Term 2 Week 1 (3/5/2024)
- What is On?
- Dear Parents and Carers
- A huge thank you -canteen benches
- Mother's Day Breakfast
- Mother's Month of May Raffle
- Sport News
- Child Safe Standards, Standard 8 - Primary School Green Zones
- Electronic Sign
- Leaders at work ... we all lead in different ways.
- Maclean Show
- Breakfast Club
- Community Conversation #7
- Sport Dates
What is On?
Wednesday 8th May - Close the Gap
Friday 10th May - Mother's Day Breakfast, 7am to 9am (Details Below)
Tuesday 21st May 2024- Dio Cross Country - Grafton
Thursday 23rd May 2024 - Netball Schools Cup - Maclean
Thursday 23rd May - DISCO (more details to come)
Thursday 30th May - Proclaim - Pupil Free Day
Wednesday 12th June 2024- Rugby Gala Day
Monday 17th June - Confirmation - St Mary’s Church, Maclean. 5:00pm
Friday 28th June - Athletics Carnival (Note New Date)
Thursday 4th July - Last Day Term 2 for students
Friday 5th July - Staff Development Day - Pupil Free Day
Dear Parents and Carers
Welcome back to Term 2.
We are back in the swing of ice packs and forgotten afternoon routines. ( Did not take long to be doing our normal!)
We assume you are back in the swing of lunch boxes, lost hats and detailed calendar reminders for pick ups and drop offs. The normals do not seem very different do they.
A big few things coming up...
Community Conversation #7
Mothers Day
School Disco
a few sports events (quite a few!)
and...
We have been asked to join in a diocese initiative to look at school attendance in a positive light. We will have a songwriter join us in a few weeks to lead the process. We are a bit excited (apparently I begged for us to be involved at a conference! Does that sound like me?)
We are looking to be involved in a positive response to all children being at school before the bell to start the learning. This is so important and you may have seen the 4 Corners report this week?
So, a song written by our children, sung by our school and shared around the diocese. Sounds good to us!
Talk soon about the joy of being on staff at Saint James.
Ann
A huge thank you -canteen benches
We have a new look in our Canteen thanks to the MacInnes family. We have a great new canteen bench courtesy of their business Lifestyle Stone and through their advocacy a Tradelink (sink). It looks fabulous!
Thank you so much Luke and Cindy
Mother's Day Breakfast
Mother's Month of May Raffle
The Community Group have worked to develop a great Mother's Day Month of May Raffle. The prizes look very good indeed!
Here is the flyer, a QR code to share and the link to buy a ticket. All the details are on the flyer.
Link to buy
https://compasstix.com/e/1uzbqbj97r
Sport News
On Wednesday 1st May we had 37 students represent St James at the Zone Cross Country in Grafton. All students ran well, displayed great sportsmanship and enjoyed the day. A huge congratulations to Iyla who was awarded the 10 year girls Age Champion.
The following 9 students will be heading to the Diocesan Cross Country Championship on 21st May at McAuley Catholic College.
Congratulations- Sailor, Jake, Fionn, Luca, Jarrah, Sunny, Remi, Declan and Jackson.
Regards
Tash Hancock- Sports Coordinator
Child Safe Standards, Standard 8 - Primary School Green Zones
Saint James School has worked with staff to build a culture that all adults entering classrooms or other areas are signed in to ensure that we can meet our requirements unde the Child Safety standards. Our Green Zone is the big top area and the concrete area to the north of this.
To assist all and to avioid confusion, we will have a green line painted in the next couple of weeks which will show the designated area. Below is the guideline which we are responding to. This meets our system obligations.
A ‘Green Zone’ needs to be established in primary schools at afternoon pick up time as a measure to meet Standard 8 of the Child Safe Standards.
A Green Zone, is the area on school grounds that parents can come without signing in to wait to pick up their child/ren at the end of classes. Parents are not permitted to wander unsupervised around the school at the end of classes in the afternoon.
Child Safe Standard 8 - Physical and online environments minimise the opportunity for abuse to occur. Child-safe organisations review and adapt both physical and online environments to minimise the risks of abuse.
Electronic Sign
Over the weekend you will notice exclusion fencing going up near the hall. If you have been a parent here for some time you will know how long the "electronic sign installation" has been on our wish list (mine really). You may have heard me talk about changing the sign in the heat and the wet. Just imagine the sun beaming through the plastic on a 36 degree day or the rain dripping down from the sides in the wet. I may have called the sign all sorts of unflattering names and suggested I could go straight to heaven for changing it! Clearly not my favourite job! This is a nice thing to tick off the list.
The installers will be here within the next fortnight doing the work to install.
Leaders at work ... we all lead in different ways.
Thank you to our leaders who have represented Saint James over the holidays. Lola, Clarence and Heath all took time out of their holiday to meet our local member at a Leadership Conference in Grafton and as always represented with pride and poise. Thanks children.
The school captains also have also read the prologue at the Yamba ANZAC march and Jack read a prayer during the commemoration.
Our school was well represented at the Anzac march with staff and students offering our thanks to those who served by marching on the 25th April.
Well done all. We see your acts of service.
Maclean Show
Several art pieces from every classroom were entered into the 131st Agricultural and Industrial Show for display on the 17th April in Maclean. Congratulations to Sofia, Aria and Elsie for their award winning drawings!
Thank you Mrs Hollington for organising these entries.
Breakfast Club
With community support we are going to launch a Breakfast Club at school. School children can access toast, warm milo and cereal between 8:30am and 9:00am, starting with 3 days per week starting in week 3. No booking is required.
Why? The evidence is overwhelming that eating before school/learning has huge benefits and we have long wanted to bring forth this agenda. I have been reading about this in educational literature of late and today I googled the issue.
I got 430 000 000 results in .33 seconds
If your child eats a healthy breakfast, they can concentrate on playing, learning, remembering and solving problems, because they aren't distracted by feeling hungry. This means that a healthy breakfast can help your child perform better at school.
No one has to grab a bite and no one is excluded from grabbing a bite. All are welcome.
Community Conversation #7
https://forms.gle/m7mk1sGjfxbAWwwM9
This is the link for the Tuesday meeting in Stage 2 classroom. All are welcome to come along and join in voice and agency for our school.
Sport Dates
Tuesday 21st May 2024- Dio Cross Country - Grafton
Thursday 23rd May 2024 - Netball Schools Cup - Maclean
Wednesday 12th June 2024- Rugby Gala Day
Friday 28th June - Athletics Carnival (Note New Date)
Tuesday 30th July 2024 - Zone Athletics Carnival- Coffs Harbour
Friday 16th August 2024 - Dio Athletics Carnival