Newsletter Term 4, 2023. Week 6.

Principal's Update

Dear Parents and Carers, 

Welcome to Week 6.   

Congratulations to our 2024 School captains and Vice Captains!  I would also like to congratulate all of our nominees who presented their captains’ speech this week.  I was also very proud of each and every nominee for congratulating those children who were elected as our Captains and Vice Captains and for the support and kindness shared by our newly elected captains toward the nominees who were not voted in.   

School Captains for 2024 are Charlotte McMillan and Nate Pafumi. 

Vice Captains for 2024 are Leah Burrows and Leo White. 

Further notifications of our student leadership team members for 2024 will be announced shortly including Sports Captains, Environmental, Wellbeing, Mission and Learning leaders. 

End of Year Awards

This year we are presenting awards not only for Year 6 children but also for children in years K-5 at our End of Year Awards on Friday, 8th December.  You will be made aware if your child is receiving an award and would like for you to keep it a surprise for them until they are announced.  Before the awards, we will be celebrating our Thanksgiving whole school mass at 9am.   The awards will be at 10.30 after the mass with an early recess break in between. 

The End of Year Awards will include: 

One Academic Award per class based on academic excellence and displaying outstanding effort or has resulted in pleasing results in more than one particular key learning area. 

One Citizenship Award per grade based on our SBLM citizen based expectations including: 

• Are courteous and co-operative 
• Do follow classroom and school expectations 
• Are reliable and responsible 
• Show respect and concern for others 
• Try their best 
• Have a positive attitude toward school. 

One Creative Arts Award per grade for excellence in the area of creative arts during lessons. 

One Mary MacKillop Award per class based on: 

• SBLM expectations 

• Values of Mary MacKillop (when you see a need, you act on it) 
• Displays outstanding effort or has resulted in pleasing results in more than one particular key learning area. 

One Sport Award per stage based on: 

• Skills 
• Participation 
• Encouraging attitude 
• Demonstrates excellent sportspersonship at school events and in the playground 

At our Year 6 Farewell dinner on 5th December at The Doylo Year 6 will be presented many awards sponsored by various local businesses and establishments.  These will be published in our Week 10 newsletter. 

Parent Advisory Group (PAG)

Earlier this term we had our Parent Advisory Group (PAG) meeting at 6pm.  At this meeting all roles were declared vacant, however, we are waiting until our first PAG in 2024 to fill these roles.  I would like to thank our regular parents who attend and whose children are graduating Year 6 at the end of this school year, therefore won’t be involved in our PAG meetings in the future.  Thank you for your commitment and passion for St Brendan’s.   

I would like to encourage all parents to attend these meetings once a term.  At our last meeting, we discussed the vision for PAG meetings and that the purpose should always be child-centered (learning or well-being). 

The future vision for PAG: 

• Encourage more people to get involved 
• Fundraising/event groups to build community.  Term by term e.g. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Grandparents Day 
• Chairperson may be more of a coordinator 
• Invite class parents to the PAG 
• No PAG bank account 
• Informal 
• Not to raise issues during a PAG, Mrs Reid has an open communication procedure where these issues can be raised 
• Encourage parent engagement 

 PAG roles may include a coordinator and a Catholic Schools representative.  

To encourage more involvement do we need to have two meetings at different times to capture those parents who can’t attend at 6pm due to other commitments?  Do we have another meeting with the same agenda at 8.30am (same day, same agenda)? 

PAG NORMS (suggestions): 

• Welcome everyone – introduction 
• Respect each other’s opinions/differences 
• Listen 
• Focus on the children 
• Stick to the agenda – send out the agenda beforehand 
• Speak with kind words 
• Commit to action 

Semester Two Reports

Your child’s Semester Two Reports will be published on Compass on Friday, 1st December.  Your child’s teacher will be available for parent-teacher interviews in Week 10 if you would like to discuss the progress of your child and goals heading into 2024. 

Citizenship Award Recipients

Congratulations to our Citizenship Award recipients, Keeley and Tyson.  On Wednesday night Keeley, Tyson, their families, myself, Mrs Fletcher, Mrs Beveridge and Mr Murphy shared a meal together at The Doylo.  We listened to guest speakers and watched Keeley and Tyson receive their awards.  The guest speaker on the Night was Heather Garriock who played 130 soccer games for the Matildas (Australia) and played her first game for Australia at the age of 16. She has played and coached in Australia as well as overseas.  It was a great honour for her to give up her time to be there on the night. 

Problem-solving fun

This term Ms Bevan, with the assistance of some impressive year 6 students (Savannah H, Nevaeh B, Mackenzie C, Lola M, and Beau S), has been facilitating fun activities that provide students with hands-on learning opportunities to explore their problem-solving and teamwork skills.  In each session the team is given a scenario, an obstacle, minimal equipment, and a goal. First attempts are usually made independently, and fail, which is where the learning begins.  With prompting and guidance, the students recognise how important teamwork is to achieve their goal, they embrace that it’s okay to make mistakes, and how changing our mindset can lead to success. 

Thank you to our school community for supporting Rain’s fundraiser to help her get to the National Championships in Athletics.  You raised just over $400 to pay for her uniform ($427). 

Eileen O’Connor School classes. 

This year we had the pleasure of our Kinder Yellow children staffed by Mr Jesse Schasser and Ms Lisa Lear.  Next year Eileen O’Connor School will expand to include our HIVE and HUB children and their teachers will be Ms Elly Dwyer and Mrs Tannae Mills plus the support of Mrs Toni Thian and Mrs Rebecca Dickinson.  Further information will be provided from Eileen O’Connor School Executives. 

Step Up Day

Please note the change of date for our “Step Up Day”.  This was originally scheduled for 12 December but has been rescheduled to 28 November 2023.  The earlier date will allow students and teachers to meet each other and begin to build relationships for 2024.  On Step Up Day students spend an hour in their new classroom with their new teacher, getting to know each other.  In the afternoon, your child will bring home a bookmark with their teacher’s name and photograph!  This is an exciting transition leading into 2024 and we look forward to working with you during this journey. 

KIndergarten Transition Days

Our Kindergarten transition days have concluded this week.  These photos show our lovely Year 4 children participating in the Kindergarten 2024 liturgy and a day our very excited children to meet their buddies and start to build relationships.  Today we had a very soggy Teddy Bear’s Picnic, lucky we have the hall as backup. 

New Fencing

We are having new boundary fencing installed near our oval and access road.  We also have a scope for new fencing and gates to be installed at the front of our school.  This will allow all parents and carers to park in the carpark if need be rather than near the Early Learning Centre.  Sorry for any inconvenience, however, these fences will be erected as an additional safety measure for all children at St Brendan’s, the Eileen O’Connor School and Early Learning Centre.  

Sport Update

Allyssa competed at the country championships for acro in Armidale in the school holidays. She is in a trio with her cousin and teammate at United Gymnastics Academy. Allyssa performs skills that include strength and flexibility. Allyssa’s trio received a silver banding for both routines and received a second overall at the country champs.  

Allyssa is in comp season now and will be competing in a number of competitions and will be heading to Queensland in September to compete in Nationals in her performance group.  

The girls train hard every week totalling 6 hours a week in the gym. 

Important Dates

Family Parish Mass – Saturday (tomorrow) starting at 4pm.  Mass at 5pm. 

Ready Set Go – back again Tuesday, 21st November 

Last Awards assembly on Friday, 24th November 

Big Beach Week/wellbeing week – week 8 (more information on the way) 

Step Up day – Tuesday, 28th November 

Just Like You, Variety Club – Tuesday, 28th November 

Carols – from 3pm food trucks, carols start 5pm 29th November 

Children University graduation – Wednesday, 30th November (Ourimbah campas) 

Reports sent home on Compass – Friday, 1st December 

Last Assembly with Spirit of St Brendan’s Award – Friday, 1st December 

Year 6 farewell mass – Monday, 4th December 5.15pm (please wear full school uniform) 

Year 6 farewell dinner and presentation – Tuesday, 5th December 6pm start, arrive 5.30pm 

Year 6 Beach fun day – Thursday, 7th December 

Thanksgiving mass – Friday, 8th December 9am & End of Year Awards 10.30am. 

Last Day term 4 – Friday, 15th December and year 6 Clap out. 

God Bless, 

Charlene Reid 

Principal 

CSBB Parent Retreat

One of our parents attended the CSBB Parent Retreat last week and expressed how fulfilling the experience was. We often get the opportunity to invite parents to attend these events and as you will read below, they are truly worthwhile.

Religious Education

School Updates

St Brendan's Christmas Carols are fast approaching.  Be sure to save the date and come along to support our local businesses before the concert.

If you are interested in having a stall then please fill out the form below and we will be in touch

Getting Started with Social Media esafety webinar

To register your interest in doing 'just one thing' at St Brendan's, follow the attached link

Awards

SBLM FOCUS

Our SBLM focus for Weeks 7 and 8 will be "Show determination and perseverance"..

Merit Awards

Week 5 Awards

Week 6 Awards

Dojo Awards

Community News

Christmas Eve Mass and Nativity

Join our school and parish community to celebrate Mass on Christmas Eve, Sunday 24^th December at 5p5 pm at St Brendan’s Church. If your child/children would like to be involved in the Children’s Nativity please register your interest by scanning the QR code.  Or click here 

The Smith Family Saver Plus Program

The Smith Family Saver Plus program supports eligible parents with $500 matched savings and free financial education. The matched funds can be used for education expenses including laptop, school uniforms and other education items.

Saver Plus is funded by the Department of Social Services and is the Australian longest financial education program for community, having more than 50,000 participants since 2003. RMIT University has conducted evaluation showing Saver Plus is effective to help people develop medium-long term saving habits.

Parents with children at school OR starting school next year would meet one of the program eligibility criteria. This would reduce pressure on parents as they learn the tools to sustain their finances and be better prepared for future school costs.

 More information can be found in the program flyer and the link -  https://www.thesmithfamily.com.au/programs/financial/saver-plus

 Enquire now to see if you are eligible by using this link https://www.bsl.org.au/services/saving-and-managing-money/saver-plus/saver-plus-enquiry-form/

Outdoor Movie Night

Central Newcastle Rugby League Club invite you to a community event held at  St John Oval, Charlestown, on Saturday 9^th December.  See the flyer below for more information.

Did you Know….

Every Thursday is an opportunity to grab a bargain! You can pick up a bag of essential groceries for $10 and the option for bread, fruit & veg & frozen items for reduced sale as well!

Most of these items are either surplus or close to use by date, but if they don’t get eaten, they will be thrown in the garbage… what a waste!

The local locations are:

Food Bank: Colongra Bay Hall, Colongra Bay Road, Lake Munmorah: 10.00am until sold out

Wyee Community Hub: 20 Gorokan Road, Wyee (the road that goes under the railway line at Wyee train station)

10.00 am-1.00 pm; free BBQ lunch, bring your own bags, open-air markets with loads of discounted items for sale. The food hampers with Wyee Community Hub are ‘$10 for around 30-40kg of groceries, fruit & veg, bread, juice & (UHT) milk’ – items in the hamper are dependent upon stock available. When I visited the Wyee Community Hub, I got there at 12.00pm and for $10, I walked away with shopping bags of groceries & a bag of vegies (which included a whole pumpkin & head of cauliflower: pumpkin soup for dinner that night!).

Both locations accept cash only, so raid that money box, it will be worth it!

If you can’t make a Thursday, you can always try:

Toukley Neighbourhood Centre: 199 Main Road, Toukley

Tuesday, Thursday & Fridays from 9am-3pm and Saturdays 9.30am-1.00pm. Stretch your grocery budget further with cheap groceries.

If you know of a family member, school family or friend who would benefit from information or a helping hand, please leave a message for me at the school. I can provide you with local resources and services that may be of assistance. If I don’t know, I can’t help!!

Take Care… Nicole Anderson

Parent Engagement Coordinator (PEC)

Every Monday & alternate Tuesday’s

Circle of Security

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Support Group

Compass Calendar