Newsletter - 2025 Term 1 Week 1

Calendar

From the Leaders

In this Sunday’s Gospel reading, Luke tells us of the call of Simon the fisherman. Many of the apostles were called in interesting ways and called out of their ordinary activities. After fishing all night and catching nothing. Jesus suggests that Simon lower his nets again. This time he caught heaps of fish. Jesus invites Simon and other apostles to leave their profession and follow him. We are also called to follow Jesus in our words and actions every day. 

Welcome Back

We are excited to welcome everyone back to the 2025 school year. Hopefully you all had a wonderful Christmas and got to enjoy time with family and friends during the school holiday break. This year our whole school values of faith, hope and love will continue to guide all of our interactions.

In line with our mission of ‘Enabling our students to achieve the fullness of life”, we will continue to strive for academic excellence and social and emotional well-being for our students, while looking through a lens of equity and inclusion. 

We would like to welcome all of our new families, whether you are joining us from another school in the area or have relocated from another city, state, or country. We are excited to share with you all that the St Agnes’ School Community has to offer and believe you will soon feel as we do, Aggies is a special place for all children. Our educators, support staff, families, and other education partners are ready to welcome you into the school community. It has been lovely hearing about holiday news and adventures from students and families. We look forward to a positive partnership with all Aggies Community members.

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We also welcome previous and new staff to St Agnes’ Primary and look forward to students and families getting to know all of the talented and dedicated staff working with our students in 2025, especially those being introduced below.

Kassi Gilmour - Year 2 Teacher, Cassie Joyce - Canteen Coordinator, Adrian Nalletamby - Year 6 Teacher, Laura Stapleton - Year 3 Teacher and Sammy Walters - Leader of Pedagogy

Mathematics Assessment Interviews

It has been wonderful to see so many smiling faces back this week for our MAI’s Screenings. We appreciate all of the families who made the effort to book in and bring their children to these important appointments. The data that we collect during this time is so valuable to us when planning learning experiences. We are so excited to begin our year of learning. 

Help Your Child Have a Positive Start to the Year by Building the Habit of Good Attendance

Building the habit of good attendance is crucial for a positive and successful school year. Here are some tips to help your child develop this habit:

• Establish a Routine. Set a consistent daily routine for your child, including wake-up times, breakfast, and a specific time to leave for school. Having a predictable schedule helps your child understand the importance of punctuality.
• Create a Positive Morning Environment. Make mornings enjoyable by creating a positive atmosphere at home. Encourage open communication and express your enthusiasm for the day ahead. 
• Establish Clear Expectations. Clearly communicate your expectations regarding attendance and emphasise the importance of being present at school every day unless there's a valid reason for absence.

Help your child establish a positive and consistent attendance habit, setting the foundation for a successful 2025 school year. 

St Agnes' Primary School Uniform Expectations

As we start our new school year, we look forward to working in partnership with students, families and the community.

Please find attached the visual that has been handed to students at their MAI interviews outlining uniform expectations. This is not new information as it has been shared regularly in newsletters and is found in the handbook online. Thank you for your support in ensuring students wear their uniform correctly. 

Liturgy of the Word - St Agnes' Feast Day

Everyone is welcome to attend our Celebration to ask for God’s blessings for the 2025 school year on Friday 21 February from 9:30am to 10:30am.

During this celebration, our School Captains, SRC and House Captains will receive their badges. We will also acknowledge our Class Representatives for this year. Parents or carers of each of these children are invited to join us to put on their badges.

Home Reading is Getting Ready to Begin for 2025!

All of the grades are preparing to send out home reading information and to begin to send home reading material. In Kindergarten, at present, the focus at home is on reading quality literature to and with your child, and Kindergarten will commence formal home reading later in the term or early Term 2. 

Beginning next week, we will be sending our home reading diaries as well as some optional homework activities that link to the current learning in English. Home reading is supposed to be easy, children should be developing their fluency, comprehension and love of stories. Our main message is that “number level books” do not matter. These books have all been pooled as resources for children to choose from, please disregard the old numbers as they are not intended for the same purpose that they were previously. You may also hear your child or teacher talking about “decodables”. These reading books have a series of words that are easy for children to “decode” or sound out all of the words using their taught strategies. These are used in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 only until children are able to successfully blend and segment words and understand the alphabetic principle in order to read more independently. Children who can do this are able to choose their readers. Home reading should also always include quality literature. The vocabulary, comprehension and enjoyment that comes from these texts are essential for their little minds. 

Please be aware that some children in Year 3 and 4 may currently still require the use of decodable texts as their syllabus for learning to read has only just changed so they are getting used to a new way of learning that fits the most updated evidence base. During your family meet and greet times, we will provide all families in Stage 2 with a bookmark that will guide you on how to support your child if they are unsure of a word when reading.

K-2 will send home their reading diaries from Monday to Monday each week. This change was greatly received by our parents last year as it means you as a family have the flexibility to decide which nights suit you. Kindergarten teachers have already told families that we are not sending books or readers yet. Years 1 and 2 will have two decodable readers and a rich literature text. As discussed earlier, re-reading each book for fluency practice will help your child to progress their reading skills.

Years 3-6 will also send home their reading diaries across a 7 day period. Although the day may differ slightly depending on some timetables, your family will also have the same flexibility. We still require home reading for every child, we are simply responding to the feedback from families, that some nights are just too difficult, however, the weekend is often a positive time for families to engage with a book.

Pastoral Care Processes

We have a high number of families making requests for external therapy providers to come during school hours. Please know that we understand how challenging it is to find time for these appointments, however, our number one priority is always engaging all students in their school based learning. If you are seeking this support, we ask that you email a request to pmaca-inclusion@lism.catholic.edu.au . We no longer have an internal space that is not used on any day of the week, so these are becoming increasingly difficult to honour. Where possible, we ask families to make arrangements for appointments outside of school hours, however, if this is not possible, we may only have shared learning spaces available for therapy. If a more quiet, private space is required, then school may not be the best place for this therapy to take place. Please contact the office if you have any questions or concerns.

Traffic Information

Pastoral Care

Sports News

School Swimming Trials - Wauchope

Yesterday, our Aggies swimmers showcased their skills at the Wauchope pool, competing for a spot in the upcoming Zone Swimming Carnival. Students participated in various events, including freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and the 4x50m individual medley. The competition was intense, with plenty of fast-paced action in the water. Once again, the Aggies' strong spirit and sportsmanship were standout highlights of the day.

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Basketball Polding Summer Sports Trials - Tamworth

This week, two Year 6 students, Mila S and Emily K, are competing in the Basketball Summer Sports Trials in Tamworth. We wish them the best of luck and look forward to hearing the results. Congratulations to both girls on their achievements in basketball so far!

Zone Winter Sports Trials

In Week 3, Students in Years 5 and 6 will have the opportunity to compete at the Hasting Zone Winter Sports Trials for Netball, Soccer, Rugby League and Hockey. The trials will be held on Monday 17 February. Netball is at the Port Macquarie Indoor Stadium, Hockey is at the Port Macquarie Hockey Fields and Soccer and Rugby League are at St Joseph's Regional College.

AFL was announced through the newsletter last term. Trials for AFL begin at a Diocesan level. Any students wishing to compete at the AFL selection on Friday 21 February need to email andrew.wilson@lism.catholic.edu.au for signup information.

Again this year, the Diocese is running the Rugby League and Rugby Union separately, so students have the opportunity to compete in both sports. Rugby Union trials will be in Kempsey on Wednesday 9 April.

Future Dates

2025

Term 1

• Friday 7 February - Polding Basketball Summer Sports Trials - Tamworth
  
• Monday 17 February - Hastings Zone Winter Sports Trials - Port Macquarie (Rugby League, Netball, Soccer, Hockey)
• Tuesday 18 February - Hastings Zone Swimming Trials - Macksville
• Friday 21 February - Diocesan AFL Trials - Grafton
• Monday 3 March - Diocesan Hockey Winter Sports Trials - Grafton
• Tuesday 4 March - Diocesan Swimming Trials - Murwillumbah
• Friday 7 March - Diocesan Winter Sports Trials - Grafton (Rugby League, Netball, Soccer)
• Friday 28 March - School Cross Country Carnival
• Wednesday 9 April - Zone Winter Sports Trials - Rugby Union - Kempsey

Term 2

• Wednesday 7 May - Hastings Zone Cross Country - Kempsey

Positive Behaviour Support

Welcome to a new year and a fresh new start. This week our focus has been on learning about our whole school expectations on wearing our uniform. When we wear the correct uniform we are being responsible and respectful. We also have been learning about wearing our school hats at all times when outside at school. 

It has been great to see how many Dojo points the students have been receiving for recognition of making good choices and following our school expectations of being Respectful, Responsible, Resilient and Resolute. At St Agnes’ each class has a dojo page where all students are acknowledged for following our 4R’s.  

Canteen News

Parish News

Community News

Shine

Welcome to a new year of Shine after school program. As our wonderful, talented and creative leader of this program is on leave from our school community this year I feel very excited to be taking over the facilitating of this after school program at St Agnes’. Whether you are a new family to our school community or a current family and you would like your child to be part of this after school program, please see the attached form. This program will be starting next week and will continue to be run each Thursday afternoon after school. I am very excited to be taking this on this year and I look forward to offering a great service and opportunity for our students at St Agnes’.