Community Update #4.13 Farewell for 2021

Dear Families,

This is our final newsletter for 2021.

On behalf of the staff, I wish all of our children and school families a blessed and joy filled Christmas.

May you enjoy some quality family time together during the holiday period.

We wish all of our leavers well for the future too.

May we all return in 2022, refreshed, reenergised and ready to start school with enthusiasm and vigour.

Christmas blessings of  Peace, Love, Hope and Joy

Jenny Hawkins

Thanks to our community for your generous donations to the Parish and support for the wider community in need in the Murrumbeena and Ormond area.

Wedding Bells 

We wish Mr Daidone and fiancee Ingrid every blessing as they prepare to celebrate their wedding during the holiday break.

We also wish Nayrie and fiancee Robert our blessings as they also get married during the holidays.

Thanks to our staff

A special thank you to all of our staff. In particular, thank you to Liz Hills and Kerryn Oliver who are valued members of the senior leadership team and help to ensure we are responsive to our children and families at all times. Thanks to the rest of the leadership team too, who have all contributed in so many ways and met with me every Tuesday morning throughout the year ether via Zoom or in person: Natalie La Fontaine, Jo Guscott, Marg O'Dwyer and Laura Adcock.

Thanks to Sandra and Kellie who are our first port of call at the front office and multi task at all times. 

Thanks to all of our staff, teachers and LSO's for their invaluable contribution this year.

Farewell & Thank you to our Year 6's

We wish all of our graduating Year 6's and leavers our best wishes for the future. We especially farewell and thank the families of our Year 6 graduates who have been associated with St Pat's for several years or whose youngest siblings are graduating and moving to high school. Thanks to the following families:

Allan, Barnes, Cherfi, Comito, Cox, D'Aulerio, Dormer,  D'Souza, Esposito, Gheller, Gioffre, Dattari, Khamu, McMahon, Suresh,  Jimenez,  Mackay, Persi, Pickering, Sanders, Scherian, Smith, Taranto, Tran, Wardlaw, Westcott

Please join us in the front yard tomorrow and form a guard of honour to farewell our Year 6's graduates and staff who are finishing up at St Pat's.

Covid Update

A big thank you to one of our Prep classes who kept their children home on Friday to get tested as advised. Fortunately all of the children were able to return to school on Monday. 

We are pleased to advise that we have had no student cases of Covid at our school since July.

A special vote of thanks to our vigilant parents who have either kept their children home if unwell or  followed requests from external clubs to get tested as advised.

Thanks also to the children and staff who kept the classroom safety bubbles going indoors all term. This meant that we were able to take immediate action for only one affected class as required. 

I am extremely proud of our children, staff and families for supporting our community to get through the final term of the year in the safest way possible.

Please continue to stay safe and well during the holiday period.

Smiling Hearts funds

The Year 5 & 6 Mini Market and the after school stalls raised the phenomenal total of $2188

$758 from year 6 ; $530 from year 5 ; $900 from the after school stalls

Congratulations to all of the children who prepared the stalls,  the generous sponsors who supported the market and to our families who purchased the goods too.

The Smiling Hearts Foundation are very grateful. You can read about the foundation in their latest  newsletter at this link. 

Loretta zoomed with year 5 and 6 on Friday to thank them for all their efforts and to explain what it meant to the SH centre. They also discussed what they would like the money to go towards. Loretta then read a letter from SH cofounder, Hellen in Uganda.

Dear St. Patricks school students,

My name is Hellen Mbabazi in Uganda and I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of our smiling hearts children for your generous support regardless of the effects this pandemic has caused world wide. Thanks for standing with us from day one, you have given a chance to these children to smile again by training in vocational studies, pursue education, feeling loved, building confidence and best of all is that you made the world a better place for them.They are all living a better life because of you, thanks for making their dreams come true, may God bless and provide to you always and your dear families.

Meeting your lovely teacher Karin is one of the best things that happened to me and to all the children of smiling hearts, she is so kind and lovely as you are, we pray that one day we get to meet each other and hug each other, tears of joy are flowing in my eyes while writing, I cant imagine how wonderful, sweet and extra ordinary it is for a child to help another child even when no one know each other by face. You are such a blessing to this world, may you continue shining with your golden hearts and may the good lord bless you with all you need and make your dream come true always.

Virtual hugs from all the children here and always remember that you are in our prayers always, your school, your principal and all the teachers will always be in our prayers because you are one in a million and you mean the world to us. Thanks for healing the world with your giving hands

 God bless you always.

Love you always

Smiling Hearts Uganda, keep smiling.

Thank you to our community

Special thanks to our amazing Maintenance Officer, Lawrence Guerra who has transformed our school into a safe and tidy haven for the children and staff. Lawrence joined the Refurbishment Working Party and is working closely with the architects and principal to ensure our school works will be successful.

A huge thank you to the whole P & F Committee, in particular Jenny Jones for coordinating so many events during the challenges of Covid. You can read more from Jenny below.

Another thank you to Victoria Jones Nguyen and the members of the School Advisory Council: Fr Siby; Christina Cardillo; Brendan Fitzpatrick ; Maggie Pereira ; Patrick Muscat who have all provided feedback, advice and support about our school via our many Zoom meetings. As mentioned in last week's newsletter, we have a vacancy for one parent to join the council for 2022. Please email myself, Jenny Hawkins principal@spmurrumbeena.catholic.edu.au and/or Fr Siby frsibyjohn@gmail.com if you are interested in joining the SAC. We meet 6 times a year at 7pm. You are also welcome to contact our Chairperson Victoria Jones - Nguyen for any further information victoria.jones-nguyen@hotmail.com

Kindergarten News

We are looking forward to our new partnership with GEKA Murrumbeena Kindergarten.  We supported GEKA with a grant application during the year. We are THRILLED to announce that GEKA have received news from DET that they have been successful with the grant application to the value of $400,000, for the establishment of the GEKA Murrumbeena Kindergarten at the St Patrick’s Primary School! Work on the new kindergarten onsite commences in June 2022.

Children intending to enrol at St Patrick's for 2023 and beyond will be able to be part of the new and exciting transition plans to ensure the smoothest of pathways to primary school for children and families

Parents & Friends Notice

 

School Concert BBQ – thank you for your support

On Wednesday afternoon we cooked 600 sausages to feed the masses at the School concert. A huge thank you to Ha Nguyen, Damian Jones, Victoria Jones-Nguyen, Jo Caiafa & Kim Johnston for helping the P&F Committee undertake this massive task, and to the school community for you patience when we ran out of cooked sausages. Our BBQ was working as hard and as fast as it could after a 2 year hiatus.

 

Thank you to the Committee & supporters

In 2021 the P&F Committee have worked behind the scenes to support the school and school community. In another year of snap lockdowns, uncertainty and extended home-schooling the committee, with support of the school & class reps have organised the following:

• Pre-Owned Uniform shop
• PatCare
• Pink List
• Pizza Nights
• Easter Raffle
• Mothers & special friends succulent gifts
• Fathers & special friends frame gifts
• Online Trivia Night
• Disposable Masks Sales
• Mango Fundraiser
• School Concert BBQ

 

All our fundraising efforts this year are going toward the Michelle Barclay memorial running track to be installed at the school. We hope that 2022 allows more social functions to be added to the calendar and look forward to your continued support.

 

A huge thank you to the following members of the 2021 Committee for all of their work:

• Cathy Byrne (Secretary)
• Nadine Power (Treasurer)
• Sarah Luck  & Melinda Vella (PatCare)
• Christie Alexander (Pink List)
• Kellie Heathcote, Sandra Iorlano, Anna Martin (Pre-Owned Uniforms)
• Caterina Slade, Kirsten Tranter, Diana Khamu, Anita Gavolec, Sue Rana (Amazing support team / general committee members)

 

And we welcome new Committee members in 2022:

• Razia Mohamad (Co-President)
• Vanessa Jirjees (Treasurer)
• Tiffany Torcasio (general committee member)

 

Thank you also to all our generous families who have supported the committee and the school through generous donations and by supporting our activities.

 

Jenny Jones

 

IMPORTANT NOTE St Patrick's Calendar of Events - You can access all dates including 2022 dates on the calendar tab at the top of the Shamrock homepage at this link

Term 4 2021 

         Year 6 Graduation                                         Dec 14 6:30pm

End of term                                                   Dec 15 at 1pm

                                           

 Term 1 2022

      Thursday 27th and Friday 28th January    Staff Days        

     Monday 31st January                                   Day 1 for all children