NEWSLETTER 33 - 25th October 2022

It was a privilege to attend camp with our Year 6 cohort last week. The students had multiple opportunities to exhibit our WEST values and many Spirit of Jesus moments were witnessed and shared while on camp. The High Ropes Course at Hollybank was an experience that put many of the students outside of their comfort zone. Some students were very reluctant to venture out onto the wires, but with a great deal of positive encouragement from the other students, every student in the class made it through at least one course. This encouragement was wonderful to witness and the sense of accomplishment and growth from the students who ‘had a go’ was evident on their faces long after we left Hollybank.

Often, the thing that holds us back from growth is the fear of making mistakes or the fear of the consequences that those mistakes will bring. We like to sit in our comfort zone. Feeling comfortable feels good, for a time. But, like with any other emotion, we don’t want to stay in this space forever, because meaningful growth does not live in the ‘comfortable’ space. As Emily McDowell, best known as @emilyonlife, states, “‘Personal growth’ is misleading, because it sounds like it is going to be fun. But if we called it ‘deliberately making yourself feel so uncomfortable it’ll feel like your dying’, nobody would do it…”. Hopefully our hesitant Year 6 students did not think they were really going to die on the High Ropes Course at Hollybank (think of the risk assessment), but they were obviously well and truly out of their comfort zone and this led to personal growth.

The best selling author, Alan Cohen has stated that “Personal growth is not a matter of learning new information but of unlearning old limits”. These limits, or boundaries that we set for ourselves are like a mechanism that we install to prevent ourselves from feeling uncomfortable. We tell ourselves that we are unable to do a particular thing because of X, Y and Z. This may be learned or it may be something that we have been told by others. A classic example for some people is that they believe they are bad at something. Often this relates to maths, or english, or sport, or friendships. This leads to these people not trying anything in the area that they perceive themselves to be bad at. At St Patrick’s, we want to instil a mindset of growth in our students. We want them to push themselves out of their comfor zone and not restrict themselves based on ‘old limits’. As stated, these limits are often based on the idea that we are not allowed to make mistakes. Therefore, we want our students to see the value in being willing to making a mistake and then learn from that mistake. But, we also want them to value feedback and self reflection, both of which are required if we are to learn from our mistakes. At St Patrick’s we are striving to equip students with these tools throughout their schooling journey to improve their outcomes now and into the future.

Kurt Atkins 

Acting Principal 

2022

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

2023

Term 1 - Friday 3rd February - Thursday 6th April

Term 2 - Wednesday 26th April - Friday 7th July

Term 3 - Monday 24th July - Friday 29th September

Term 4 - Monday 16th October - Thursday 14th December

*Student Free Day Monday 24th April 2023

October 

November

December 

Welcome to Term 4! Mrs Fenton will be teaching Year 2 on Monday and Tuesday and Mrs Lockyer will continue to teach Wednesday to Friday. We look forward to sharing in many interesting and engaging activities with students as they consolidate and enrich their knowledge, understanding and skills.

In English, students will participate in a whole-class Novel Study. We will be reading George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl; students will be learning to apply known comprehension strategies, expand their vocabulary, and to create detailed character descriptions.

Last term in Science, students worked with Mrs Fenton and Mrs Mac to understand the importance of water as a natural resource. Students created detailed representations of their understanding of the water journey. During Term 4, students will work with Mrs Fenton to identify other examples of Earth’s natural resources, specifically identifying their use in the school environment. Mrs Lockyer will guide students in developing their knowledge of our local history in Latrobe with a focus on historical events, including the great floods.

In Mathematics, students will continue to develop their problem-solving skills across the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). In our Statistics & Probability unit, Year 2s will learn to use the language of chance to discuss everyday events and they will begin to collect and represent data. 

We thank our Year 2 families for their continued support of the homework and home-reading programs throughout this busy final term of the year! 

The school athletics carnival will be held next Thursday 3rd November. We have been able to confirm the hire of the East Devonport Recreation Grounds, Girdlestone Park. All classes from Kinder to Year 6 will be attending the carnival and will be bussed to and from the event. Our Kinder and Prep students will return back to school at approximately 1.00pm, with Year's 1 to Year 6 returning back by 2.30 pm. The carnival will commence at 9.45am and will conclude by 2.15pm (approx). Miss Brown and Mrs Hayes are currently organising the athletics program and we will have this available to go home next week. Spectators will be allowed/invited to this year's event and we will be asking for volunteers to help with the field events, all volunteers must hold a current WWVP card and a copy will need to be provided to the office prior to the carnival. If you are able to help out on the day can you please advise the school office or note it in your child's diary. There will be NO canteen facilities this day and students will be required to bring with them a packed lunch with their fruit break, recess, lunch and refillable water bottle. Final details of the carnival will be provided in next week's newsletter. 

Congratulations to Charlie Jones who competed Sunday in the Burnie 10, it was his first time running 10km and he completed it in 48.33 minutes. Well Done Charlie! 

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

Prep: Evie Atkins you give 100% to everything you do. Thank you for your fantastic attitude and application toward all learning tasks.

Year 1: Max Phillips for your good effort during reading groups and a great start to the term.

Year 2: Indianna Bowkett for her consistent and enthusiastic attitude to learning in written work and oral discussions.

Year 3: Axel Bos for his enthusiasm and application towards his learning tasks and for demonstrating independence and resilience in dealing with challenges.

Year 4: Lucy Chapman for her positive start to the term and her enthusiastic approach to our unit on The First Fleet.

Year 5: Lulu Meech for her positive approach to learning tasks particularly our Poetry Unit.

Year 6: Nate Crump For the caring, welcoming and inclusive qualities he brings into the classroom each day.

Congratulations to our House Raffle winners this week: 

Dooley - Balin Holland   Martyn - Anas Abdelgayed

Byrne - Kashaf Kapila 

Student End of Year Reports will not be printed this year and instead will only be available via Compass. Reports are easy to access via Compass and instructions for this will be made available in future newsletters. We will however print reports if requested by parents/guardians. This can be requested after the reports have been made available on Compass. Please note the reports from previous years and the Mid Year Report from this year can also be accessed via Compass (either in the App or the web version).

Parents are welcome to contact Mr Atkins, Mrs Marshall or Mrs Badcock at any time to discuss issues relating to their child’s education. It is important for parents to always make contact with the leadership team (Mr Atkins, Mrs Marshall & Mrs Badcock) or their child’s teacher if they require elaboration or clarification on any issue. Contact to the school can be made by either phoning the office between 8.00am - 4.00pm (after-hours phone calls will now go to the school message bank) your child's diary, or by making an appointment. 

The 2022 Tasmanian School Triathlon Challenge Registrations have now closed. As previously advised the event will be held at the Mersey Bluff on Thursday 24th November, the registration fee will be covered by the school. This year we will bus our students to and from the event; however, it will be parent's responsibility to get pushbikes to the event by the allocated cut-off time in the morning and to collect them at the conclusion of the event. Miss Brown will be our designated staff member accompanying our students to this event. Further detailed information will be forwarded to families as we receive it. 

Book Club ISSUE 7 is out now!

Orders will close at 3.00pm on Friday 28th October.

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.