Term 1 Week 2 (05/02/2021)
What is On?
Monday 15th March - School Photos
Tuesday 30th March - Last day term 1 for all students.
Wednesday 31st March and Thursday 1st April - Staff development days - school closed - all staff attend
May
Wednesday 5th May - Proclaim Lismore - School closed - all staff attend
June
Friday 25th June - Staff Professional Learning - School Improvement Plan - school closed- all staff attend
September
Friday 17th September - Professional Learning - First Aid - school closed - all staff attend
Dear Parents and Carers,
Week 2 is away already and the children have settled beautifully into the learning spaces with their teachers. We have 150 children at Saint James today and it is lovely to see them all in their crisp new sports shirts.
As you know we had a lovely day at the St James Swimming Carnival on Tuesday. Can we thank all the parents who attended, cheered and assisted with the timing and set up and pack up. How nice was it to gather together and even chat!!!
The children showed such positive attitudes on the day. It is nice that everyone is in the water. A Zone Swimming team are off to the Maclean Pool on Thursday and we wish them well.
All our staff have returned to task and are working with your children to build the learning agenda. The classroom teachers will have a planning day with the curriculum team in the near future to set out the learning for the semester. The children have voice and choice in this process and we meet with each stage on the planning day to ensure that everyone contributes to the learning planning.
WHEN IS THE WATERSLIDE DAY? ( asked every student I met on the first day of school)
Mrs Smith is on the phone as we speak checking on the dates. As soon as we know we will let you know!
Hoping the week is fruitful,
See you in Kiss and Drop
Ann
RE News
Beginning of School Liturgy
Our Beginning of School Liturgy will be celebrated on Tuesday 16th February at 11:45am under the big top, with Fr Nicolas. This special liturgy marks the beginning of another fantastic year of learning, together in faith and love at St James School. During the liturgy, our Year 6 leaders will receive a blessing from Father Nicolas. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 regulations, we are unable to have parents and families attend this liturgy on school grounds, however we will be sharing a zoom link for families to access.
As part of our liturgy, students will be bringing home a scallop shell early next week. We are asking you to write your family surname on the shell, as well as the members in your family and decorate with your children please. We would like these returned by Friday 12th February, to use in our liturgy and to represent all of the families in our school community who cannot be on school grounds at this time.
We will also be creating a whole school gabion where we are asking each student to contribute something from the beach (eg. small piece of drift wood, stone, shell, etc) The staff of St James have started this one below. Students will need to bring their gabion item to school by Monday 15th February please.
Sacrament Dates
Confirmation- Monday 22nd July, St Mary’s Church, Maclean.
First Holy Communion- date to be advised.
Reconciliation- date to be advised.
Please note the change below:
The order of Sacraments in the Lismore Diocese from 2021 is:
Baptism, Confirmation (Year 3), Reconciliation (Year 4), First Eucharist (Year 4)
If you would like your child to receive these Sacraments, please email yamp@lism.catholic.edu.au to advise which Sacraments you would like your child to receive this year. For your child to receive any of these Sacraments they must first be Baptised. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me at school.
Child Protection Notice.
Under Child Protection legislation any parent or community member undertaking volunteer work and working with children must complete a WWCC. Please consult with the Principal to ascertain if these have been checked before you allow a parent to work with children. All parents must report to the school office to collect their visitor badge before coming to a classroom.
The diocesan child protection Policy is fully implemented at St James. Please take the time to become familiar with this document. ALSO take not of the following.
Diocesan Policy available at -
http://intranet.lism.catholic.edu.au/policies/2020Policyfolder/Child%20Protection%20Policy%20and%20Procedures.pdf?download=true
School Zone Safety
Slow down for children
40km/h school zones help protect children on their way to and from schools at the times and places where they are often in high numbers. This lower speed limit reduces the risk and potential severity of a crash. School zone signs, dragon’s teeth road markings and flashing lights improve the visibility of school zones.
School zone days
40km/h school zones are in force on all days which are not a weekend, a public holiday or a publicly notified school holiday for government schools
School zone days (as shown above) include school development days, also known as student-free days, because some students may attend their school on these days.
The NSW Department of Education website has more information on school term dates and detailed data on school locations.
School zone times
Most school zones operate from 8 to 9.30am and from 2.30 to 4pm. However, there are a small number of non-standard school zone times in NSW, which are identified by red/orange school zone signs showing the times when school zone flashing lights operate.
Protecting our children
Motorists must drive no faster than 40 km/h through school zones. Increased fines and demerit points apply for certain school zone offences, with illegal use of mobile phones and speeding among those included in double demerit periods. Transport for NSW has more information on fines and demerit point offences.
Further information is available at :
https://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/stayingsafe/schools/flashinglights/index.html#
Curriculum News
Students are doing their Maths Assessment Interviews (MAI) as part of our Diocesan data requirements. The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. What they already know is called conceptual understanding. This means that the student understands the Mathematical concept, not just completing the task. This shows deep understanding!
The following two videos demonstrate conceptual understanding. In Milly's video, when asked how she solved it, she replied "I don't know how I solved it, I just know". This is a perfect example of conceptual understanding, as it is automatic in her thinking. In Luca's video, he was able to explain his thinking, showing deep learning. We also love the wait time the teachers and students use to answer accurately. These videos portray what Maths is like in 2021!
Christine Jeffrey
Leader of Curriculum
2021 School Swimming Carnival
Age Champions
Junior Boy - Kydan Jones
Junior Girl - Lola Dougherty
11yrs Boy - Jesse Daley Malone
11yrs Girl - Heidi van Leest
Senior Boy - Dexta Jones
Senior Girl - Ruby Thompson
Champion House - Turners
Early Stage 1
What an exciting first few days of school for our Early Stage One class! We have been making new friends, learning the Classroom rules, counting, listening to new stories and writing in our school books. A highlight was working together to build a long patterned tower to reach the door! Such wonderful little learners beginning an exciting learning adventure together!
Our favourite overheard moment!
On Thursday morning one of our new Kindy children asked Mrs Jeffrey where his friend was. Mrs Jeffrey asked " What does he look like?" The response was ... wait for it!
" He has the same shoes as me and the same outfit as me."
You will not be surprised that Mrs Jeffrey was none the wiser.
Stage 1
This week in Stage one we have spent time getting to know each other by working together as a team. We have had some great collaboration as we tackled STEM challenges, building the tallest towers using only pegs and paddles pop sticks. Help each other to get through hula hoops without letting go of the circle. We have had so much fun and we are all settling well into Stage one, building new friendships and partnerships together.
Stage 2
We have a very exciting term ahead of us in Science.
This term we’ve had a visitor from outer space contact us (Science Officer Atto) about learning of life on planet Earth. He needs to learn about Living and Non-Living things on Earth. He needs to know about the effects of environmental factors on our planet and also what we are doing here at St James to improve the biodiversity of our playground. So our mission - which we chose to accept - is to research, collect and collate data and share all of this with Atto. We made a great start yesterday and look forward to helping out our intergalactic friend this term.
Tracey Aumuller, Pam Hollington
Stage 3
We're off to a great start to Term 1 here in Stage 3! This week we have been setting up our classroom routines, establishing our classroom agreement for 2021 ("We will be kind, respectful, responsible and fair to everyone."), and setting up our online Google Classroom and Read Theory accounts. Read Theory will be used in our weekly Literacy Rotations, and Google Classroom is used regularly within the room, to post student tasks, share links with students, etc. We have started our PDH unit of work, 'Emotionally Aware', where we will gain an understanding of what affects our emotions, and how we can deal with them appropriately. In Religion we are learning about 'The Reign of God', which explores how our decisions affect our lives. Students completed a creative writing piece this week, using an image as a stimulus - ask your child about their story! Seesaw QR codes have been sent home this week, and we'd love for you to connect to your child's online journal, to receive notifications when they share work.