St Paul's Newsletter: Thursday 6 May
2021 St Paul's Newsletter - Term 2, Week 3
From the Principal
Dear Families,
Firstly let me wish all mothers, grandmothers, and mother figures a wonderful day this Sunday. May those little rays of sunshine – your children – bring you great joy for the day, and for every other day of the year too! Thank you to all who were able to attend the Mother's Day Mass yesterday, it was a wonderful way to celebrate as a community. Thank you to our Parents and Friends for coordinating the breakfast tomorrow. We also thank our P&F for organising our Mother’s Day Stall tomorrow, finding some terrific gifts for the children to purchase.
TOMORROW: Mother's Day Breakfast and Mother's Day Stall
This year's Mother’s Day stall will be held tomorrow. There will be a range of gifts priced from $1 - $10. Children can bring some cash at the stall, and each class will be called up one by one to come for the children to select up to two gifts for their Mums (we limit it to two gifts each to begin with to ensure there are enough gifts for each child).
The Mother's Day Breakfast begins at 8:15am tomorrow. All Mothers or significant women are welcome as we will hold the breakfast outside (therefore no restrictions on numbers). Bacon and Egg Rolls will be served by our Parents and Friends Committee.
We invite one adult per child to visit the classrooms when the teachers open them. Sorry but we ask that younger siblings not enter classrooms. Adults that do enter the classrooms please ensure the following practices take place:
- Check in using the QR codes that will be displayed around the school
- We ask adult visitors in classrooms to wear a face mask
- Please do not remain in classrooms any longer than 10 minutes
Reminder - Hot Lunch Days are BACK!
Our first Hot Lunch Day for 2021 is on Friday 14 May. Our Parents and Friends are offering Hot Dogs for lunch on the day. Normally there are more selections on the menu, and we promise that next time we will include a wider variety of hot foods. Orders can be placed via CDFPay no later than 10pm Monday 10 May.
Emerald Barbecue - This Saturday
This Saturday is our second Emerald Barbecue for this year. It is great that we have a volunteer for coordinating our Emerald Barbecues this year. Thank you to Megan Bourke (Grace Yr 3, Ivy Yr 1) for taking on this role. If you are in Emerald on Saturday morning, please call in to Emerald Meats, a great supporter of our school community, and grab a sausage in bread! Thank you very much to the families that have volunteered for this week's Emerald Barbecue.
NAPLAN
As communicated previously, we have NAPLAN testing for our Year 3 and 5 students next week. NAPLAN will be held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We can make provision for 'catch up' tests on Friday if needed. In class, the teachers have been preparing with students with practice questions and class discussions. It's pretty normal to feel a little anxious before a test because we want to perform well. Nerves are good! Nerves are a sign that this means something to us ... But for some people, this normal anxiety is more intense. The nervousness we can feel before a test can be so strong that it interferes with concentration or performance. Some general suggestions for those engaging in NAPLAN next week:
- Get a good night's sleep the night before
- Eat a healthy breakfast
- Don’t engage in negative talk, or put undue pressure on ourselves, regarding NAPLAN
As a school, we use the data that NAPLAN provides us in order to measure student learning growth in literacy and numeracy, but we use the data alongside all of our other formative and summative assessments. The NAPLAN data is useful, but it does not measure everything that we hold dear at St Paul’s. This is extremely important for parents to understand. NAPLAN does matter, and it is important to us, but NAPLAN is not ALL that matters!
Uniform Standards
Thank you very much to our families for supporting our Uniform Policy. I am very proud of the way our students wear their uniform and particularly this year I can see that families have made an effort with the correct school shoes. THANK YOU.
A gentle reminder that if hair length falls below the shoulder, please ensure that it is tied back. Thank you!
Privacy Policy & Standard Collection Notice
Modern society dictates that many of our day to day practices, for instance doing banking, online shopping, listening to music or even taking photos, require access to cloud based technology. Some of the cloud based systems we use at St Paul’s are Smart Records Group, Google Apps for Education, iCloud, Digital Schools, vPass, Operoo, nForma, ICON and See Saw. The way we collect information and how we then use that information is outlined through our Privacy Policy and Standard Collection Notice. There is an important distinction between a Privacy Policy and a Standard Collection Notice and schools will generally have both. At St Paul’s our Privacy Policy outlines our information management practices in a broad sense, whereas the St Paul’s Standard Collection Notice outlines the information handling practices for a specific purpose. These documents can be downloaded from our website.
District Athletics - From Mrs Geoghegan
Yesterday our Mountain District Athletics Carnival was held at Knox Athletic Track in perfect weather conditions. Congratulations to the 38 students who represented our school in various track and field events. Each student tried their best and had fun on and off the track. I was very proud of all the students not only for their athletic efforts but their behaviour and team spirit was amazing too. A BIG BIG thank you to the following parents: Megan Gaunt, Rhys Holder and Amanda Collins for running the long jump pits, with Jo McIntosh and to Deb Czaja for helping me organise students to their events. It was a massive effort by these parents and our District days can not happen if we don't have the ongoing help from parents. I am waiting on final results to see which students will go through to Division Level in September but well done to everyone on a successful day.
Kelly Geoghegan
A DISTRICT ATHLETICS NOTE FROM MR WATT: I also congratulate all students that participated in yesterday's District Athletics event. It was a superb day weather-wise, and the students involved gave their all! Unfortunately, there were a couple of schools that arrived late, which pushed the program back by approximately half an hour. Because we needed to make sure we were back at school by 3:00pm for our own school bus and OSHClub, we left the track before the final event had taken place. This was out of our control, but we have passed on our feedback to the organisers.
Thank you to our students for representing St Paul's with pride. We also say a huge thanks to Kelly Geoghegan for organising the day. Thanks also to Jo McIntosh for assisting Kelly, to the school staff for adapting and a massive thanks to the parents that were able to help. GO ST PAUL'S!
SCHOOL CLOSURE DAY - Friday 28 May
No students are to attend school on Friday 28 May. The staff will engage in Education in Faith Professional Learning for the duration of the day at the Mary MacKillop Heritage Centre in East Melbourne. There will be no staff on the school site.
Kind regards,
Michael Watt
2021 School Closure Days
Please note the following days in your diary. There is NO SCHOOL for students on the following dates:
- TERM 2 - Friday 28 May 2021 (Education in Faith Professional Learning)
- TERM 3 - Monday 26 July (Literacy Professional Learning)
- TERM 4 - TBC
P&F News
OSHClub
Out of School Hours Care: OSH Club
Enrolments, Bookings and Enquiries
Parents will need to enrol with OSHClub. Please visit https://www.oshclub.com.au/ and click on "REGISTER". You will need to enrol with the Monbulk Primary School service.
Community Notices
Transition Information
To assist your decision making in relation to your child's education for 2022 and beyond, please find below a link to the 136 page March 2021 edition of the Catholic Education Guide.
CLICK HERE: https://victoriaschoolguides.starcommunity.com.au/catholic-education/
Mater Christi College – Belgrave
Mater Christi College is a vibrant, inclusive and warm community where girls feel safe and build supportive lifelong friendships. After another year of leading academic and vocational outcomes, we are experiencing a surge in demand for places.
Parents of Grade 5 students are strongly encouraged to secure a place for Year 7 2023. Visit the College website to apply or arrange a tour.
Families seeking enrolment for 2022 should contact the College Registrar 9754 6611 asap.
