CALENDAR SEPTEMBER Fr 16 Last Day Term 3—Dismissal 2:15pm OCTOBER Mo 3 School Closure Day (Staff RE PD) Tu 4 First Day Term 4—8:55am Little Desert Athletics, Horsham Mo 10 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Th 13 Nhill Show—School Closure Day Mo 17 Pre-school reading program 9-10am We 19 PAC Meeting 7pm Mo 24 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Th-Fr 27-28 Review Mo 31 Pre-school reading program 9-10am NOVEMBER Mo 7 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 14 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 21 Pre-school reading program 9-10am Mo 28 Pre-school reading program 9-10am We 23 PAC Annual General Meeting DECEMBER We 7 PAC Meeting 7pm Mo 5 Pre-school reading program 9-10am

Dear Parents and Members of St Patrick’s School Community,

SUNDAY 11 SEPTEMBER—25th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME —LUKE 15: 1—10—Last Sunday’s gospel told us that God loves us and wants to save us. We are never alone as God is always there for us and he never gives up on us, even when we don’t listen to him. Jesus was sent to look for the people that were lost to God, or who didn't even know about him. This gospel reading also reflected on the celebrations that occur when something that was lost is found. God always celebrates when we ask him to be part of our lives.

FATHER NEVILLE—Father Neville returned to Australia this week and we are very pleased that he has come home. It will be great to have him back after his stay with his family. We hope that he is able to visit our school early in Term Four.

READING COUNTS—1, 2, 3 ... Read with Me—On Monday we had a wonderful group of pre-school children and their mums for our Reading Counts program. We read the book ‘Fish Eyes’ and Lisa Creek had organised a number of different activities related to it. Children painted fish using their hands, completed a number puzzle, categorised different fish and played a ‘fishing’ game. Thanks again to Michelle and Helen and, as the photos show, our hall looks very colourful and inviting for this program.

Our Reading Counts program will continue next term. The first date is Monday, 10 October, 9-10am. Please invite all those with pre-school children to attend these sessions.

WALK TO SCHOOL—Students at St Patrick’s School have been registered to participate in ‘Walk To School’ as part of the Hindmarsh Shire’s initiative again this year. All students are encouraged to walk to school throughout the month of October. If it isn’t possible to ‘walk to school’, especially for bus travellers, then maybe students could walk to the bus stop or spend part of their lunch break walking around the oval. Let’s get creative and see if St Patrick’s students can win some of the fabulous prizes on offer this year. Walk to School begins on the first day of Term Four and continues for the whole of October.

ABOVE AND BEYOND—This week our focus was Showing Initiative / Leadership. This involved a willingness to begin tasks quickly, demonstrate enthusiasm, be resourceful by finding different ways to complete tasks, demonstrate independence and assisting others when they are unsure what to do. This week’s winners are Jobe and Harrison. Jobe has receive the award because he has shown great initiative by helping others to finish their work as well as helping people to clean up when changing to a new activity. Harrison has displayed a very positive attitude during Mathematics this week, even though he found the topic of angles difficult at the start. With hard work and persistence Harrison now has a much better understanding of angles, and has shown great leadership by persisting with the work. Congratulations to both Jobe and Harrison.

The focus for the first week of next term is Displaying Creative Thinking. This will involve asking questions to clarify what is

St. Patrick’s

Church Sundays at

10:30 a.m.

18September

L.L.A.

25 September

Mass

2 October

L.L.A.

St. Patrick’s School is a Child-safe school. As a Catholic Christian community, we will nurture the children as they learn together to respond to the Gospel in their daily lives and explore their emerging role in Australian society.

Our Vision

St Patrick’s School

is a child safe school St. Patrick’s School

29 Leahy Street, PO Box 113, Nhill 3418

Phone 03 5391 1575

Mobile 0419 929 271

Fax 03 5391 1506

Email principal@spnhill.catholic.edu.au

Web www.spnhill.catholic.edu.au

Term Dates Class Times Administration Office Hours 2016 Term 4 3 Oct to 20 Dec 8:55am Class time

2017 Term 1 30 Jan to 31 Mar 11am Recess Monday Closed

2017 Term 2 18 Apr to 30 Jun 11:30am Class time Tuesday 9am

3:50pm 2017 Term 3 17 Jul to 22 Sep 1:00pm Lunch Wednesday

2017 Term 4 9 Oct to 22 Dec 1:45pm Class time Thursday

3:15pm Dismissal Friday 9am1pm

Newsletter No. 2016/29 Thursday, 15 September 2016

Reading Counts 1, 2, 3 … read with me

Next Session: Monday

10 October, 9-10am

creating tomorrow’s bookworms

MONTH

This week’s

winner is Olivia who

was caught using our school rules by displaying

respect.

Nominated by Jobe

IT’S TIME TO WALK TO SCHOOL!! The Walk to School program will be held from 3-28 October

This year Hindmarsh Shire Council has partnered with Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly to facilitate lunch time activities at each school twice in the month of October. The program’s aim is to assist in developing healthy habits with parents walking with their children to school or the bus stop.

Students will be eligible to win prizes by collecting Walk to School tickets from their classroom teacher each time they walk to school or their bus stop. Walks will be recorded on the Classroom Calendar.

We encourage every student to participate in this program as often as possible during October, and continue to walk to school as a regular habit.

JUNIOR CLASS NEWS from Miss Farquharson

It’s the last week of term and the students are trying their hardest to complete all their work before a well-earned holiday! In writing, students have been using their knowledge of word and sounds to make sentences using alliteration. The students have made some amusing sentences with most of the words beginning with the same sound as their first name. Many of the students have used their dictionary skills to help them to find more words with the same beginning sound. In Maths the students have been working on symmetry and flipping, sliding and turning shapes. They have been drawing the missing half of pictures to make them the same on both sides of the line and have been making symmetrical patterns from the shape blocks in the classroom. In Inquiry, the students have done a short oral presentation about the country they have researched using the information from the brochures they have made. The students have worked very hard in the last week to make sure they have included enough information to share about their country and make people want to go there.

SENIOR CLASS NEWS from Miss Anson

This week in Literacy, the seniors are continuing their work on transactional writing. This week we are completing interviews. The students have paired up and are interviewing one another about their dream jobs. We are reading ‘Postcards’ for our shared reading text which follows on with our transactional writing. Our vocabulary words this week are ‘variety’, ‘boast’, ‘stall’, ‘unique’ and ‘modern’. In Numeracy, the seniors are beginning the topic of angles. The students have been learning how to estimate, measure and compare angles using degrees, and construct angles using a protractor. They have also been comparing angles and classifying them as equal to, greater than or less than a right angle. In Inquiry, the senior students are creating a PowerPoint presentation in groups about the impact that humans may have on a town, river and rainforest. This has been a great way to sum up our Geography unit this term.

Full colour version of newsletter is on our website spnhill.catholic.edu.au/newsletters-2016.html and tiqbiz

required, considering different points of view, wondering how others might feel about something, using imagination to dream and think of other ideas and answers to problems, considering the consequences of behaviour and actions and their impact on others and considering different possibilities to questions and problems.

PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING—At last night’s PAC meeting we discussed a number of new policies including First Aid and Medication, Occupational Health and Safety, Student Behaviour and Student Attendance. We also discussed options to provide shade cover over the playground, ongoing issues with technology delivery and the proposed dates for a Senior Camp to Victor Harbour. (Further information on this camp will be provided once it has been ratified by Father Neville and other details have been finalised.)

MINISTERIAL ORDER 870—CHILD SAFE STANDARD 7—Strategies to promote the participation and empowerment of children—Standard 7 underlines the critical importance of schools fostering an environment of openness, inclusiveness and respect where children feel valued and ‘have an awareness of [their] rights, and adults’ responsibilities regarding child abuse’ (State of Victoria, Department of Health and Human Services 2015). In such an environment, children are supported by being taught skills to maintain personal safety and simple processes for reporting abuse, inappropriate behaviour or concerns for their safety and they feel comfortable to do so. The Ministerial Order specifies the following requirements for schools regarding Standard 7: The school governing authority must develop strategies to deliver appropriate education about:

a. standards of behaviour for students attending the school; b. healthy and respectful relationships (including sexuality); c. resilience; and d. child abuse awareness and prevention.

If you wish to know more about the Child Safe Standards, please contact the school’s Child Protection Officer, Kathy Bendall.

REMINDERS

STAFF MEETINGS—Staff meet two out of three nights each week. The nights vary but are either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. If you ring between 3:30 and 5:00pm on these nights the phone may not be answered, especially on a Monday when there is no administrative support. Please be aware that staff planning time is very important to us and if we don’t answer the phone after school on one of these nights it will because we are involved in a meeting. Please ring again after 5:00pm or the following morning.

DON’T FORGET

Tomorrow is the last day of Term 3—dismissal time is 2:15pm.

Term 4 commences on Tuesday, 4 October at 8:55am, as staff will be attending professional development on Monday 3 October.

FINALLY—This term seems to have flown by. Thank you to all families for your support of school events this term. All students are to be congratulated on the terrific work they have done throughout the term. I hope you all have the chance to recharge your batteries during the holiday break and we look forward to a productive Term Four. Good luck to Heath at the Little Desert Athletics carnival on Tuesday 4 October. We know you will represent our school to the best of your ability.

As always, please contact the school if you have any questions about what is happening at St Patrick’s School.

Kathryn Bendall, Principal.

Reading Counts 1, 2, 3 … read with me

Tickets: Adults $12 Concession/Kids $7 Family $30

Thursday

22 September 2:00pm

Tuesday 27 September 10:30am