Newsletter Term 3, Week 2, 2023

Principal's Update

Dear Parents and Carers, 

Welcome to Term 3!  We are currently at the end of Week 2 and we have had many wonderful events already including: 

• The start of our Kindergarten 2024 “Storytime” every week on alternate Tuesdays (odd weeks) and Thursdays (even weeks) from 8.45-9.30am.  This is an amazing opportunity for children and parents to come together during the story, interact with play and a little treat!  You are very welcome to attend! 
• All children are preparing for our whole school public speaking competition held on 3rd August.  Two Year 6 children will be selected from their grade competition to represent St Brendan’s at the Cluster public speaking competition on 28th August held at Toukley. 
• Our Mini Vinnies have visited the Aged Care facility at Caves Beach and I’m sure added much pleasure to the lives they touched that day.  I know the aged care residents touched the lives of our Mini Vinnies. 

• 100 days of Kindergarten was celebrated by a dress up, even some staff got into the fun! 
• The beautiful celebration of our Grandparents was also held on Wednesday.  We invited our grandparents and their grandchildren to share breakfast (croissants and pikelets), then had the opportunity to visit the classrooms and ended with a wonderful Grandparents mass.  Quoting Father Tomy “our grandparents have a little grey in their hair and they also have GOLD in their hearts”.  Thank you all for coming and making our day wonderful! 

We have booked Life Education Healthy Harold Van to come to St Brendan’s this term.  The following link will provide you with the programs offered.   

https://lifeed.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1122-primary-module-flyer.pdf 

Our grades are booked in for the following units. 

Kindergarten - Harold's Friend ship 

Year 1 - Ready Steady Go 

Year 2 - Growing Good Friends 

Year 3 - Friends and Feelings 

Year 4 - Friends and Feelings 

Year 5 - Decisions 

Year 6 - Relate Respect Connect 

Dates will be: 

24th August – Year 4Red, Year 4Blue, Kinder Blue 

25th August – Year 6Blue, Year 5Red 

30th August – Year 6Green, Year 5Green, Kinder Red 

31st August – Year 3Green, Year 3Blue, Kinder Green 

1st September – Kinder Yellow/HIVE, Year 1 Green 

6th September – Year 2 Red, Year 3 Red, Year 1 Red 

7th September – Year 5 Blue, Year 2Blue, Year 1Blue 

8th September – Year 2Green, Year 6Red 

All infants sessions are 1 hour and all primary sessions are 1.5hours. 

We welcome the following students to our SBLM community.  We hope you have already made many friends and settled in and your families too: 

Leo – Kinder 

Theo – Year 2 

Mason – Year 1 

Isabella – Year 4 

 Well done to our Year 3 and Year 5 children who now have their NAPLAN results returned to them.  These results will also equip our staff and assessment/curriculum team to analyse them and allow us to indicate areas of learning needs and also areas of high achievement and how we can aid in the learning growth of all students. 

Congratulations to many of our staff who are expecting their new borns in the coming months.  We are very much looking forward to meeting your new family members.  Therefore we do have some maternity leaves coming up: 

Gemma Murphy (School Marketing Officer) – We welcome Ms Victoria Price to look after our school marketing in Gemma’s absence. 

Maggie O’Brien (Year 5 Blue teacher – We welcome Mrs Gainsford and Mrs Wallace, however Mrs O’Brien’s last day will be Friday Week 7. 

Lily Anderson (Kindergarten Green) – advertised and currently shortlisting ready for interviews. Mrs Anderson’s last day will be Friday Week 9. 

Tierney DesBrulais (learning support teacher) – this position will be advertised asap. 

We also welcome back Mrs Maddie Martin from her maternity leave and looking forward to the return of Mrs Jaimie Wallace and Mrs Laura Lewis in Term 4 from their maternity leave. 

Our staff are participating in a spirituality day on Monday, 9th October (Term 4 Week 1, Day 1).  This will be a Pupil Free day! 

We are sending out an invite to a whole school Disco!  The disco will be at The Halekulani club on Thursday 17th August.  We have booked a room and a DJ for the evening.  The infants disco will be from 5-6pm and primary disco from 6.10pm-7.30pm.  The cost will be $4 per child, $6 per family (more than one child) – please pay on compass!  Thank you for those parents who have offered to help with the evening.  Some of the proceeds will be going toward the Year 6 farewell.  Parents are expected to stay within the club for supervision of their children, perhaps purchase meals from the club and make it a social evening for you also! Please do not drop your children off and leave unsupervised. We look forward to your support. 

My last Compass entry indicated our draft end of year dates for your diary!  I will let you know if any changes are needed to be made. 

I would like to welcome William Spek and Lucas Gainsford, our new Aboriginal Learning Support Assistants.  They will be at St Brendan’s every Thursday and Friday working with children who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and will be supporting our whole school.  You are invited to read their introductions.

William Spek

Hi all,

My name is William Spek, I am a proud Biripi man. 

I would like to first acknowledge all First Nations people of this land and pay my respects to the Darkinjung people whose land our school sits upon.

I am thrilled to be joining St Brendan's as one of the new Aboriginal Learning Support Assistants, alongside Lucas Gainsford. I am very excited for this opportunity to support the growth and learning of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. I have always had a passion for supporting others in their growth and learning and am honoured to be able to implement this support here at St Brendan’s. I will be at the school Thursdays and Fridays and will be assisting the children with their day-to-day schooling, as well as doing cultural lessons and activities in the afternoon. I sincerely look forward to working with the staff, students, and parents here at St Brendan’s.

My name is Lucas Gainsford and I am a proud Wiradjuri man. I am thrilled to be in the position of Aboriginal Learning Support Assistant where I can use my passion and dedication to support the students of St Brendan’s.

I am committed to fostering an inclusive and culturally responsive learning environment. 

The role of Will and I will play a vital part in ensuring all students feel valued and empowered to thrive academically and personally, and I am extremely excited to be a part of that. 

Athletes Foot Promotion

If you are planning to purchase any shoes from the Athletes Foot shops.  If you mention St Brendan’s Lake Munmorah when buying shoes, $5 from each pair is donated to the school.  We normally put this toward any sport equipment we need.

We have ordered 2 sets of soccer goals for the children to play with on our ovals at lunch times.  I am hoping they arrive onsite very soon!

Lunch Buddies

Our SRC children suggested they become “Lunch Buddies” during our break times to support any children needing a friendly helping hand, comforting or joining in games.  They also wanted to be part of the SBLM pattern with their own hi-viz vests!

Late Arrivals

If your child arrives to school after the bell/morning assembly please walk your child into the office to complete a late slip.  Our first bell rings at 8.20am.  We have a very short whole school morning assembly on the silver seats and head to our classrooms where the class roll is completed.  If your child is not there for the class roll call, your child will be marked absent.  If your child comes late without a late slip, your child will be absent on our digital roll for the whole day unless a late slip is completed.

Sports Corner!

Allyssa (Year 4) competed at the country championships for acro in Armidale in the school holidays. She is in a trio with her cousin and team mate at United Gymnastics Academy. Allyssa performs skills which include strength and flexibility. Allyssa’s trio received a silver banding for both routines and received a second over all country champs.
Allyssa is in comp season now and will be competing in a number of competition and will be heading to Queensland in September to compete in Nationals in her performance group.
The girls train hard every week totally 6 hours a week in the gym.

Two students in year 5 represented Central Coast Junior Rugby Union at the State Championships recently. CCJRU took away two under 11s teams to the state championship hosted by two blues in Granville on the 15th & 16th July and Both Blake C and Jett O'M made those teams!
It was a massive weekend playing 5 games each and both boys played their hardest and displayed beautiful sportsmanship values over the weekend.
We are so proud of the continued growth in the sport of these two boys and excited to see where they go in this sport for years to come.

Ella is competing in the World Hip Hop Championships in Phoenix, Arizona USA with her teams Kit Kat & Wolfpack JV Megarcrew from 2Swagg Studios. This is the biggest hip hop competition in the world and they will be representing Australia against 55 other countries in the Junior Division.

Upcoming events:

6pm Tuesday 1^st August – PAG (Parent Advisory Group) meeting – all welcome.  We gather in the Year 5 collaborative space.

Storytime continues (as above).

Public Speaking K-6 finals – 3^rd August

Good luck to our representatives attending the CCC Athletics Carnival at Mingara on Friday, 4^th August.

ICAS assessments coming up – week 4: Digital Technology and Writing

Rugby League gala day at Blue Haven Oval – thank you Mr Banks for organising this and training with the children in your lunch breaks.

Stage 2/3 NSW netball gala day at Adcock Park – Friday, 11^th August.

God Bless,

Charlene Reid

Principal

PAG Meeting

Reminder! We have our Term 3 PAG meeting coming up on Tuesday 1st of August at 6pm. Please join leadership and parents in the Year 5 shared space to discuss upcoming topics. If you have any agenda items please send them in via email (charlene.reid1@dbb.catholic.edu.au)

Collaborative Coaching

St Brendan’s commenced a new initiative at the beginning of this year, Collaborative Coaching.   Collaborative Coaching is an ongoing process in which teachers work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action to enhance student achievement.

What does this mean?

Every week, the teachers in each grade meet with the Assistant Principal to analyse data and plan next step teaching.  Based on the pre-assessment data, teachers work to plan learning experiences to help students develop skills and knowledge based on different areas of the curriculum.  At the end of the planned learning, we compare pre-assessment and post-assessment data to celebrate student growth.  All the learning that occurs in the classroom for each of these cycles caters for the needs of all students.

Numeracy is our focus Key Learning Area in 2023 and our goal is to improve student achievement in multiplicative thinking (multiplication and division).

What is multiplicative thinking?

Multiplicative strategies encompass a student’s ability to manipulate numbers in multiplicative situations. Students need to be able to understand the relationship between division and multiplication and develop the ability to flexibly use these as inverse operations when solving problems.

(education.nsw.gov.au)

We are extremely excited about the progress being made across the school so far and have included information for you below.

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Given our focus on improving multiplicative thinking, we would like to share with you some learning activities you can engage your child/children with at home:

Learning Activities

Kindergarten

Sharing 12 

Give student a collection of 12 items, such as coins, counters, or dried pasta. Then challenge them to find as many ways as possible to divide them into equal groups. Encourage students to make arrays (an arrangement of ordered lines/columns) to help them organise their collection. Have students write number sentences to represent their groups (e.g., 3 groups of 4 makes 12). Use higher numbers to challenge students. 

On the Farm 

Make up a story about farm animals and the number of legs that they have. For example, “There are 16 legs in the chicken coop. How many chickens are there?” Have students figure out the answer by using collections of small items. To extend learning, have your child write number sentences to show their answer. 

Year 1

 Half of a Collection 

Give student a collection of items such as coins, beans, fruit, dried pasta or toy cars. Then challenge them to find a half of the collection. 

Ask questions such as:  

 Can you share them so I get half and you get half? 

 Is it an equal share? How do you know? 

 Show me one half. How many are in one half? 

Year 2

Have a collection of pegs (or alike) to use. Talk to your child about what an array is (see image below) and with are the rows (across) and which are the columns (vertical). Then ask your child to ‘make me an array that is three columns and four rows’. Then ask them to ‘find how many altogether’. They may use skip counting or another means to do so. Encourage not counting by 1s. Vary the number of pegs in each row and column pending on the number range your child is comfortable working in.  

Year 3

Deal a Hand Of Spiral: Arrange a pack of cards in a spiral. The first card is the start position. Roll the Dice and move that many spaces forward, roll the dice and times the dice by the amount on the card you have landed on. If you are unable to answer the times table, then you go back to where you were. First to the end is the winner. (Keep the picture cards as 10) 

Year 4

Related Fact Family: Encourages students to understand there are a number of ways related facts can be used to solve division and multiplication problems and shows how flexibly students can think about solving problems.  

Students build their skills and knowledge of multiples to build multiplication and division facts. This can be done for the multiples of; 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.  

Year 5 

In Year Five we have been working on our instant recall of multiplication facts through different warm up and games. Being able to recall these facts quickly, allows us to solve more complex multiplication and division problems with greater efficiency. Below is an example of one of the games we will be using to help us with this skill: 

“Tetris” 

For this game you need: 

• Grided paper
• Playing cards

In pairs, students take turns at flipping two cards over at a time. They then use these numbers to draw a rectangle or square on their grided paper, writing the multiplication number sentence inside the shape they have drawn. Students must consider which number will determine the width and which number will determine the length as their goal is to be the first to get to the bottom of the page. 

Year 6 

In Year 6 over the last two terms, there has been a focus on multiplication facts. Students have been implementing and practising a variety of new and familiar strategies to solve multiplication problems. The majority of students seemed to prefer the ‘Area Model’ (shown below). To be able to use this strategy and others effectively, students must have an accurate recall of multiplication facts. One of the ways we have been assisting students to develop their recall is through remixes of popular songs as a fun way to engage the students. These are examples of some we used, many more can be found online. 

• 6x (Shake it off – Taylor Swift): 6 Times Table Song (Cover of Shake It Off by Taylor Swift!) - YouTube
• 7x (Bad Habits – Ed Sheeran): 7 Times Table Song (Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran) Laugh Along and Learn - YouTube
• 8x (Rolling in the Deep – Adele): 8 Times Table Song (Cover of Rolling In The Deep by Adele) - YouTube

Lucas Proudfoot Performance

On Wednesday, 26 July 2023 we had Lucas Proudfoot, an Indigenous Performer join us for a whole school performance.  The children were captivated by his use of music and story-telling.  The hall was abuzz with students laughing, dancing and clapping along.  Lucas shared with us stories of his family and childhood experiences. He used these stories to demonstrate how his children were the inspiration for the characters within his books. 

Religious Education

School Updates

SBLM DISCO - RSVP link coming soon

SBLM FOCUS

SBLM focus Week 1 and 2 was "Be in the right place at the right time"

Week 3 and 4 is "Use kind words and actions"

KISS AND DROP SIGNS

To make the process of Kiss and Drop as efficient as possible, it is helpful for a sign to be mounted to the back of the passenger sun-visor so we can identify who belongs in each vehicle.  These are distributed every year with our new Kindergarten families.  If you require a sign for your car, please complete the form below and we will send them home shortly.

https://forms.office.com/r/jcUJzsiqbW

Awards

Week 1

Week 2

Dojos

Community News

The Athlete's Foot promotion

Did you know that if you mention St Brendan’s Lake Munmorah when buying shoes from The Athlete's Foot, $5 from each pair is donated to the school! We use these funds to purchase sporting equipment for the school. 

Crash lab reveals importance of installing car seats correctly 

They're our most precious and most vulnerable cargo and if our children aren't strapped into their car seats correctly, their lives are at serious risk. Car accidents are the leading cause of death for kids aged 1-14, prompting experts to use the lead up to Road Safety Week to remind parents to get car seats checked. 

It can be a complicated and stressful task for new parents, so it is recommended they get their installation checked by a trained eye at every milestone. 

"Installing a correctly fitted restraint for the right age and size of the child is one of the most important things that you can do," Transurban's head of road safety Liz Waller said. There are two systems parents can choose from, ISOFIX or using a standard seatbelt. Both have been tested in the Neuroscience Research Australia's (NeuRA) Transurban Road Safety Centre's crash lab. https://www.neura.edu.au/research-centre/transurban-road-safety-centre/ Research engineer Bianca Albanese said: "what we found is that if a restraint is installed correctly, there was no difference in the protection provided to the child". 

Ninety-eight per cent of Australian children are in a car seat that is right for their size, but new research reveals that more than half of restraints either aren't being installed or used properly. The most common mistakes are loose or twisted seat belts, and securing the seat through the wrong connection. 

Fixing these issues reduces your little one's risk by up to 70 per cent. Even once you've had your child's seat checked by a professional, you should still check it prior to every trip. 

Which car restraint is best for my child? https://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/fact_sheets/Safety_Child_car_seats/ 

“5 Step Test” https://kidsafe.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Restraint-guidelines-brochure.pd

Reporting local issues just got easier 

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We’ve made reporting quick and easy which means when you see an issue while you’re out, you can let the responsible authority know with only a few taps. Become a community legend and download Snap Send Solve today. 

Simply download the app from the App store or google play store https://www.snapsendsolve.com/

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Compass Calendar