NEWSLETTER 17 - 7th June 2022

“In the evening of the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.’” The feast of Pentecost celebrates the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples and energising them to set about their mission of continuing the ministry of Jesus. The gospel reading is one of the post-resurrection appearances by Jesus when he breathed the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. For the weeks following the death of Jesus the disciples had lived in fear and confusion, not fully understanding what had happened and not really knowing what to do. They realised that the Spirit Jesus had breathed upon them was present and urging them to action.

In our busy lives, we are often influenced by the ‘15 second attention grabs’ in forming opinions and often making fairly impulsive responses; the weekend’s readings highlight the need for us to ‘stop and be’ and acknowledge and appreciate that just as the Holy Spirit can be reduced to ‘external signs’ by many, we know, however, from the first Pentecost and perhaps from our own experience that the Spirit works in unpredictable AND ordinary ways. From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that where the Spirit of God is active many gifts are present:

• boldness to stand up for what we believe;
• the ability to hear and listen;
• an end to fear that locks us in on ourselves;
• fidelity to Jesus' commandment to love;
• clarity about what's true.

Opportunity cost – the dilemma we often face when presented with choice – can be framed as opportunities rather than challenges. St Patrick’s School staff labour on discerning and implementing educational strategies for our students, which is complementary to the problem for many of us who are endeavouring to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading us; these judgements require the gift of the discernment of spirits. In the early sixteenth century, St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, left the church a guide for working out how we can tell if and where the Holy Spirit is leading us, which can also be a useful guide for us in most of our discernments:

1. Don't make a decision when you are down; let the crisis pass and take time to weigh all the options.
2. The Holy Spirit enables us to let go of our unhealed past and not live in the unknown future; The Holy Spirit draws us to deal with the here and now, as it is, not as we may like it to be.
3. The Holy Spirit frees us up to bring out into the open anything we keep buried in the dark; there is nothing that has ever happened to us that is beyond the Spirit's healing.
4. The Holy Spirit breaks down isolation and draws us into community with other people.
5. Be careful of things that appear too perfect, they sometimes have a sting in the tail and can be destructive.
6. Be guarded about all things that are urgent; The Holy Spirit brings a sense of perspective to problems.
7. The Holy Spirit is always present where compassion and forgiveness are demonstrated.

As educators/parents, our humanity compels us to be people of discernment, taking the time to ‘stop and be’ when faced with opportunity cost. The heartening message from last weekend’s church readings is that the Holy Spirit, when invited, can provide ‘right judgement’ and the Ignatian method of discernment can help frame our acumen. The ongoing forces of nature are recreative; life is sustained and perpetuated. Thank you to all in our school community who, in their decision-making, seek sufficient time for any consideration of opportunity cost, endeavour to be empathetic to the many other ‘stakeholders’ and appreciate that our school values of Respect, Mercy, Compassion and Hospitality have been thoughtfully chosen and promoted as supporting a ‘common good.’

Regards,

Rod Linhart

(Principal)

Term 1 - Thursday 3rd February - Thursday 14th April

Term 2 - Monday 2nd May - *Friday 8th July

Term 3 - Monday 25th July - Friday 30th September

Term 4 - Monday 17th October - Thursday 15th December

*Student Free Day Friday 8th July 2022

June

July

This Thursday our canteen menu will only be offering a limited menu due to Mrs Anthony, Ms Moore and Mr Linhart all attending the North West Cross Country. The full ordering options will return to the normal after 9am Thursday. Please note if you pre-order for Thursday and Friday in advance both these days will only have access to the limited menu. Friday's orders will not return to normal until after 9 am Thursday. Thank you for your understanding. 

Literacy-The Big 6

COMPREHENSION

Research has shown that there are six key components that contribute to successful reading and because of the importance of these components, they have become known as the 'Big Six’: oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. The reading components of our school reading program focus on the Big Six.

Comprehension

Comprehension is about understanding the authors’ messages and responding to these messages in a variety of ways. Not only do children need to have accurate word recognition skills (decoding) but they also need to have good language comprehension. Language comprehension includes background concepts, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning and literacy knowledge.

How does comprehension contribute to reading success?

Comprehension links to oral language as students engage in discussions about what they understand from texts. Having a strong vocabulary, knowing the meaning of words, supports comprehension because readers do not have to stop and seek support with unknown words. Secure letter-sound knowledge and sight word recognition allows takes away the processing demands at the sound and word level and assists allows for focus on the meaning. Reading with fluency which includes reading smoothly at an appropriate rate, with accuracy and with prosody (stress, expression, intonation and punctuation) indicates that children are reading with understanding.

 Comprehension at school

Comprehension is developed by explicit instruction, modelling and practise through the following:

• Systematic and explicit instruction on comprehension strategies including activating prior knowledge, predicting, identifying the main idea, visualising, summarising, inferring and questioning.
• Understanding the intention of what is expected after reading a text.
• Reading a variety of text types including fiction and non-fiction.
• Oral reading and silent reading.
• High frequency word recognition.
• Letter-sound relationships.

What can parents and caregivers do at home to encourage comprehension development?

Children's reading comprehension development is dependent on consistent, nurturing and interacting learning experiences with adults and peers.

Here are some ways parents and caregivers can encourage comprehension:

• Talk to and with your child to develop their language comprehension.
• Ask your child to explain the text to you in their own words. This allows you to see if they understand the text and putting it in their own words helps them to understand.
• Ask them questions during reading such as Are there any words you don’t understand?, What do you think this page is about?, What do we know about the characters?
• Ask them questions after reading which include literal and inferential questions.
• Focus on learning sight words, the Oxford 500 to develop fluency.

The following is a message from Marty after he had recently spent half a day with our Year 6 class:

It was my privilege to work with a very enthusiastic year 6 class this week with the Make Jesus Real program, examining the theme – ‘How do you contribute? At School? AT Home? In the Playground? With Friends?’ 

We looked at finding a way to bring JOY to others. We looked at an amazing Youtube that showed 30 Random acts of kindness - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZkYgE-pxw 

Why not have a look at it with your child and discuss how they can be generous with their actions. 

The students were so positive and hopefully they might do a few little things at home to bring joy eg go straight to bed/ do the dishes or just say thank you. A number of them stated that they have some concerns about high school, and I reassured them that I will speak about this when I return in term three and four. 

Again, you should be proud of your children plus how positive they perceive the school they are in. 

Live Jesus in your Hearts 

Marty Ogle 

MJR Coordinator

We have available a set of Ozobot Bits. These little robots can be used to teach visual programming. Ozobot Evos are another version of these robots and these will also be purchased when they become available, which should be soon. The Evos can also be programmed with a device.

Programming using this robot fits in well with the programming skills section of the Digital Technologies Australian Curriculum and they can be used across learning areas. The Ozobot Bits are programmed using lines and colour codes drawn on paper. The variables include speed, direction, movement and timing.

The aim this year is to introduce the device to students and to teach students basic use and programming. Next year when students are more familiar with the basics, we can build on from the basics to use more complex design, programming and problem solving.

Congratulations to the following students who have received Student of the Week.

Prep: Hudson Brebner on his presentation for his 'Talk for Writing' story featuring the fish, pavlova and fire coloured nose snake. 

Year 1:Olivia Turner for consistently showing a positive and respectful attitude towards all staff and students. 

Year 2: Amir Khan for writing an excellent information text on ‘Dogs’ 

Year 3: Lakyn Dezoete for his excellent attitude and application in the completion of his work tasks and for the respect he demonstrates in his interactions with others.

Year 4: Emilia Ling for being caring and friendly towards her peers and displaying good organisational skills.

Year 5: Jake Bracken for a great improvement in his on task focus this week.  

Year 6: Logan Page for his unassuming nature when sharing his amazing understanding of Etymology.

Congratulations to our House Raffle winners this week: 

Dooley - Xavier Parker  Martyn - Olivia Turner  Byrne - Kashaf Kapila

We wish the very best for the following students who are representing the school in this Thursday’s NW Catholic school’s cross country event:

• Year 6: Tyla O’Toole, Ruby Anthony, Ekam Gill, Sophie Mulcahy, Lincoln McQueen, Cameron Reeves, Jack Chapman, Harrison Fawkner.
• Year 5: Melia Sesara, Amaja Scott, Zarna Bakes, Sophie Franklin, Jovi Rand, William Brazendale, Charlie Jones, Oliver Parry.
• Year 4: Emilia Ling, Lucy Chapman, Sophia Simmonds, Amelia Willis, Chloe Anthony, James Sullivan, William Hawkins, Hamish Crawford, Taylor Goss
• Year 3: Aleks O’Toole, Miami Bronson, Violet Furley, Meg Kelly, Henry Jones, Zander Bloomfield, Owen Christie, Alexander Fawkner.

Father Damien has welcomed our return to cobber classes attending Wednesday morning Masses this term, and it has been wonderful to share our student involvement with many parents and grandparents, and many of the parishioners who have expressed delight at the ‘return of the students’ to Wednesday morning Masses. The format of our involvement at Mass is that Father Damien visits the older class who will be visiting the following week and explore the theme of the week’s reading and students create Prayers of the Faithful, a selection of which students will prepare to read at Mass. Invitations to cobber class Masses are distributed to those parents whose children are attending Mass. Our final Cobber Class Mass attendance for this term will be Wednesday 15^th June at 9.30am, with Year 3 and confirmed Catholic students attending.

We have had quite a few students over the last few weeks who are not bringing drink bottles to school with them. Could parents please make sure that their children have a drink bottle daily. Unfortunately due to Covid rules, our water bubbler outside the hall is still unable to be used. 

Harper was recently acknowledged in The Advocate for her outstanding achievement in raising over $6000 towards cancer research. Harper had originally set herself a goal of $500, which places her fundraising achievement in such an impressive light. The following quote from the Tasmanian Cancer Council which was included in yesterday's Advocate certainly summarises Harper's generosity of spirit in this very worthy endeavour, "Without people like Harper and her supporters...we could not continue to provide our range of services to people who are living with cancer."

We wish the very best to Harper and William as they participate in a series of weekend state swimming trial events. Well done!

Whole school assemblies have commenced again each morning – parents are welcome; please follow the COVID Safety Plan protocols – sanitize and face masks indoors.

Karlie offers discrete counselling services to students upon both parent's signed request. Request forms are available from the school office or can be downloaded from the school website.

Thank you to the many students (and their families) who have a commitment to participate in school representative sport – representing St Patrick’s in soccer and basketball school teams allow for character development, a physical outlet and an appreciation of what it means to be a team player. Parents are asked to contact their child’s coach or Mr Linhart (6426 1626) if their child is unable to play on the day – this action shows respect for the generosity of time exhibited by our many volunteer coaches and helps support positive team dynamics.

• We would like to introduce a new member of our school community, Sully; Sully will be here on Thursdays and Fridays as a therapy dog who works with our school counsellor, Karlie Lawson.
• Sully enjoys meeting children and especially listening to them read stories, or being outside with children.
• The value of pet ‘therapy’ is widely accepted as an aid to stimulation and communication. The presence of companion animals can also improve the well-being of children and lower the rate of anxiety.
• Animals are not generally allowed on school premises. Appropriate consideration and consultation was undertaken for this activity.
• Whilst inherent risks will remain, and some people will choose not to participate, our school supports this activity occurring. Sully is a well-behaved friend, has passed required temperament testing, and has all the expected vaccinations and routinely visits the vet for normal check-ups.
• Sully will spend his day with Karlie as she goes about her student support duties. Children, at times, will have a chance to interact with Sully either with Karlie and, as they grow, independently. Please also note children will not be allowed to feed Sully.
• If you do not want your child to interact with Sully, please email Mr Linhart no later than 20/5/22 via stpatslat@catholic.tas.edu.au We will assume that no reply by the given date, allows interaction with Sully.
• If you have any questions, please contact Mr Linhart.

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

‘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.