St James' Primary School Yamba eNewsletter

What is On?

Wednesday 11th June - Polding Cross Country

Tuesday 17th June - AFL Carnival Iluka-S3 teams

Tuesday 17th June- Community Conversation #11

Wednesday 18th June - Dio Rugby Gala Day-S3

Friday 20th June - School Athletics Carnival

Wednesday 2nd July - Zone Athletics Carnival- Coffs Harbour

Thursday 3rd July - Last Day Term 2 for Students

Friday 4th July - Staff Professional Learning Day - Foundation Day- Pupil Free Day

Term 3 2025

Monday 21st July - First Day Term 3 for Students and Staff

Friday 25th July- Foundation Day - Feast of Saint James

Tuesday 29th July - Reconciliation - St James Church, Yamba

Saturday 30th August - First Holy Communion-St James Church, Yamba

Thursday 25th September - Last Day Term 3 for Students

Friday 26th September - Staff Professional Learning Day - Curriculum - Pupil Free Day

Term 4 2025

Monday 13th October - First Day Term 4 for Students and Staff

Monday 3rd – Friday 7th November - Stage 3 Camp- Canberra

End of Year Final Awards Assembly - Thursday 11th December - Yamba Bowling Club 10:00 – 11:00am

Wednesday 17th December - Last Day Term 4 for Students and Staff

Dear Parents and Carers

It's raining again!

Here we are working with a group a children (182 in number) who want to get out and play anywhere! The children have managed amazingly well under the circumstances. This week we got to most of the playground during the fine, drying days of autumn.

This week we squeezed in a few off site events (finally) and Mrs Cason is planning on doing some other work rather than rearranging casual staff. This has been her full-time job!

Today, we watch the sprinkles begin while we travelled to the radio station for our School Program. Lots of people work to make this happen each week, including an amazing community volunteer Anne Maree Wardrop without whom we could not offer this to our senior students. The show today was (as always) dynamic and as I listened I was once again pleased to hear what is happening in each room. I do know what learning is being undertaken but it is very interesting to hear it in "kidspeak".

Next week I will include the 2026 school dates in the newsletter, I am off to Kiss and Drop now in the rain!

Happy Weekend

Ann

Values Approach

For the past 7 years Saint James' staff and students have been working to better understand...

who we are; what really matters as a Catholic school; and what we value as a commuinity of learners.

We have had Learning Mantras displayed in the big top for about 9 years and this was the start of a focus on building a community not a commodity as a school. Developing a set of core values that reflect our Catholic identity while being accessible and understood by all has been the work. Of course the work continues.

Over arching this is that the diocese ask us to "enable all to experience the fullness of life." In 2025 we are looking at the value of love.

This was the introduction at today's assembly.

This year we are excited to introduce a new award at St James, the Values Award. This award will be given to students who show our school values in their words and actions. That means showing God’s love, gratitude, kindness, service, humility and community. Teachers will be looking out for students who live out these values in our classrooms, on the playground, and in everything they do.

RE News

Year 6 Students Shine at GLOW Retreat

On Wednesday, our Year 6 students travelled to John Paul College in Coffs Harbour to take part in the exciting new GLOW Retreat, accompanied by Ms Aumuller and Mrs Howland.

GLOW is a 2025 pilot initiative that brings together Year 6 students from across the region for an immersive day of prayer, small group reflection, and fun activities. The retreat offered a powerful opportunity for students to encounter their faith in a dynamic and engaging way.

The day was filled with moments of stillness, joyful song, thoughtful conversation, and new friendships. GLOW is part of a broader vision to support whole-school evangelisation and complements the Student Discipleship Continuum within the Diocese.

We were extremely proud of our Year 6 students. They returned inspired and energised, ready to share the light of Christ with others in their school and community.

Sacrament Dates

Reconciliation- Tuesday 29th July, St James Church, Yamba

First Holy Communion- Saturday 30th August, St James Church, Yamba

The order of Sacraments in the Lismore Diocese is:

Baptism, Confirmation (Year 3), Reconciliation (Year 4), First Eucharist (Year 4)

If you need more information about Baptism for your child, please contact the Parish Office in Maclean at 6645 1188 (open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:00 am to 1:30 pm).

For any other Sacraments, please reach out to Mrs Howland at school. Please note that your child must be Baptised before receiving any other Sacraments.

If your child was Confirmed last year, they will be invited to receive Reconciliation and First Communion this year. To arrange this, please email yamp@lism.catholic.edu.au.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at school.

Renee Howland

Assistant Principal - Mission

Sport News

Cross Country

The Diocesan Cross Country carnival was held yesterday at Woolgoolga. St James had 10 students representing our school as members of the Clarence Zone team. Everyone gave their all against some very tough competition and contributed to Clarence Zone winning the pointscore for the first time in 6 years. There were some fantastic results on the day with 5 students qualifying to compete at the Polding Cross Country Championships being held in Sydney on 11th June. Well done to Iyla, Chase, Lenny, Jackson and Athena on qualifying for this event and good luck at Polding.

Results

9yr girls - Athena, 7th

9yr boys - Chase, 1st, Lenny, 2nd, Jackson, 3rd

11yr girls - Iyla, 3rd

AFL

The Paul Kelly Cup has also been rescheduled and will now be held at Iluka on Tuesday 17th June. St James is sending 2 Boys teams and 1 Girls team from Stage 3 to the carnival and the students are excited to put their AFL skills into practice at the carnival.

Netball

St James entered 3 Stage 3 teams and 1 Stage 2 team in the Netball NSW Schools Cup carnival held in Maclean yesterday. Everyone had a great day and there was some great Netball skills shown on the day and great sportsmanship from all who played. Special mention to one of our Stage 3 teams who were the winners of the competitive division on the day and have now qualified to compete at the Regional Finals in Lismore next term. Well done and good luck!

School Awards Assembly

St James' Award – Ava

Principal's Award – Alessia

Values – Austin, Hayley, Hope, Amelia, Kai, Ralph, Rudy

Sport – Ashton, Elsie, Jackson, Finn, Daniel, Taura, Harriett

Achievement – Bradley, Remi, Jarrah, Tippi, Magnus, Ruby, Daisy, Lila, James, Edward, Emerald

Encouragement – James, Billy, Aria, Beau, Miki, Mack, Matteo, Georgia, Rhaya, Sarai, Orson

Sports and Special Photo order

ES1 News

In English, we know 16 sounds, and we use these daily in our reading and writing! We’ve recently read “Chip” and “Elmer” and have been talking about character traits and always showing our true colours. In Maths, we have been learning about 5- and 10-frames, which help us to recognise number quantities instantly. We are also learning about 2D shapes and their features.

In Religion, we have been learning the story of when Jesus appeared to the disciples at the Sea of Galilee and told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. We talked about the types of people we would want in our net, and we decided nice, kind, friendly and fun people.

In Science, we are learning about the weather and how this can affect humans and our environment. We have learnt about different clouds, and we did a really cool experiment to help understand how rain occurs!

We’re also really loving our new Investigation spaces, ‘Space’, ‘Marble Run’ ‘The Vets’ and ‘The Art Studio.’ We change the Literacy Space each fortnight to reflect our English novel studies, which is also a very popular space. So much creative play!