Week 6, Term 1, 2017

St Pat's Cafe

Thanks to our Year 6 leaders and all of our families who supported the cafe last week. Fr Paul has sent an invite to all school families to come again and join others at this week's St Pat's Cafe. Last week was a huge success. Fr Paul hopes to see more of our Year 6 leaders helping to serve our community.

School Closure Days

The school is closed this Thursday and Friday to enable the whole staff to spend quality time together focusing on our teaching and learning. Our staff will start on Thursday at 8:30am in the Conference Centre in Mornington. Ingrid Green from the Catholic Education Office will be facilitating sessions around the Horizons of Hope Catholic teaching framework and the renewed RE curriculum.

The focus on Friday is a visit to St Louis de Montfort school in Aspendale. We will be learning about the Sustainability Precinct, including the Garden to Kitchen Programme. We will also be learning about the Civics and Citizens and Social Justice Programmes. 

As a staff, we have been reflecting on our own teaching practices in relation to our school vision Engaged and motivated learners always faithful to our loving God. We will be referring to our St Patrick's expert teaching indicators to understand engagement and motivation in learning at St Louis school.

Please note the following days are also school closure days: 21st June, 6th November, 22nd November. All of these dates are on our school calendar.

Parish Education Board Nominations

Nominations close on Wednesday 15th March. Here is some further information from Fr Paul's letter:

One way parents can significantly contribute to the enrichment of the School is by joining the Parish

Education Board. I would warmly encourage you to consider joining a wonderful team already very

dedicated to your children. Therefore, I would now like to request nominations in writing from parents across the school community. Nominations are to be in writing including a few words about yourself and addressed to the Returning Officer and kindly delivered to the box in the school office by 4pm Wednesday, 15th March. There are many reasons for excitement concerning the coming year for St Patrick’s School. We would love you to embrace the opportunity to play an active and decisive part is this. God Bless, Fr Paul

St Patrick's Day

We will be attending a whole school mass on the morning of Friday 17th March and following mass with a number of exciting activities. All are welcome to join us at 9:10 for mass.

Harmony Week

As part of our celebration of Harmony Week (Mon 20- Fri 24th March), we will be creating a world map showing the places of origin of children's parents, grandparents or families. This may be overseas, within Australia, or in Melbourne. We are asking each child to bring a small photo of themselves (approximately 10cm x 10cm), with their name on the back, and the place they are referencing. (We understand that children may have ties to many countries, states or places, in which case they can choose just one). The unnamed photos will help create a montage celebrating our cultural diversity. As Year 6s will be on camp, we will work with them in the following week.

FIRE DRILL

Last week we held our first Fire Drill for the year. All students from P-6 practiced evacuating the school building in a safe, timely and orderly fashion. The children are to be commended on the way they conducted themselves. We evacuated 380 people in under 3 minutes. Further drills will be scheduled at regular intervals, including practicing our "lock down" procedures. 

Upcoming Dates

Dates for the year can be accessed via our school calendar. This is available directly on the TiqBiz app, at the bottom of the page on this newsblog, on our school website or on our Learning Community Site in the communication section. To make it easier for you, we will also keep dates for the term updated each week here with dates for the coming week in red. Any new dates will be in blue.
Here are some Term 1 dates to be aware of:

Thurs 9th Mar     School Closure Day
Fri 10th Mar        School Closure Day
Mon 13th Mar     Public Holiday - no school
Wed 15th Mar     Board Nominations Close 4pm
Thur 16th Mar     POPE Meeting at 2:30pm
Thur 16th Mar     Middle School Social Skills Information Evening Yr 4
Fri 17th Mar        St Patrick's Day
Sun 19th Mar      Family Mass
Mon 20th Mar     Year 6 camp
Mon 20th Mar     Parent & Friends Meeting 7pm
Tues 21st Mar    World Harmony Day 
Mon 27th Mar     3L Assembly
Wed 29th Mar     Parent Teacher Meetings 
Thur 30th Mar     Year 5/6 Soccer Lightning Premiership

Fri 31st Mar        End of term 1.