Term 3 Week 1

What's ON?

Term 3

Monday 25th July - Foundation Feast Day 

We would love to have you join us - picnic rug lunch at 11:30am on the grounds. This will follow the  Camino de St James which will start at the boat at approx 9:30am.

 Scholastic Book Fair -Monday 25th July and close on Friday 29th July, 2022. 

Thursday 28th  July - Zone Athletics- Coffs Harbour

August

Wednesday 3rd August - School Disco and parent evening ( flier later this week)

Monday 15th August 100 Days of School- Kindergarten 

Save the Date - Monday 22 August- Informed Consent parent evening offered by the Diocesan Parent Assembly 

Dear Parents and Carers,

Monday is the Feast of St James, who is the Patron Saint of our school. 

James was Jesus' cousin who prior to leaving the Sea Of Gallilee and "going with Jesus"  was a fisherman. ( I know we all know that!).

In his life, he is known to be one of the two disciples to whom Jesus was very close. He trusted Jesus and this was reciprocated. He was one who stayed with Jesus in the tough times as well as the easy. ( none of it seems really easy to me)

We do not hear his voice in the Gospels but we do "read" the strength of the relationship between them. 

On Monday we will have a "tour through his life" where the children will consider what this means today. 

We would love to have you join us for lunch and/or the walk with your children, starting at approximately 9:30 or a little later depending on how set up goes!

If you can not join us for the walk, you might like to have lunch with the children ( we expect about 11:30am) Bring a picnic rug if you like or just turn up.

See you soon

Ann

Scholastic Book Fair

The Book Fair has arrived and it’s like having an exciting bookstore come into our school. A huge range of affordable books featuring characters and subjects kids love and want to read about. From newly released books and bestsellers to award-winning titles and perennial favourites.

Students have been given time to visit and explore the books on offer. A wishlist and invitation has been sent home today with each student.You can use these to discuss the Book Fair and the books they have seen.Every book sold benefits our school, adding resources to our library and classrooms.

To purchase from the Book Fair, simply complete the back of the invitation and go online www.scholastic.com.au/payment and make your payment. Then return the form with the titles of books you’d like to purchase, and your child will bring them home to enjoy.

All parents are welcome to come to the book fair with your children before school from 8:30am-9am & after school from 3:10pm-3:40pm.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. The Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is open to all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 10, in government, independent, Catholic and home schools. 

Challenge closes for student entries: Friday 19 August 2022

Happy Reading

Christine Jeffrey

Religious Education

Welcome back to Term 3! Hopefully you’ve had a fulfilling and restful holiday with friends and family. 

Peace

Whenever we reassure someone who is experiencing fear, anxiety, or despair, we are acting in the divine image. Throughout salvation history, God has continually offered peace and reassurance that God is in our midst and that we will have a future. Let’s face it, the world we live in can be a very scary place, not just for little children, but also for us adults and we all need peace and reassurance.

It’s no secret that one of the most often-repeated lines in Scripture is “Do not be afraid” or some variation thereof (fear not, be not afraid, do not fear, peace be with you, and so on). Even Jesus’ last words to his disciples before ascending into heaven were words of reassurance encouraging peace: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Reassurance, and peace are the benefits of accompaniment. Sometimes, people just don’t want to be alone. When we accompany others through difficult times, we don’t have to have all the answers. We only need to assure them that they are not alone and that they are going to be OK (while noting that, for some, that OK-ness will be eventual, not immediate). One of the reasons we proclaim the Gospel is to reassure people of the nearness of God and of God’s saving grace bringing with it a peace this world cannot give.

COVID update for Schools- Term 3 Protocols

Students learn best in a face-to-face learning environment. To continue to provide this learning environment while prioritising student and staff wellbeing, schools will have a number of COVID-smart settings in place for this term.

The COVID-smart settings that students, staff and communities have become used to will continue in Term 3 including:

• Staying home if unwell or showing any symptoms, and not returning to school or work until fully recovered.
• Rapid antigen testing for any students or staff showing symptoms and for close contacts who are able to return to school.
• Maximising natural ventilation.
• Good hygiene practices for students and staff including regular hand washing with soap and water.
• Encouraging all students, staff and families to keep up to date with vaccinations, including COVID-19 booster shots when eligible and the flu vaccine.
• Identifying when schools need to implement additional COVID-smart measures if experiencing rapidly increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases.

In addition to these baseline settings, some additional layers this term as extra protection for staff, students and school communities, include:

• Strongly encouraging all staff, students and school visitors to wear a mask while indoors, particularly during the first four weeks from the beginning of term. (CSO Lismore has ordered masks but supply might be limited).
• Distributing RAT kits to all staff and students in schools (1 pack per person). This will be delivered directly to schools.
• Boosting day cleaning in schools, with a particular focus on high-touch areas.

COVID-19 reinfection period reduced to four weeks

NSW Health has revised the COVID-19 reinfection period from 12 weeks down to four weeks effective from 19 July 2022.

People who have previously had COVID-19 should test for COVID-19 after 28 days since their isolation ended if experiencing symptoms and follow the relevant health advice if they test positive. People who test positive again will be reported and managed as new cases.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said the reduced reinfection period, which follows the advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, is due to the latest sub-variants of Omicron circulating in the community.

Early Stage 1 News

This term in ES1 students are learning all about forces in Science and Technology.  This unit focuses on how things move. Students will explore push and pull forces and how these forces can move objects by sliding, bouncing and spinning.

During investigations our Reporter and Photographer will be collecting, observing and gathing evidence about push and pull forces in the school enviroment. As part of our Digital Technology learning, students will also be exploring and experimenting with our new Blue Bot Robots.  Students will be learning directional language, how to enter basic coding algorithms and develop problem solving skills - Kindergarten have also discovered that working with the Blue Bots is also alot of fun! 

Here is some of what ES1 had to say about their learning experience with the BlueBots

“I wish I had this at home, so cool” - Lenny,

“ This is tricky, but mistakes are part of learning” - Billy.P

“Look at it go” - Willa, 

“ Be gentle with them” - Jett

“When they are turned on, their eyes light up” - Elsie.

Keep an eye out on SeeSaw for our discoveries! 

Stage 1 News

Reading as understanding continues to be the focus in Stage 1.

This means that all children in the class are working to not only read the words fluently BUT more importantly stopping to ask questions when the words can be read but may not be understood. 

This can happen with rich literature or when children are meeting new vocab. This is particularly interesting and important when reading non-fiction text.

We have a saying "Reading the words is not the race. The race is to understand"

We can see a shift with some of our learners in this area.  Phrases such as :

"Wait, what does that word mean?" or

" I can say it but I am not sure what it means" or

"Is that the same as >>>>?" or

"Does that mean XXXX because that would make sense? "

offer the students the chance to look at how language works and how we build understanding. 

This is our goal in all learning spaces in the school. Building vocabulary and understanding. (You may even hear cheers in reading group time when children stop to do this!)

Stage 2 News

Stage 2 have just started a new unit in Science where they will be learning about Forces. Below are some photos from an experiment they did earlier in the week where they had to try and predict how different forces would affect the movement of a balloon along a piece of string.

Stage 3 News

Today we had a great time taking our buddies to the Scholastic Book Fair. We were able to read them a story and help them choose a couple of books to put on their wish list. 

We have also been teaching our buddies how to play a variety of board games. It has been so much fun watching them learn new games and skills.

Here are a few photos of our time with our buddies!

Buddies

These are the cutest photos which for some reason will not load! ( Will try again on Monday)

NAIDOC- Out On Country

We have rescheduled our NAIDOC - out on country until Tuesday and are hoping that the BOM has it right. 

It looks fine.

However- old joggers or shoes  would be advised . Shoes which will not be an issue if they get wet might be a good idea. Some classes are going to the beach for a walk, others to Angourie and all are going to Green Point. 

The exhibition by Frances Bell Parker, at Yamba Museum closed on Sunday but Frances has agreed to leave it open so that we can still have this as part of our day. All families are welcome to join us for lunch at Green Point 

Disco

When:          Wednesday 3^rd August

Where:          St James Hall

Cost:            $5 includes entry,

juice pop-top & small packet of chips

Theme:         Movie Characters

 Bring some small change to buy from the canteen!

 We would love some donations to sell at the canteen – If you can donate please bring in on the night - cupcakes, donuts, brownies, mini cakes, cookies or anything kids like to eat  (that is not too messy)!!    

Please bring food on plastic plates or label any Tupperware!   Thank you!

SPORTS News

Cross Country

This morning Jake Seivers competed in the NSW PSSA Cross Country carnival at Eastern Creek in Sydney. Jake finished in 26th place, in a field of 78. It has been a long time since our school has had a student reach this level in Cross Country, so a big congratulations to Jake on his efforts to qualify through to this event and I’m sure there will be plenty of stories to tell when he returns to school next week!

Athletics

The Zone Athletics carnival was postponed on Wednesday due to the wet weather in Coffs Harbour. A new date of next Thursday, 28th July has been set for the carnival. All other details remain the same in terms of departure time, event program etc. Fingers crossed for some better weather next week!

Radio

Every week the Stage 3 children have a radio show on the local community radio. Have a listen at 11am on a Friday. When I first arrived at Saint James I thought it was an "interesting idea", but when I accompanied the children for the first time I was blown away! Any time key staff are away and cannot accompany the children there are many willing volunteers to take their place. Best hour of the week on radio.

I can recommend this to everyone, as not only a community engagement opportunity for the children, but as great learning, writing their scripts and presenting these to an audience. You might like to ring in and request a song.