St James' Primary School Yamba eNewsletter

What is On?

Monday 26th August - S3 Basketball Gala Day

Thursday 29th August - S3 Girls AFL Competition

Friday 30th August- Father's Day Breakfast 7-9am (see flyer and link below)

Monday 2nd September - S2 Basketball Gala Day

Monday 2nd September– Friday 6th September - Stage 3 Camp Lake Ainsworth

Tuesday 3rd September - ES1 Class Mass- in hall, 10:15 – 11:00am

Wednesday 4th September -Reconciliation - school hall

Saturday 7th September - First Holy Communion, 5:30pm Mass at St James Church, Yamba

Tuesday 10th September - Public Speaking School Finals - in hall

Friday 13th September - Polding Athletics

Tuesday 17th September– Sydney University Centre For Creativity Visiting

Friday 20th September - Touch Football Gala Day S2 & S3

Monday 23rd September - Public Speaking Finals - Coffs Harbour

Tuesday 24th September - Pyjama Day (see flyer below)

Thursday 26th September - Awards Assembly

Thursday 26th September - Last day of Term 3 for students

Friday 27th September - Staff Development Day - Pupil Free Day

Term 4

Monday 14th October - Staff Development Day - Pupil Free Day

Tuesday 15th October - First Day Term 4 for students

END OF YEAR -

Wednesday 11th December 2024 - End of Year Awards at Yamba Bowling Club

Tuesday 17th December - Year 6 Graduation dinner at Yamba Golf Club

Tuesday 17th December - End or Year Mass

Wednesday 18th December - Last day Term 4

Dear Parents and Carers

Book Week is always big! At school the children and I know the staff love to “ frock up!” for a good cause.

Online and on talk back radio (I did bit of driving this week) there has been quite the discourse as to whether all the effort to have a Book Week parade is increasing student engagement with books and reading.

I would say "With the student engagement with our Book Parade, Fair and the shortlisted book activities planned by staff, the answer is yes" (thank you all for your support). When our town does not have a bookshop this is a great way to get books in small hands, which has always been the focus of our Book Week events and Fair. The school will receive an amount of “in kind” access to books at the end of the fair and we will publish this information in the next weeks, and add new titles and old favourites to the library.

Thank you also to parents and staff who gave generously of their time to assist with the fair.

But… back to my point about the parade! I believe that the evidence is that our families engage but what I really want to say is “Who cares!” Can we just have some events which are just fun and gather the community together filled with joy and positivity! That is what Book Week is in my experience, and as I was away, I received lovely texts and messages from parents full of positivity about how the staff “ led the charge” and modelled how reading and grabbing a good book creates happy memories of characters and stories and is a great thing for all the children.

And now I will step down from my soap box and wish you all a lovely weekend.

Cheers

Ann

Here is the animated adaption of the Magic School Bus (I believe the Miss Frizz’s and staff cast were very accurate!) well done team.

https://youtu.be/coJ0bXPKebE?si=3zROqmIm4fsy6XaX

Of course if you follow Jimmy Rees you will have a laugh at the accuracy of his topical skit this week. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-61eQnsrM7/?igsh=d2luOHo2enpuMTV6

RE News

First Holy Communion & Reconciliation

In the coming weeks, we have a group of 11 students who will be receiving the Eucharist for the first time at Mass. Please keep these students in your prayers.

If you are interested in your child/ren being Baptised, please contact the Maclean Parish Office on 66451188 Mon/ Wed/ Fri 9am-2pm.

Renee Howland

Assistant Principal Mission

Sport News

On Tuesday 20th August 7 students headed to Coffs Harbour to compete at the Lismore Diocese Athletics Carnival at the C.ex International Stadium. Rashad, Clarry, Ashton, Scarlett, Iyla, Lily & Chase represented the Clarence Zone in a number of events. It was a fantastic day and we saw some great results. Huge Congratulations to Iyla who won Junior Age Champion!!

Event	Finals Results
Iyla	100m- 2nd 200m- 2nd 800m- 5th 1500m- 2nd Long Jump- 3rd
Lily	Long jump- 9th
Scarlett	Long Jump- 4th
Chase	100m- 1st 800m- 9th 1500m- 9th
Clarry	Shot Put- 11th

Iyla and Chase have both qualified and are off to the Polding Athletics Carnival to be held in Newcastle on Friday 13th September- Congratulations!!

Kind regards

Tash Hancock

Sports Coordinator

Father's Day Breakfast

We would like to invite all families to our Father's Day Breakfast.

When: Friday 30th August

Time: 7am - 9am
COFFEE VAN

Bacon and egg rolls will be provided, so please click on the compasstix link below to confirm numbers. Orders need to be completed by Wednesday 28th August.

https://compasstix.com/e/n3lkjprppc

Look forward to seeing you all.

Miss Mooney

SAFE ON SOCIAL

In Week 7 one of the events that has dropped off my calendar is this excellent Parent Education Evening. I am aware that S3 will be absent but I am currently negotiating another date with the SOS Company.

This is about how to support children to be Safe On Social and having attended these in the past I learnt a huge amount about managing my profile on line.

If you only come to one thing for the rest of the year please make it this!!!!

As soon as I get the new date for S3 and a confirmation of the event I will post a ticket.

Awards Assembly - Week 5

St James' Award - Indie

Be Your Best Self – Meg, Liv, Billy, Ella, Olliah, Max

MJR – Braxton, Maggie, Vivian, Lucee-Mae

Sports – Archer, Ella, Hope, Rhys

Achievement – Bentley, James, Skye-Leeah, Maeve, Rhaya, Rashad

Encouragement – Penny, Athena, Ori, River, Nixon, Siaan, Cadence

Student of the Week – Roscoe, Georgia, Isiah, Miles, Jacob, Mignon, Jake

Book Fair

We had a fantastic Book Fair, 2024! The event was a wonderful success, filled with excitement and a wide variety of quality literature that found its way into the hands of our eager students. It was a joy to see so many young readers exploring the different genres, discovering new favourite authors, and sharing their enthusiasm for reading with their peers. Not only did the Book Fair promote the love of reading, but it also helped us raise valuable funds to purchase new books for our school library, ensuring that our collection continues to grow and meet the diverse interests of our students. We are incredibly grateful to our school community for their overwhelming support and participation. Your encouragement and contributions have made a significant difference. Thank you for making Book Fair 2024 an unforgettable event!

Kind Regards

Alanna Cason

Assistant Principal - Learning and Teaching

Pyjama Day

Pyjama_Day_1_.pdf

Mini Vinnies

Today our Mission Reps welcomed Terry from St Vinnies who arrived at school to collect the wonderful donations that families have contributed to our Winter Appeal. Thank you for your generosity.

Little J's

Stage 2 News

It has been a busy couple of weeks in Stage 2. With some fantastic sportsmanship in sport in our mini olympic games, superb dress ups and activities for book week, and spectacular practise of public speaking.

Celebrating the olympics and paralympics Stage 2 have created their own teams and have been competing in skill building mini games. Games like golden child, captain ball, javelin, relays, and hurdles. Scoring points to earn Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Book week has been a great celebration of literature and the joy of reading. Stage 2 participated in lots of fun activities that linked to award winning book week books. Such activities included water-colour poem writing, report recording and multimedia collage.

Students have also been practising their speeches in preparation for next week's public speaking. The public speaking workshop was a hit as our confidence was boosted and skills sharpened. We can’t wait to hear them all on Monday.