Newsletter 26/4/2022 Term 2 Week 1

Our Prayer

From the Principal

Dear parents, carers and community members,

Welcome back to school after, what we hope has been, a restful break for everyone. We begin term two with the optimism of continuing fulltime, onsite learning without masks and with the freedom of greater offsite learning opportunities for the children. 

Covid Safe Precautions

As you may have heard on the media, there have been further easing of COVID precautions for schools effective this term. These will impact us in the following ways. 

Face masks
From 11:59 pm Friday 22 April, face masks, while recommended, are not required in any school setting. This means students in grades 3 to 6, staff and visitors in primary schools, are no longer required to wear face masks. Any student or staff member who wishes to wear a mask may do so, including those who are medically at-risk.

Screening requirements
Students and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, and have completed their 7-day isolation period, now do not need to undertake rapid antigen test (RAT) screening for 12 weeks after their release from isolation. This was previously 8 weeks.

Household contacts
Students and staff who are household contacts of a COVID-19 case are no longer required to quarantine. They can return to school as long as they undertake rapid antigen tests (RAT) 5 times within their 7-day period and wear face masks indoors if they are aged 8 and above unless they have a valid exemption. If any household contact returns a positive RAT result during this period, they must isolate for 7 days and not attend school.

Vaccination requirements for visitors to schools
Parents, carers and other adult visitors (not performing work) are no longer required to show evidence of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.  Vaccination requirements for education workers (including volunteers) remains unchanged.

Community use of school facilities
Schools will no longer need to request evidence of vaccination of staff or workers from external community groups who use premises outside the school’s normal operating hours.

RAT screening program extension reminder
The supply of RATs will continue for the first 4 weeks of this term. The screening recommendations remain the same with a recommendation to test at home twice a week.

School Photo Day Tomorrow

Our school photos will take place tomorrow, Wednesday April 27th which is the second day of term 2. On this day we ask parents to dress their children in their summer uniform please (If your child's class has PE they will need to change into their PE clothes after their photos). Envelopes were sent home to families in the last week of term 1.

How long do I have to order photos?
Parents have 1 week post photo day to order before incurring a $20 late fee.

Do I need to return the envelope if I have ordered online?
No, Envelopes are only required to be brought back if the family is paying cash.

What do I do if I have lost my shoot-key?
If a family has lost their child’s envelope and wish to pay online via msp.com.au they can call MSP at (03) 9115 1642 or the school office so they can supply the shoot-key.

Staffing Update

With the staffing absences announced last term, we have been working very hard to find replacements for these roles. We welcome Liam Bishop to fill in for Paul Kingston each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for Physical Education this term. We hope he enjoys his time here with us at St Pat's. 

We also welcome Tarryn Delaney back to school after maternity leave to work each Friday in the FDB classroom. We appreciate her commitment to the school and her willingness to support us in this time of staff shortage.

We have been unable to secure a replacement for the creative arts role and have had to use existing staff and replacement teachers to fill this role in the short term.

Headphones

During remote learning last year students were provided with headphones to promote online access to lessons. Many of these headphones have not returned to school and we are looking at a considerable cost to replace them. If you have a set of St Patrick's headphones at home, could they please be returned to school this week.

Parents in School

Over the past few months we have been balancing the need to reduce the number of adults onsite with the need to have parents involved in learning conversations about their child's progress. If you wish to speak to your child's teacher, please feel free to make an appointment at the office as catching a teacher before or after school often interrupts preparation time or yard duty expectations. We look forward to seeing parents back in our school again. 

Mother's Day Events

With Mother's day on Sunday 8th of May, we will be hosting a Mother's day breakfast and holding a Mother's Day stall on Friday 6th of May. 

Breakfast
Breakfast for mothers and special carers and their children will be available at school from 7am in the big room at St Patrick's next Friday. We look forward to seeing as many people as possible here on the day.  To pre pay please send $4.00 per person into the office in a named envelope.

Stall
Families are asked to send to school one unwrapped Mother's Day gift around the value of $2 for each child at the school to be sold in the Mother's Day Stall next Friday. The students will bring $2 on the day to buy a present for their mother's on this day. To allow the P&F families responsible for the event time to organise the stall, we ask that these gifts be sent to school as soon as possible.

Sport Update

Cross Country
We will be conducting our school cross country this Friday the 29th of April at school, commencing with 11 & 12 year olds at 11.15am 

Athletics
The Division athletics carnival will be held on Friday the 6th of May in Warrnambool at Brauerander Park on Caramut Road. Parents of students who have qualified for this event are asked to organise transport and we will have a staff member to provide support on the day.

Resilience Project - Free Parent Webinar

As we are a Partnership School with the Resilience Project parents, guardians and friends of our community have the opportunity to access a presentation with Martin Heppell. This is a free event for our community. During this presentation, Martin will share his experiences and combine them with practical strategies that can be implemented everyday to improve our overall wellbeing.

The Parent / Carer Webinar with Martin Heppell is on Monday 9th May, 6.30pm-8.00pm (90 minutes) AEST.

Parents/ Carers will need to register using the following registration link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YmLGrZ40SIaYLMV1-gylBQ

**Upon registration, registrants will receive a link to attend the webinar, along with a reminder the day prior.

Free Piano

There is an old, disused piano in the Junior passage that we would like removed from the school. It is not in great condition but it would be fine for a beginner or someone interested in restoring it. It is free for the family that wishes to organise for it to be removed from the school. Please contact the school office if you are interested. 

Winter Uniform

We will commence wearing winter uniform in the first few weeks of term two when the weather turns cold. Unfortunately supply issues have meant that we are no longer able to source our girl's winter tunics at the moment. 

We have some families who have placed orders for these now and there may be more needing new tunics when we finally begin to wear them. We are hoping that there are many unneeded tunics in cupboards at home and that people are prepared to either donate them back to the school or send them in with a note stating the family name and a price for resale. This will, hopefully, get us through term 2 and 3 this year.

ANZAC Day

Well done to the families and staff who attended our Camperdown ANZAC commemoration ceremony yesterday at 10am. It is an important national and local community event and I am sure it had an impact on the students who were able to attend. Well done to our school leaders for the roles they were asked to complete

Catholic School Culture

Sacrament of Confirmation

Please pray for the children who are preparing to make the Sacrament of Confirmation this Friday 29th of April at 6pm at St. Patrick’s Church in Camperdown; Alexis Barake, Millie Bourke, Brodie Burkett, Theo Cheeseman, Matthew Cridland, Tommy Fox, Isabelle Gordon, Alexander Huggins, Max Lucas, Abby Mulholland, Liam Pascoe, Evie Wagner, Flynn Wagner, Clancey Wagner & Sydney Wagner. Please also pray for Lucy Kleinhenz who will be making her Sacrament of Confirmation on Sunday 1st of May at the 11am mass. Families will need to arrive at 5:50pm on Friday evening to enable this mass to start on time and please remember to bring your child’s stole. 

Project Compassion

This is our last week collecting coin donations to go towards Caritas Project Compassion. Please send in any loose coins or monetary donations to go towards your child’s classroom collection. Many thanks for supporting this social justice activity.

Mini Vinnies Winter Appeal

The Grade 4 Mini Vinnie’s volunteers will be collecting washed blankets, sleeping bags, coats, hats, scarves, beanies etc. to donate to those in need. If you have any items that you wish to donate, please wash them and send them to school with your child. The Mini Vinnies children will collect these items from the classrooms and bundle them together for donation. Thank-you for supporting this cause.

Junior Parish Mass

Junior families are invited to attend the Parish Mass at St Patrick’s Church on Sunday 15th of May at 11am. Junior students will lead this mass by carrying out the readings and doing jobs. Replies are due back at school by Monday 9th of May so jobs and readings can be allocated. It would be lovely to see many junior families there on this day. 

Easter Raffle

Our Easter raffle was drawn on the last day of term and the major prize winners are as follows:-
1st Cooper Doolan
2nd Julie Sinnott
3rd Isaac Lawlor
Last Ollie West

Thank you to all our families for providing the prizes, we made $3,535 for the Parents Association.

I can Program

This year we will once again be running the I CAN Imagination Club in Terms 2, 3 & 4 at St Patrick’s School with sessions offered in the grades 1/2, 3/4 & 5/6 areas. 

The I Can Imagination Club Program is a program for students who are either on the autism spectrum, have learning differences or experience social anxieties or lack of social confidence. The beauty of this program is that it can be used by the school to engage a broad range of students that require some extra social skills assistance.

We plan in early Term 2 to host an information night. When the date is confirmed we will advertise it for parents and guardians to come along if you think your child would benefit from participating in the I CAN Imagination Club. It would also be worth discussing this with your child's teacher, Annie Judd or Tim Bourke. We have had many children participate in the program over the years. More to come as an information night date is still to be confirmed.

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