'Check in TAS App'. 

Please view the below PDF for information regarding how to install and use the Check in TAS App.

We have QR codes at the office and school hall that can be scanned using this app when you are visiting the school for longer than 10 minutes.

If you do not have a smartphone or device that will let you install this app, you will need to visit the school office so that we can check you in.

Covid-19 School Safety Protocol

• Adults to please hand sanitise upon entering any school building: the school provides hand sanitiser at school venue entry points or adults may use their own (and be observed to use a sanitiser).
  
• Adults, where practicable, to maintain 1.5m physical distancing, observing seating arrangements as communicated by signage or instruction please: indoor event attendance limited to one person per 2 square metre per indoor space.
• Adults to sign-in, either at the school office or on a list provided at the entry of the school building. The school is obligated to record contact details of visitors to school events held in school venues, with this information stored securely for a period of 21 days.
• Appropriate COVID safe signage is communicated at school entry points. Key message to visitors - if feeling unwell, it is important not to be in attendance; the school will bar entry to people who have tested positive for COVID-19 or who are close contacts of a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.
• Although daily cleaning of frequently touched internal surfaces is undertaken, we ask adult visitors to avoid touching surfaces unnecessarily.
  

THANK YOU