Newsletter - 2024 Term 1 Week 4

Calendar

From the Leaders

The Bible teaches us how God wants us to live with each other and all of God’s creation. Jesus’ words to his friends and followers sum it up well: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

Catholic Social Teaching principles (CSTs) offer guidance on how we do this in ways that are good for people and the planet. These principles support the work to end poverty, promote justice and uphold dignity.

At St Agnes' this year, our students will have a focus on learning about Catholic Social Teaching.  Our Catholic Social Teachings include:

•Human Dignity

•Solidarity

•Preferential Option for the Poor

•Subsidiarity and Participation

•The Common Good

•Care for Our Common Home

Over the year we will explore each of these principles and what it means for us. 
Our first focus is Care for Our Common Home.

Caring for our common home is a way of appreciating the earth, not as a commodity to be bought or sold, or a resource to be used up, but as a sacred space, a gift from God.

This principle describes a way of looking after God’s creation by “tilling” (cultivating or working) and “keeping” (caring for, protecting and preserving) it, through actions that look after it for future generations.

When we care for our common home, we remember that God made the earth for all to enjoy, humans and other creatures included. (Derived from Caritas Australia)

On Tuesday afternoon St Agnes’ Primary will host the first Penance Workshop at 3:30pm in the staffroom. Children in Year 4 and above have registered for the Sacrament of Penance in March. Other opportunities for the same workshop will be held on Thursday 29 February, Tuesday 5 March and Wednesday 6 March at other venues in the parish. During these sessions students will participate in activities with their parents and gain more information about the Sacrament and ceremonies on the 12, 13 or 14 March at 6:00 pm.

Confirmation

Congratulations to Harrison Power, Lachlan Power, Ella McNally and Patrick McNally, Zuri Tandoc and Jasper McNee who received the Sacrament of Confirmation, administered by Father Paul on Sunday night at the 5:00pm Mass. 

Beginning School Mass and Infant Liturgy

Today, Father Prodencio celebrated the beginning of the 2024 school year with our Infants children before Lunch One and the Primary children afterwards. We were so grateful to those family members who could join us. Giving our best was the theme shared. Today we definitely saw so many of our students giving their best in being reverent through listening and responding. Thanks to all involved in preparing and presenting, especially our SRC students and the choir.

In Week 6, we invite all Year 3 families to join us in Christ the King Chapel for their Term 1 Mass. 

Year 4 students gathered in the chapel yesterday, learning more about the season of Lent and parts of the Mass. Our students engaged beautifully with Father Paul’s homily and asked interesting questions.

St Agnes’ Primary School will be well represented by 14 wonderful students at the Incitare Retreat next Tuesday, where the children will join with other Year 6 students from our local Parish schools. The students will them come back to school to share their learning with the rest of Year 6. Thank you to Mr Brazel who will be accompanying them for this valuable learning

Catholic Education  Week

We are excited about being able to celebrate Catholic Education Week in Week 11 this term, with the theme for this year being ‘Innovation and Faith’. During Catholic Education Week we will also acknowledge St Agnes’ Feast Day which was held in the school holidays on 21 January as a school community.

Term 1 Class Representatives

Last Friday our Class Representatives for Term 1 received their badges. 

TAP-ITAS

TAP-ITAS will be the theme for this year's Project Compassion fundraising. Our aim is to help provide clean water for communities in Samoa. Project Compassion boxes have been distributed to each class. We invite students and families to donate money towards our TAP-ITAS fundraiser. Classrooms will display the amount of ‘raindrops’ they have contributed towards our office display in their windows. Click on the link for more details: https://vimeo.com/showcase/10792309/video/885024483 

P & F Meeting

We are so grateful for the many parents that joined us for our first meeting in 2024 on Monday evening. The staff room was buzzing with great energy and enthusiasm. Please see below for the P&F minutes.

Staff Professional Learning Day - Pupil Free Day

A reminder to all families that we have our first staff professional learning day on Friday 8 March. During this day, staff will be involved in further learning and unpacking of the Diocesan documents and information regarding Mission in our schools. This day will be a critical day of planning for our school Mission Review experience that is happening in Week 1, Term 2. As outlined in previous communication, child minding will be available for the day. A booking link will be provided to families in the newsletter next week. 

Additional experiences available to the children

This term, we have introduced additional options for the children before school and during Lunch 1 and Lunch 2. Please see the timetable attached so you can talk about these options with your child. 

Year 6 Extension Opportunity Success

Each year, our Diocese offers an extension opportunity for students in Years 5 and 6 to participate in English and Mathematics programs run by expert teachers in the Diocese. For Term 1 the option is available to students in Year 6. This year St Agnes’ submitted 15 students for consideration and were lucky enough to have 5 selected across both English and Mathematics. We are so proud of our students and excited for this wonderful opportunity for them. Our successful applicants were:

English:

Joe O’Brien and Emily Lonergan

Mathematics:

Theo Ding, Avinav Sivaraj and Ethan Favalaro

Come Read and Spell with Me

This week was the beginning of our Come Read and Spell with Me sessions for Years 3 and 4. We were so grateful to the people who joined us and hear all about the changes in the way that we teach reading and spelling, according to our new NSW curriculum which began this year for Years 3-6. We shared some positive ways that you can support your child with both reading and spelling and families had an opportunity to share in some of the activities with their child. We encourage all families to come along to one of our many sessions over the next few weeks. All of the sessions repeat the same content, so feel free to choose one that is convenient for you.

NAPLAN Adjustments

We are in the process of determining appropriate adjustments for students for NAPLAN and sending home the parent consent forms. If you receive one of these, please sign and return to school to enable us to provide the listed adjustment for your child during the NAPLAN testing period.

We remind families that if you have any questions or concerns about your child participating in NAPLAN, please contact your class teacher or Kate de Bressac at kate.debressac@lism.catholic.edu.au

Can all parents of students in Years 3 and 5 please ensure that their child has a working set of headphones at school.

Learning and teaching goal - To improve student outcomes in sentence structure

Did you know that our whole school goal for 2024 for learning and teaching is to improve our student outcomes in sentence structure. We are engaging in whole staff learning and explicit instruction of sentence level grammar in all grades that is aligned with our new K-6 English curriculum. We know that effective sentences are the building blocks to great writing and we look forward to sharing examples of our amazing work each week. This week, Year 1 have been reading “Under the Southern Cross” and writing their own descriptions of what happens under the southern cross. They have used wonderful nouns, verbs and adjectives to describe the characters in the sentences. We were so proud when they came to share their writing with us.

A4Art Launch

The Creative Arts Nest along with St Agnes’ Education is thrilled to announce the return of A4Art for its third year! The 2024 A4Art Prize aims to ignite creativity among young artists and staff across our six St Agnes’ Parish Schools.

Finalists' artworks will be featured in a travelling exhibition, providing emerging artists with the opportunity of showcasing their work. You all will once again have the opportunity to vote for your favourite artworks when the exhibition comes to our school.

With a prize pool of over $5000, including support from new sponsors such as Port Macquarie Surf School, Twotriplefour and Antonjia Gross Studios, along with returning sponsors such as Seed Creative, Drawn to Art, The Wauchope Creative Hub, Innervision Surf and Skate, Sunset Gallery, Alice in Paperland, Belle Property (Luminosity), Wildnets, and Stoney Aqua Park, artists have the chance to win some fantastic prizes.

Open to all students from Kindergarten to Year 12 along with staff, A4Art challenges participants to unleash their creativity on a single A4 piece of paper. Judges will strictly adhere to the listed conditions on the website, emphasising no cardboard backing, framing, or additional materials like clay—just pure creativity with that one piece of paper.

The A4ART Prize is officially open. Find more details on categories, prizes, and terms and conditions at artsnest.com.au. The countdown to creativity begins now! Please click on the link for more information as well as a registration form for your child's artwork - https://artsnest.com.au/

Kinder - Year 2 Pop Art A4 Art visit

School Counsellor

Sports News

Winter Sports Trials

On Monday 66 students participated in the Hastings Zone Winter Sports Trials. Students were competing for selection for the Diocesan Winter Trials in Soccer, Netball and Rugby League. The day started with sunshine and warm conditions but deteriorated through the morning. Unfortunately the soccer and league trials needed to be called off before final selections due to weather concerns, but convenors were able to select teams based on the trial matches in the morning. From the day, 12 students were selected for the Diocesan Trials in Grafton on Friday 8 March. Congratulations to the following students.

Stella Donohue - Netball
Mahli Forster - Netball
Josh Abraham - Soccer
Jade Johnson - Soccer
Jagga Smith - Soccer
Ruby Hagenbach - Soccer
Reagan Clark - League
Zane Bannon - League
Ryan Chilko - League
Harrison Joyce - League
Braxton Stewart - League
Oliver Wainwright - League

Henry Fryer and Flynn Wehlow are contesting the Diocesan AFL trials in Grafton today and we look forward to hearing how the day went. Our Rugby Union players will travel to Kemspey on Wednesday 28 February for their chance at Diocesan selection and Ethan Favaloro will travel to Grafton on Wednesday 6 March to participate in the Diocesan Hockey Trials. We wish all of our Athletes the best of luck at their individual events.

Zone Swimming 

On Tuesday the Zone Swimming Team travelled to Macksville for the Hasting Zone Swimming trials. 33 students from Years 2 - 6 participated in events on the day. The racing was fast and many of our students found themselves on the podium for their events. In total, 13 students qualified for the Diocese Swimming Carnival to be held in Macksville on Friday 1 March. Some standouts from the day were our junior boys relay team who won in an extremely tight race, and our senior girls who placed second by 0.03 seconds. Sophia Fox was the 11yrs Girls Champion and Miles Gardiner was the Junior Boys Age Champion Runner-Up. Congratulations to the following students heading to the Diocesan Carnival.

Sophia Fox - 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle, 50m breaststroke, 50m backstroke, 50m butterfly and senior girls relay
Jade Johnson - 50m freestyle, 50m breaststroke, 50m backstroke and senior girls relay
Lachlan Foley - 50m freestyle
Nicholas Bushe - 50m freestyle
Donimic Ritchie -50m freestyle and junior boys relay
Miles Gardiner - 50m freestyle, 50m butterfly and junior boys relay
Asha Walker - 50m freestyle 
Sienna Harrison - 50m breaststroke, 50m backstroke, 50m butterfly, 200m individual medley and senior girls relay
Charlie Haddon - 50m breaststroke
Kallan Ford - 50m backstroke
Eli McEntyre - Junior boys relay
Harry Power - Junior boys relay
Macy Cooper - Senior girls relay

Future Dates - Term 1

• Wednesday 28 February - Zone Rugby Union Trials, Kempsey
• Friday 1 March - Diocesan Swimming Carnival, Macksville
• Wednesday 6 March - Diocesan Hockey Trials, Grafton
• Friday 8 March - Diocesan Winter Sports Trials, Grafton (pupil free day)
• Tuesday 9 April - Polding AFL Trials, Newcastle
• Thursday 11 and Friday 12 March - NSW PSSA Swimming, Homebush Aquatic Centre

Positive Behaviour Support

This week our focus is on learning about how we can be respectful and responsible in our environment and the toilets. The purpose of our lesson this week was to provide students with an understanding of respectful, responsible, resilient and resolute behaviour in the toilet areas.

Responsible - I go to the toilet and then leave

Respectful -I stay out of the cubicle if someone is already there and I respect the privacy of others

Resilient-I have selfcontrol of my body and I tell a teacher if there is a problem in the toilet

Resolute - Reminding people to follow our 4 R’s

Parent Resources

P&F

Please click on the link to access the  minutes from Monday's P&F Meeting. 

Canteen News

Parish News

Community News