Term 1 Week 7 2022 (18/3/2022)
What is On?
Monday 21st March - School Photos
Tuesday 22nd - Polding Swimming Sydney
Tuesday 29th March - Incitare - Year 6
April
Nuts and Bolts- Kinder families- Tuesday 5th April- 6:30pm ( save the date details to come)
School Awards Assembly - Wednesday 6th April
Thursday 7th April - School Cross Country
Friday 8th April - Holy Week Liturgy in hall, 10:00am
Friday 8th April - Last Day Term 1 for students
Dear Parents and Carers
This letter comes to you at the back end of a lovely week with our families returning to the site.
While we continue to wait for the fields to dry and to be able to get machinery on to tidy, it is lovely to have the community in school.
It is actually a strange conversation with families who are looking for directions to classrooms. We have always had every enrolling family visit all learning areas at enrolment. This week I am inviting any family who has joined the community since 2020 and has been unable to "tour the school" to make an appointment to visit the site and be shown around. Please contact the school office or email yamp@lism... to book a slot. ( Mrs Smith will assist in this).
This week I will commence the 2023 Early Stage One interviews. At this stage we have 20 children enrolled for this cohort and I have my fingers crossed that there are no families in the school who have an eligible learner who have yet to enrol. Now is the time to contact Mrs Smith for details as the process is very different to previous years with new guidelines, and pressure for spaces beginning to emerge.
The Parent and Teacher conferences are continuing and the staff are excited to meet and connect with their families. Every staff member has reported that this has been a really great opportunity to build the partnership with parents and gain a better understanding of the children in their care. I thank you for your patience in learning the new system for booking and please contact me if you cannot get the booking process to work for you. As a school, we would really like to connect with all families and there are still 41 children who are yet to have bookings made.
Harlan, Clarry and Kydan are off to Sydney on Monday for the Polding Swimming Carnival. This will be broadcast and I know all classes will have the competition on screen. We will share the link when it arrives. Catholic Schools NSW runs 2 carnivals at the same time at Homebush ( Polding -children from north of the harbour to the QLD border and MacKillop - children from south of the harbour to the Vic border ). I know last year there was a lot of noise coming from every classroom when the children swam. Good Luck gentlemen.
See you next week
Ann
Dr Sally Towns
This week the director of our CSO, Dr Sally Towns began the process of handing over to our incoming Director Jenny Allen. While we are please for Dr Towns to have been appointed as the Director of Brisbane Catholic Education I would like to acknowledge the impact of her calm and decisive leadership over the past nearly 3 years. This time has been full of challenge and change.
Sally joined us in June 2019 and within months we were involved in the worst fire season on record. The impact on familes was widespread and Sally maintained a strong focus on community support at this time. As a leader in 2020-2021, I will be eternally grateful for her clear and considered response to the challenges we faced. The structures Sally put in place allowed us to continue our focus on the learners and the learning. These past weeks Sally has once again pulled together the right staff to support a systems-response to the Northern Rivers Floods. (By now she certainly has a resume for management in diverse conditions). I am saddened that Sally is not well known to the our school community due to the restrictions in schools, as her wisdom and confidence in schools and children as learners has been valued by all who have had the opportunity to work with her.
Uniform- please check
During the enrolment process all families were shared the expectations for the correct school uniform. This is an part of our school routines and guidelines. The guidelines have not changed. There are a variety of variations beginning to be creep in. This week we will be reminding all chidlren of what is expected. School shoes are black only- no white soles. Hair decorations are only in the school colours and hair needs to be worn off the face and up if longer than the collar. Socks are navy -Monday to Thursday. No extra jewellery including necklaces to be worn. Thank you in advance for attending to this .
Supervision Times
School supervision begins at 8:30am each day. Children must not be on site before 8:20am at the very earliest. The time before 8:30am is staff personal time and it is not appropriate for families to expect that staff will "keep an eye" on children. If care is required prior to 8:30am please book in to Before School Care which offers supervision from 7am.
Miss Smith
Today is Miss Smith's last day for 3 weeks. She is coming back after the Easter break as Mrs Kelly!
Mrs Hollington will be full time in Stage 1 with Mrs Hancock for the remainder of the term.
We wish Rachelle and Dylan all the best for the future.
Awards Assembly - Save the Date
We will have a double Awards Assembly in the last week of term on Wednesday 6th April at 9am for S3 & S2 students and 9:30am for S1 & ES1 students in the hall. Parents of awardees will be notified earlier that week and are warmly invited to attend. There will also be a recorded viewing that you can access if you are unable to attend.
Sport Dates 2022
Swimming
-Polding - Sydney - Tuesday 22nd March
Cross Country
-School - Yamba, Thursday 7th April
-Zone - Grafton, Wednesday 4th May
-Dio - Grafton, Tuesday 24th May
-Polding - Tuesday 7th June
Athletics
-School - Yamba, Friday 24th June
-Zone - Coffs Harbour, Wednesday 20th July
-Dio - Lismore, Friday 12th August
-Polding - Newcastle, Friday 9th September
SACRAMENTAL DATES 2022
Confirmation- Thursday 30th June, from 5:30pm at St Mary’s Church, Maclean.
Reconciliation- Wednesday 24th August, 11:40am in school hall.
First Holy Communion- Saturday 27th August, 5:30pm at St James Church, Yamba
RE News
ES1
Early Stage One students are in full swing with learning their letters and sounds. They have been making sight words and identifying letters in their environment. A highlight this week has been using the bead strings in mathematics. We counted forwards and backwards to 20 together, carefully moving one bead at a time. Students noticed that the beads change colour when a group of ten is made!
Stage 1
Stage 1 having a blast at the Geography excursion today.
Meditation at Green Point
Stage 2
This week in Stage 2 we have been putting our tech brains to the test and learning to code.
Coding is giving the computer instructions to do something. We have been using a program called Scratch, it is a program that you can use to create a story.
You place characters in a setting and write codes to get them to move and talk. Some of us worked out that we were able to record our own voices to make our characters speak.
There was a lot of trial and error involved, however we became quite skilled in working out simple functions; and some of us were so clever we worked out how to make a whole scene.
Doing this task involved lots of problem solving, and it was great to see many experts popping up around the room, willing to help others.
Stage 3
Buddies
Buddies will be starting up soon! It will be taking place on Fridays in the middle session and continue throughout the whole year. There will be two Stage 3 students with one Kindy child. The Kindy’s will be running with their buddies through the cross country course. Each week the Stage 3’s will be teaching them a new skill such as reading, writing their names and typing on the computer.
Long Way Home Writing Competition
This week in Stage 3 we have been planning for the Long Way Home writing competition. The theme this year is ‘Let Go’ and every Stage 3 student will be competing, and hopefully some of them will end up being published in the Long Way Home book!
Garden & Worm Farm Update
This week in Stage Three we have been working really hard in the garden. Some of the seedlings are now for sale, to make a purchase email the school yamp@lism.catholic.edu.au. You can pick them up along with your child!
Congratulations Millie Hunt and Millie Crouch for winning the design competition and being chosen to to promote the new worm farm with their logo. We have lots of worm juice for sale too, perfect to fertilise your garden and keep it healthy!
Birthdays
Anzac Williams - 21st March, Austin Dougherty - 26th March, Jackson Curtis - 28th March, Dean Perugini - 28th March, Sophie Connors- 1st April, Autumn Enns - 1st April