CONFIRMATION EXCITEMENT

Our children making Confirmation next week are very excited about completing their final Sacrament of Initiation.

On behalf of our community I would like to thank the Year 3 teachers, the leadership team, families and staff for your support of our little people.

I would like to extend a particular thank you to Peta Rourke our Parish Coordinator, Father Paul, Father Peter and Father Roland for their roles in preparing and celebrating this special Sacrament (see article under Mission).

OLD TO NEW - UNIFORMS

UPLOAD OLD THREADS

We want your non wearable school uniforms.

St Peter’s Year 6 Environmental Leaders would like to share with St Peter’s community their new environmental initiative in conjunction with ‘Worn Up,’  recycling non-wearable school uniforms. ‘Worn Up’ aims to reduce textiles in landfills by recycling unwanted and old school uniforms. ‘Worn Up’ can make a school desk from a school dress or acoustic tiles from scraps of school uniform.

Did you know that? 

• 95% of all textile waste in landfill is recyclable. 
• 10% of all global CO2 production comes from textile production, a cotton t-shirt uses 2,700 litres of water to produce. 

By UPCYCLING non-wearable uniform waste, we reduce landfill, save water, and make new Australian-made products.

St Peter’s now has a ‘Worn Up’  pod situated at the canteen. 

What do you need to do?

• Bring in non-wearable school uniforms and place them in the pod. 
• No plastic bags, or other clothes. 

We look forward to making a difference.

Thank you for supporting our project.

Year 6 Environmental Leaders

SHARE GOOD CONDITIONED USED CURRENT UNIFORMS

Our uniform pool will still require good used uniform items

With the planned change over next year of school uniform, there will be a transition time allowing families to financially manage the change without too much impact.

For families who would like to access continued use of recycled uniforms, our (current style) uniform pool will need to kept well resourced (as there won’t be any recycled new style uniforms for sometime).

NEW UNIFORMS FOR 2022

As most families will be aware, a revision of our Parish school uniforms has been conducted over the last two years.

As you can probably imagine, the uniform committee has had a particularly difficult task coordinating so many different perceptions, alternatives and an ongoing disruption through the pandemic. 

On your behalf, I would like to thank the committee for their persistence and sensitivity to wide consultation and inclusion of student final review.

This term, you will receive a letter outlining what has come from the review, with the projection that we are on track for the new uniform to begin in January 2022. 

We will provide illustrations of samples to give families a better idea of how the new uniform will look.

Thank you for your patience and understanding of the protracted process and the need to take the time to do this job well.

MRS RAMM MOVES ALONG CAREER PATH

Mrs Stephanie Ramm, our Student Support Worker (2 days) has accepted an internship with ORS (a company providing psychologists in support of NDIS and Behaviour Support Plans).

We are very happy that Stephanie has found a place in the profession she has studied very hard to embrace.

Unfortunately, often a win somewhere incurs a loss elsewhere and we will miss Stephanie’s warm and encompassing manner with staff and children and her expertise in managing and nurturing some of our little people who have been in particular need over the last 18 months.

HEADLINES AND ANTHEMS - DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!

Macy Kirkpatrick from Year 1 Green has completed ‘the tag’ for our dance performance to be presented at the end of this term.

When the students voted between 5 final selections, hardly a hand went up (after all options were read first), until Macy’s ‘title finisher’ was read out. A sea of hands were enthusiastically raised to endorse - DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!

And Dance, Dance, Dance it is – students are very busily engaged in their routines and so many children have dedicated lunchtimes to rehearse their performances for the Dance Eisteddfod, planned in the same week as our School Dance performance.

MISSION

Vinnies #Family Winter Sleepout @ Home

Vinnies is inviting all families to be advocates for the Homeless this winter, hoping to raise funds and awareness about homelessness and disadvantage in our community. Please join us tonight, in your very own home and:

• Make a card, write a message and attach it to a muesli bar/biscuit snack to be donated back at school, to be taken and shared on the streets by the Vinnies Night Patrol Van.
• Make soup together to drink to stay warm when out on your own sleep out/sit out. This is something that the Van usually distributes to those on the street.
• Sleep/Sit outside in the cold for a period of time, with only cardboard to sit on. During this time, discuss questions around how you are feeling, how the homeless must feel, as well as share some facts to raise awareness of Homelessness.
• Pray together as a family for those people in our community who have no secure, warm housing. 
• Send in photos of your experiences to school
• Donate what you can through this fundraising page:

St Peter’s #Family Sleepout@Home

All money will assist Vinnies in providing support for those in our community who need it the most.

Sacrament of Confirmation

Next week many of our St Peter’s students will be confirmed across four evening ceremonies at St Agnes’ Church. We were blessed to have a visit from Fr Roland today, who talked to the candidates and Year 3 about the sacramental journey, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and how being confirmed helps us to live like Jesus. We thank Fr Roland for taking time out of his busy day to help us prepare for next week!

Due to COVID, we are unable to present the children as a group at Sunday Mass, but will be showing photos of the candidates to the parishioners, who will offer their prayers. We ask you to keep these children and their families in your prayers as they take this next step in their sacramental journey!

Junior Ministry - faith and fun!

Junior Ministry Group has recommenced for Term 3 with a change of day and some new members! Every Monday at Lunch 1 we head over to the MacKillop Chapel where Jules and Ella (Youth Ministry Officers) facilitate opportunities for faith formation and fun! We are excited to finally have some boys join us and encourage anyone from Year 6 to come along and see if it might be something they would like to join. 

We were also lucky enough to have Conor Hudson, the Youth Ministry Officer from Newman College, join us at St Peter’s on Thursday and Friday this week. Conor spent Thursday working with different groups of children across the school, and spent today with Year 3, reflecting and preparing for next week’s Sacrament of Confirmation. We loved having Conor join us and look forward to many more opportunities to work with him next term!

LEARNING

Reading:

There are 2 skills involved in reading;

1. The ability to ‘lift the words off the page’ (decode)
2. The ability to comprehend

Being able to “lift the words off the page” requires children to understand the relationships between sounds and letters (the alphabetic code).

Being able to comprehend requires children to understand the meanings of words and how words work together.

The relationships between letters and sounds are taught in a sequential and systematic way, starting with easier skills and working up to more complex skills. Children are shown how to put sounds together (blend) to read words, and how to break words into sounds (segment) to assist with spelling words. (This addresses the first skill of decoding). 

Quality literature is used for rich vocabulary instruction, and to develop children’s language and comprehension skills. These storybooks are also used as springboards for creative and writing activities. (This addresses the second skill of language comprehension).

Like any skill that we learn (playing soccer, learning a musical instrument), practice makes perfect! Reading and writing are very complex skills, and it will take several years for children to develop into proficient readers and writers.

Building Vocabulary and Comprehension                            Decoding

Geoff Leary  Principal

Karen Robson Assistant Principal Learning

Rebecca Cameron Assistant Principal Mission

The Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment would like to advise all parents and guardians that it collects certain information about your child's school, its staff and student body.

Please click on the link below for more information:

2021 Commonwealth School Data Collection Notice

Winter Warmers Day

In keeping with our PBS value, ‘Being Like Jesus’, we are raising money for ‘The Good Box Appeal.’ This is a wonderful initiative, which helps those living in tough conditions on the streets in Australia. During the assembly on Friday, a clip about the initiative was shared with the students.

You can access this here. The Good Box

On Friday 6 August all students are invited to wear Winter Warmers with their school uniform for the day. This includes warm jumpers, beanies, gloves and scarves. To participate, the students are asked to donate a gold coin. We look forward to seeing all of the children rugged up next Friday for this great cause.

Kyrah Dal Santo and Briody Tarbox

TNT'S Until further notice, all TNT's will be UNAVAILABLE Sorry for the inconvenience

Click on the image below to order online with

Pete's Eats Open for Lunch 1 and Lunch 2

Warm Milos

50 cents

LUNCH 1 ONLY 

TO REGISTER ...

 Confirmation Gifts

The St Agnes’ Uniform store, located next to St Agnes’ Primary School in Boronia Street is fully stocked with Confirmation gifts.

Opening hours are Monday to Friday 12 noon to 5.00pm and on a Saturday 9.00am to 12 noon.

If you would like to contact them please phone  6584 1076.

A reminder to parents and carers to advise the school office of any changes to contact details such as mobile numbers, addresses and emails.  It is particularly important at this time, as the majority of school notes and correspondences are distributed to families via a text (SMS) message and / or email.  

To update your information -

• contact the school office on 6584 1962  OR 
• complete the change of details form located on our school App - Szapp. 

Installing SZapp on your devices

A reminder to families and visitors -

Due to current COVID-19 requirements and restrictions,  everyone who enters the the school office, for any reason, - eg picking up your child early, dropping off items etc will be required to sign via the QR NSW Health app.  

If you are visiting the school, which requires entry to our school grounds eg Canteen volunteers, you are required to sign in via the NSW Health App PLUS the Who's on Location (WOL) QR code.  WOL is required for child protection purposes.