Term 2 Week 3 (13/05/2022)

What is On?

Tuesday 24th May - Dio Cross Country 

Friday 27th  May - School Awards Assembly

Tuesday 31st May - Wear Red for 65 Roses Day - gold coin donation (see below)

 Wednesday 1st June - Incitare Year 6 Retreat

Tuesday 7th June - Polding Cross Country

Friday 24th June - School Athletics Carnival

Thursday 30th June - Confirmation - Maclean

Thursday 30th June - Last day term 2 for students

Friday 1st July - Staff Development Day - Pupil Free Day- Foundation Professional Development

Dear Parents and Carers

Week 3 has seen a change at Saint James. It has been lovely to have families back on site with us once more.  We have noticed that we have a quicker Kiss and Drop this week as families once more have their "bearings" and are coming on site. A lovely result of the big week last week.

The children in Stage 2 and 3 have been busy completing NAPLAN this week with the online delivery proving successful. I have been hearing that in QLD there were outages everywhere and I am relieved that this is not the case with us. I have memories of the first online delivery, perhaps 4 years ago. I was in Sydney at a conference and the system kept failing in our school. I am glad the system is working better now. 

I was asked this week about this importance of NAPLAN. We make absolutely no fuss about the process. This is a point-in-time opportunity to see where our children are against our school and diocesan data and to reflect on our work and delivered curriculum. We do the mandated preparation but certainly do not "teach to the test". How important is NAPLAN? As a system and school it is very important for us to plan future directions and needs within our school. We "triangulate the data" ( consider at least 3 assessment tools ) to help us with professional discussions regarding learning and this helps us plan our support and interventions. It also is one data element of our School Annual Plan development. The same conversation came up with an ES1 enrolment this week regarding Beststart. This is also a point-in-time data gathering exercise to establish the starting points for learning with each new enrolment. The question was "What do they need to know and be able to do before school starts?" and our answer is "We start from where the children are at." 

This is the whole point of our PLT ( Professional Learning Team) meetings each week and why this has become the most valued hour (by the staff) to collaboratively consider data and develop learning cycles to respond to recognised or developing needs. 

Have a lovely weekend

Ann

Save the date - 31st May - Wear Red for 65 Roses Day

Sport Dates 2022

Cross Country

-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

Happening Today...

You can see from these photos that we have a Sporting Schools Grant active again. Today we begin a 4 week program with Rugby Australia funded by the Federal Government. This means that your children have access to world class coaching in a sport which they may or may not had considered and the opportunity to develop transferable skills. Why Rugby? because Rugby Australia has developed and offered a program under the sporting schools banner. Without this support we would not have access to this opportunity or would need to charge on a user pays basis. It is lovely to have Sporting Schools Grant active again and to have access to these coaches.

RE News

ES1

This term in ES1 students are learning all about the weather in Science and Technology. This unit focuses on how daily and seasonal changes affect ourselves and the environment. During Investigations our Reporter and Photographer have been recording and collecting data and reporting on the daily weather. The water in the rain gauge and the temperature on the thermometer are checked. Students have noted that the cooler weather means we are starting to wear our jumpers to school and that we aren’t swimming at the beach and the pool as frequently. Chase wanted to know if the temperature goes down when you stand in cooler places like under the big top, so he went on tour with the thermometer. Please ask us to give you an update on the daily weather!

Stage 1

It has been another busy week here in Stage 1. In maths we have been looking at place value. We have been looking at 2 digit and 3 digit numbers in particular but we were excited to investigate 4 digit numbers too! In English we have been learning how to research facts about a particular topic and then write the fact in our own words. Students are very excited about creating their own information report in the coming weeks based on a topic of their choice! We will be using websites to research our topic including Kids National Geographic and BTN!

Stage 2

This week was all about NAPLAN for our Year 3 students. These children worked beautifully through 4 tests over three days. We completed a writing test, reading test, language conventions test, and wrapped it all up with a maths test. These guys might deserve an extra treat over the weekend for their hard work!

Meanwhile, Year 4 were busy in the library completing creative writing activities. Check them out hard at work creating cartoons and stop-motion stories.

Stage 3

NAPLAN

This week Year 5 students have been sitting the NAPLAN tests. NAPLAN stands for The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy and it is a test that every student in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sit, all around Australia! On Tuesday Year 5 completed the Writing test, on Wednesday the Read and Conventions of Language (spelling, grammar, etc), and on Thursday the Numeracy test. They did so well, we are really proud of them!

RADIO

Sadly, the Stage 3 Radio Show has had to be delayed starting this week - fingers crossed we get Dusty and Willow B on the air next week, May 20th! They’ll be taking song requests and sharing news from around the school, so make sure you tune into 100.3FM, from 11am-12pm, or ring up and request a song on 6646 1100

BUDDIES

Last week we started our Buddies sessions with Kindy! Every Friday at 1pm we will come together to chat, play and learn. Last week we showed our Buddies our classroom, and they showed us theirs, as well as their very special RE storytelling boxes.

Canteen Supervisor Position

This position is currently advertised on the Catholic Schools website lism.catholic.edu.au under the employment tab and closes the end of next week. 

Birthdays

Mrs Amy Imeson - 15th May, Ayva Hollington - 23rd May, Joseph Dillon - 24th May, Arabella Dendle - 31st May