St James' Primary School Yamba eNewsletter

Canteen - Closed - remainder of 2021

Our Canteen Supervisor Louise Birch is going on extended leave over the next few weeks. We have decided to close the canteen from today as we need to allow time for a deep clean and shutdown as we will not reopen this year. The canteen will resume trading on February 3rd which the first Thursday in February 2022.

What's On?

Friday 5th November - School Awards Assembly via zoom

Tuesday 14th December- Awards Assembly

Tuesday 14th December- Graduation (Tavern booked but restricted numbers)

Wednesday 15th December - Last Day School term 4 for students

First DAY for S1-S3 Student 2022 - Februrary 1st.

First Day for ES1 ( Kindy ) - February 7th. ( Beststart is in the week before)

Sports Dates 2022:

Carnival Dates 2022

Swimming

-School - Yamba, Friday 4th Feb

-Zone - Maclean, Wednesday 16th Feb

-Dio - Murwillumbah, Wednesday 23rd Feb

-Polding - Sydney - Tuesday 22nd March

Cross Country

-School - Yamba, Thursday 7th April

-Zone - Grafton, TBC

-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

Dear Parents and Carers

We have finalised 2022 as a staff and want to welcome, welcome back and let's keep it up to the stage teams :-

ES1- April Ferguson, Kerrie O'Halloran, Amy Imeson

S1- Natasha Hancock, Rachelle Smith, Kerrie O'Halloran, Julie Malley

S2- Martin Dougherty, Emily O'Keeffe, Rachael Imeson

S3- Meghan Haines, Renee Howland ( HPL one day), Alanna Petersen.

IEW- Susan Frazer

Anne-Maree Lewis will work to implement new funding streams in numeracy and literacy.

Other staff continuing in their roles include Christine Jeffrey, Lisa Dougherty, Ann Dawson, Susanne Smith, Kelly Commerford, Amie Cole, Louise Birch, Peter Smith, Tracey Aumuller, Pam Hollington , Father Nicolas Maurice and Laura Hamilton.

On December 1 we will receive new guidelines for the school. We are pleased that we are now allowed to plan a graduation and an assembly. (what that looks like we will see!)

Talk soon

Ann

RE News

“SOCKTOBER” IN OCTOBER

Socktober is a program exclusively run by Catholic Mission, and raises funds for programs benefiting children around the world. Each year, Catholic Mission chooses a focus country to represent how the funds raised through Socktober will benefit children overseas. In 2021, the focus project is in Thailand. With our huge efforts in fundraising on Tuesday at our ‘Crazy Sock Day’, our school community raised $234.20 to help support the Church’s work in Thailand and other developing countries, building a strong education system through skilled teachers and improving education outcomes for students. Thank you for your generous contributions.

Photos below!

Renee Howland

Leader of SEACs

LOP Writing Challenge 2021 K-6

Writing a song

The LOP writing challenge for 2021 is to write a song about Yamba. When children learn how to write songs, they are learning how language works and how to experiment with different rhythmical and rhyming structures. To begin you may like to come up with an idea ( based on Yamba ). Make a list of some of the words you associate with your idea. Choose a melody to start with, such as a nursery rhyme, as they are simple and memorable. You may wish to write a verse or two ( just like writing a poem ) and then bring it to me for feedback. You may wish to write the whole song and hand it in. Either way is acceptable . All entrants will be invited to attend a special day to share and enjoy the songs you have written.

Have a listen to the songs about Yamba below ( YOUTUBE LINKS attached ) for inspiration.

Rob Imeson

Old Welcome Feeling

John Williamson

Camel Train to Yamba

Camel Train lyrics

Every Christmas holidays my father drove a camel train

It was called a camel train, he wouldn't stop for no-one

Oh we wanna wee wee

We want him to pull over

He wouldn't stop until we got to Yamba

How much further now dad, how much more to go?

JUST HANG ON KIDS, HAVE A SLEEP, THIS ROAD IS ROUGH AND SLOW-OW

Most of it was gravel rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr rrrr rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr

No matter how much we moaned he kept on through the mountains

The old family car winding, grinding through the dust

We always got car sick, BOO, STICK IT OUT THE WINDOW

He wouldn't stop until we got to Yamba

How much longer now dad, how much more to go?

JUST HANG ON KIDS, PLAY A GAME, I SPY WITH MY LITTLE...

Most of it was gravel rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr rrrr rrrrr rrrrr rrrrr

I spy with my little eye something beginning with s... h... sh...

SHUT UP!

Nowadays there's no chance of driving like a camel train

Roadhouses jump out and pull you off the road

Oh we wanna wee wee

We want a smurf and icecream

It always takes us days to get to Yamba

How much further now dad, how much more to go?

JUST EAT UP YOUR LOLLIES, YOU KIDS HAVE MADE US SLOW!

(Mumbling and grumbling to each other)

Now I won't stop until we get to Yamba

Every Christmas holidays my father drove a camel train

It was called a camel train, he wouldn't stop for no-one

Oh we wanna wee wee

We want him to pull over

He wouldn't stop until we got to Yamba

No, he wouldn't stop until we got to Yamba

Have fun and enjoy writing.

Lisa Dougherty

LOP

Little J's

This week in Little J’s we were thinking about all the letters in our name! We watched a song called “Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom”. We created crowns and had to place our name letter stickers on them. Little J’s explored the basketball court, we bounced the basketballs and we were shooting hoops! We busily constructed a cubby house for our Little J bear and we built our name with magnetic letters. We are really becoming familiar with each other and our school environment. A HUGE thankyou to the Catholic Schools Parent Assembly for creating the “Ready, Set Kindy” pack! We hope families enjoy using this fantastic resource.

Early Stage 1

Kindergarten are so excited to have 7 new laptops! We are learning to turn them on, login, create a Google Doc and log out. We are currently typing our sight words during Reading Groups! What a fun day we had wearing our crazy socks on Tuesday, check them out!

Stage 1

This term in Religion we have focused on the importance of caring for our common home. We have explored Laudato si, an encyclical composed by His Holy Father Pope Francis, calling us to action in caring for our common home and all within it. Your children have been thinking deeply on how they can be the change and have created messages and artwork to share their thinking.

How to care for our Common Home

Do you know how important it is to care for our common home? If you don't know what a common home is I will tell you. It could be your home, your local area, your country or Planet Earth and all who live in it. You have to take care of our common home because if you don't in the future our kids won’t have the good life and we will make different animals closer and closer to extinction.

Billie Gould

In the future we want people to see what we see but if we continue to not care for our common home they will see nothing. So we need to recycle, stop littering, just a little bit of fishing, no wasting water and cutting down trees

Miles Ferguson

We need to fond more ways to care for our common home. Stop wasting food and polluting. We can do better. We are taking more than our fair share. We pollute the air, water and land.

So stop polluting and start protecting. We need to bring nude food too. Think about the future. If we keep going like this we will have nothing left. We’re treating the world like it has endless resources. We have done so much damage. So start protecting the planet today and every day. Do more recycling and more walking so we stop climate change.

Ashton Miller

Our classroom photographer and reporter contributed to the newsletter today to share some things that they thought were amazing. Poppy Dougherty captured some students investigating art and writing. Layla reported that there was some brilliant construction of lego pokemon, handwritten birthday cards, handmade pokemon cards, and movies being created in the studio. Thank you girls for sharing.