As we reach the end of another vibrant and productive term, I want to take a moment to reflect on the incredible achievements and milestones we have accomplished together.  This newsletter is a bumper issue with reflections from our Primary students about activities they have engaged in. 

This term has been bustling with activities, from academic pursuits to extracurricular engagements. Our students have shown remarkable dedication and resilience, excelling in various fields. Whether it was in the classroom, on the sports field, or through STEM and creative arts, the enthusiasm and hard work of our students have been truly inspiring. 

I am proud to highlight some of our key achievements this term: 

• Academic Excellence: Our students have continued to perform exceptionally well in their studies, with many achieving top marks and receiving accolades in various competitions. 

• Sports and Extracurricular Activities: We have engaged in a host of gala days and have seen outstanding performances in sports, with several individuals making it to the next level in sporting pathways. We have 2 students shine in Aspire, motivating others to audition for 2025. Our Digitial Technologies Club and Choir have been active, providing students with opportunities to explore their interests and develop new skills. We have also launched our Imagination Station to provide students with a variety of activities at lunch time 

• Community Engagement: Our school community has come together to raise funds to create additional developed space for play and we have begun the launch of our Socktober appeal, demonstrating the values of empathy and social responsibility. 

I want to extend my best wishes to all our students and their families.  As we embark on this holiday break, we thank God for the blessings of this past term. We ask for God’s protection and guidance for our students, staff, and their families during this time of rest. May this holiday be filled with joy, peace, and safety. Help us to return refreshed and ready to embrace the new challenges and opportunities that await us in the coming term. 

I would also like to express my gratitude to our dedicated staff and supportive parents. Your unwavering commitment and partnership have been instrumental in creating a nurturing and stimulating environment for our students. 

Thank you all for your hard work and contributions this term. I am excited about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in the next term. Together, we will continue to strive for excellence and make our school a place where everyone can thrive. 

Wishing you all a wonderful and safe holiday! God Bless!

Kim Hogan

Co-Principal / Assistant Principal

Please note that weeks 1 and 2 are correct at time of publishing. Weeks 3-10 are subject to change.

Welcome to the end of Week 10! The end of this term closes what has been a very busy term in for both school and home activities. The culmination of footy, soccer and netball finals have brought a buzz to the playground and, of course, some healthy rivalry for those following the Aussie teams in finals. Mrs Arthur is pumped for the AFL Grand Final on the weekend … Up the Swannies!

Students in all grades this week have been working hard to maintain learning behaviours, collaborative skills, positive relationships and general rule following. Teachers have been tasked with issuing as many raffle tickets they can to acknowledge student behaviour efforts. On Friday afternoon, student raffle tickets will go into the giant raffle bucket and FOUR students will have their names drawn and be given a “Holiday Pack” prize!

Intensive Swimming:

Each year St Kevin’s students from K-6 participate in an intensive swimming programme. For most students, the routines for Intensive Swimming will be very familiar. Intensive Swimming will occur in Weeks 8 and 9 leading up to our St Kevin’s Swimming Carnival on Friday Week 9 (13^th December) at Speers Point Pool. We invite our families to attend the swimming carnival, but parents are not required/permitted at the pool during intensive swimming.

As a staff, we assist swim instructors through supervision and safe management/routines within the pool area. We cannot dress/undress students at the pool. Please consider your child’s independence in this space and start to prepare them for the self-care routines they’ll need to independently undertake during the programme. Many families found success in zippered swimsuits for younger children as they were more manageable to remove when wet.

Students may wear their sports uniform daily during this period.

Students are required to have the following items every day:

• School hat
• Sunscreen
• Long sleeved swim shirt
• Swimsuit
• Towel
• Underwear
• Self-care items such as hairbrush and hair ties for long hair.
• Slides/thongs for the pool and change rooms.
• Fruit break/Lunch box with snack
• Water bottles

Students must have these items daily and are not permitted to attend swimming without them.

Colour Run Update

Please keep an eye out for update Colour Run information as we move towards our Colour Run date of Friday 29^th November. Information will be available to families early Term 4 through Compass Events. Your assistance in consenting to this event before its closure date is greatly appreciated.

Can you volunteer your time? If so, please ensure your volunteer status is up to date with the CSO so that we can add you to our list of helpers! Spectators are welcome irrespective of volunteer status. We can’t wait to see you there!

On the day of the colour run, students will be given a set of sunnies and a headband to wear. We ask families to provide their child/children with a plain white t-shirt and white/light coloured shorts.

Further information and correspondence regarding volunteers’ stations, BBQ lunch, cake stalls and fun stations will be issued next term.

Ecumenical Season of Creation

As we approach the end of September, faith traditions call upon everyone to be part of the call to care for Creation. The Ecumenical Season of Creation begins on September 1 and finishes at the end of September, leading us towards the Feast of St Fransis of Assisi.

On my recent trip to Hawaii one of the locals made a statement that rang true in so many ways. They ask when you arrive in Hawaii to leave it better than you found it. Not the same, but better. This applies to the notion that by learning about culture, learning about the environment and the native flora and fauna, our knowledge allows us to leave it better. I think the same thing applies to stewardship in our own communities and cultures. Our ongoing connection to our environment, learning more about sustainability and ecology, respecting our first landowners we can continue to leave our environment better than we found it.

Faith Life, Catholic Identity and the Liturgical Season

On Friday 20^th September, Years 1 & 2 led the school in liturgy celebrating the ecumenical Season of Creation. We tuned in to hear ‘the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’ and reflected the effects of climate change, acting as seeds of hope for change and appreciating the life and world God created for us.

Our next school liturgy will be held in Week 2 on the 25/10/24.

Sacramental News

We congratulate our Sacramental Program students who completed their First Holy Communion on Sunday 22^nd September at St Kevin’s Church. This was the final Sacrament of Initiation for these students and marks a significant milestone in their spiritual journey. A big thank you to Fr Joseph who led the Mass and distributed the Body of Christ to these students for the first time.

The students who received the First Eucharist on Sunday are:

Zahli (Year 5) 

Harper (Year 4) 

Landon (Year 4) 

Julia (Year 4) 

Arabella (Year 4) 

Zion (Year 4) 

Angus (Year 4) 

Mission and Justice

During the holidays we enter October, the month of Mary and Mission Month. St Kevin’s are working with Catholic Mission to hold a Socktober event on Friday 18^th October (Term 4, Week 1). Socktober uses the universal love of soccer to bring schools together to recognise, raise awareness and support families across the world experiencing poverty. This year the focus is Mongolia.

In preparation for this, the St Kevin’s Mission team, accompanied by Miss Brownlow went to McDonald Jones Stadium for the Socktober Launch Day on 17^th September. This was an exciting day where students had the opportunity to participate in prayer, learn more about the harsh living conditions in Mongolia, show off their soccer skills in a variety of drills and mingle with other schools in the diocese who are also getting involved to ‘kick goals for Mongolia’.

Our Socktober event day (18/10/24) is an exciting opportunity for students to learn more about why Mongolia need our support, as well as making sock balls to put themselves in the shoes...and socks...of those in need. The Mission Team is encouraging all students to begin collecting old clothes (T-shirts, socks etc.), recyclable bags and string to make their sockballs on the day. These will be used for fun activities while wearing crazy socks! If you would like to donate to this cause, please scan the QR code below.

Miss Brownlow

Acting Religious Education Coordinator

Kaayi (Hello – Awabakal)

Yaama Ngindaay (Hello everyone - Gamilaraay)

Nungamanladi (Hello - Bardi)

Te bandola nginak (Hello, how are you? – Yorta Yorta)

In a few of the newsletters from last year I presented two Awabakal Dreaming stories - Malangbula – The Petrified Women of Swansea Heads, and When the Moon Cried and Formed Belmont Lagoon.

There was also some information on Mt Sugarloaf, which the Awabakal people called Warrawelong.

The children enjoy these Dreaming stories as they learn more about Awabakal people, language and culture. These were passed on from generation to generation verbally so that everyone could learn from and understand the underlying messages and explanations of how things came to be.

How Coal was Made

The Awabakal people had been burning coal in the area for a very long time. Here is their Dreaming story about how coal was made.

The Awabakal people spoke of a volcanic eruption that occurred during the Dreaming, in the area now known as Redhead. An ancient volcanic plug is believed to exist in the Redhead area. The Awabakal name of this volcano is Kintiiyirapiin.

A long time ago a great darkness came over the land. The darkness came from a hole in a mountain and blocked out the sunlight. The people and animals were all very frightened.

Messengers were sent out to gather up the people to have a yarn about how they could bring back the sunlight. The elders decided that they needed to cover up the darkness that was all over the ground. The men, women and children collected rocks, sand, branches and bark which they laid on the ground to cover up the thick darkness.

After the darkness was covered many generations walked on the ground pressing the earth flames and darkness together, which created coal or nikkin in Awabakal.

Now when coal is burnt the ancient earth fire spirit is released.

Text reproduced with permission

©Miromaa ALTC, Awabakal Language Program

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday break.

Gaba Nginda Yaluu (Good You, Later)

Phil Taylor

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Teacher

Thank you for those families who have finalised their fees, or are continuing to make regular school fee payments. We are nearing the end of the year and there are only two months before fees are due on the 30 November 2024. Unless you have made prior fee agreements with the school, all fees are expected to be finalised by this date. Now is the time to check that your fee paymnets are going to cover your remaining balance by the due date. Year 6 students need to have their fees finalised before a fee clearance can be given to their high school for year 7 enrolment. 

Any family experiencing geniune financial hardship are encouraged to make an appointment with Mrs Hogan or Mrs Jennings to discuss an alternative arrangement that is mutually suitable. Should you wish to discuss your fees or need assistance working out repayment amounts, please contact Kirrily Corbett.

Making the Polding cricket team

Hi my name is Jonathan, I’m in Year 6.  Wednesday, last week, Mum and I packed our bags and headed for a road trip, all the way to Lismore. First stop: Wauchope, a 2hr 43min drive(233.9 km). When we got there, we visited my aunty and uncle’s house for the day and stayed the night. What 12 year old kid could resist the attraction of the pool,  I jumped straight in for an afternoon swim. After a nice dinner and sitting around the fire, I went to bed.

Next stop Yamba! It’s a small town on the east coast of Australia. About 3hrs and 10 min away from Wauchope. My mum and I stopped at my Aunty Joy’s house for lunch and of course, Mum had a cup of tea. After eating some delicious apple turnover, we headed north singing along to Spotify.

After a total of 6hr and 20 min of driving I stayed at Ballina at my cousin’s house, about 25 mins away from Lismore. We had tacos for dinner, which was great, and I teased my cousin’s about the Roosters flogging the Sea Eagles (Sea Eagles fans- yuk!). Next morning, I woke up, got changed into my cricket whites and did some stretches. The drive to Lismore felt like forever.  I had stomach bugs when I got to the ground. I started at the nets first, I picked up my ball and bowled. I felt a rush of emotions when I ran with the wind at my back - it was awesome. After a lot of bowling, I had to gear up for batting. I had remembered what my dad told me before we left for the journey, and I batted really well. After lunch some more batting, bowling and centre wicket practice.

Then it was time for selection. “Do you think I did good enough Mum, do you think I made it?” Tension was intense, I waited nervously for them to call my bib (Black #19) They told us they were selecting 12 players for the team and after 9 people had been called out without them saying my name, they called out “black 12, black…”

“BLACK #19!”  I had made it! The Selectors then they gave me the note saying, “congrats on being selected for the Polding cricket team you are advancing to the NSWPSSA, then I shook hands with my mum and the players. I’m going to State Championships! I’m going to Armidale on the 15^th October. Yeah,  another long drive but … it will be worth it.

Jonathan S

Science Discovery Day

Elliana, Year 6

The Science and Discovery Day was an amazing experience. It allows students (aged Year 5-6) to learn all about engineering and how machines work properly in a fun and engaging way. Our school competed against eight other schools and multiple activities. My group did an activity where you must create a schedule but there were rules around where you could put the time slots. It was displayed with coloured blocks and no colour could be the same in one row. Our group made it to the third challenge. The other activity we did was an earthquake simulator. We had to make a tower that would withstand an earthquake and weights on top. The only materials we could use were paper, cardboard and straws. Thank you to San Clemente for hosting the Science and Discovery Day.

Zara, Year 6

The Science and Engineering discovery day is an awesome opportunity for students in year 5-6 to discover how to apply themselves to push to their limits. It consists of many schools all over the diocese coming together at San Clemente to create things like machines and work out how they can use things as simple as a few pieces of paper and paddle pop sticks to make a bridge or a working fan head. My group’s task was to use cardboard, paddle pop sticks, tape and skewers to attach to a fan head that would use wind power to make it spin. A small dial on the bottom of the outer pipe calculated how many rotations the fan head spun in 20 seconds. The aim of the task was for each team to work together and make a fan head that would not blow to the side, fall apart or spin slowly. Each team from all the schools got a score on each activity in which the scores would be calculated to find the winning school.

Congratulations to St Kevin’s Primary School for being the CHAMPION SCHOOL once again. First place, yeah!

Digital technologies, is an after school club we do with Mrs Hogan in the library and it is only $60 for 2 terms that’s 20 weeks, Even better, we get stuff like DC motors and lights, cables and batteries! So, here are our reasons why Digital Technologies is the best because we learn how to make circuits, we learn how to code robots, and we do competitions.

Firstly, we learn how to make electric circuits like use crocodile clips to connect the batteries to the lights to turn them on. Also, we used it to get a motor to spin a cut-outs – like a fan, my sister even attached origami. After that we had to make more complex lighting .

Secondly, we learn how to code robots. It’s so fun to code robots because once you code it, in one of click of a button the robot moves! We coded the Lego Mindstorms, and we had to get them to go around an object. In Digital Technologies this year we also coded Spheros, little spheres  that you can drive and code.

Finally, we do competitions on Scratch, making interactive games and stories.  We had a competition and the children with the most votes got a Roblox gift card (but we didn’t know that when we started, it was a surprise).

Can’t wait to next Year…

Joseph Z and Henry (Year 3)

Marble runs

Today year 4 have been working on their marble runs.

Here is what some of the wonderful year 4 has done so far. 

Year 4 started doing their marble runs on Wednesday. Their goal was to create a marble run that changes direction 3 times, and changes speed at least once. They can use a lever, pulley and an inclined plane. They used all sorts of objects like Velcro dots, bubble wrap, cardboard rolls, Lego and boxes. bubble wrap, cardboard rolls, Lego and boxes

We have worked very hard on these marble runs and we have come very far seeing as we only had the end of Wednesday and Thursday.

By: Arabella, Ariana, Poppy and Olivia.

Tournament of the Minds Report

Credits to Louis & Lukas from Yr 5

What it’s about

Tournament of the Minds is an intriguing activity where years 4 to 6 can participate in a competition against other schools. Tournament of the Minds consists of two challenges; spontaneous challenge and the long-term challenge, which are all hosted by Newcastle Grammar School. The Spontaneous challenge is a 5-minute trial which aims to improve teamwork, and quick thinking. The Long-Term challenge includes 4 diverse topics where your team of 7 students undertake a project: either STEM, The Arts, Language Literature or Social Sciences over 6 weeks and present on the TOM day. 

What we did

Since it was all our first time, our team (Lukas S. Louis W. Susan L. Callan N. Arrabella M. Julia M. and Oliver B.) kept on arguing over what we should do. So, we wasted two weeks of the four to prepare trying to decide what to do. After carefully monitoring our strengths and weaknesses, we established roles and chose a topic to do STEM. Susan L. (the manager/ machine maker) Callan N. (The prop maker) Julia M. (the prop maker) Arabella M. (prop maker) Olliver B. (script writer/prop maker) Lukas S. (prop maker/machine builder) Louis W. (prop maker/script writer/machine builder) After we had established our roles, we decided to bring in materials from home instead of buying them because we had a strict budget of $75. We didn’t want to waste any of the budget because we would get more points if we spent less money. (We’ll delve into the scoring system a bit later) our machine was a prototype to clean rubbish from the ocean, and consisted of three main parts, the pool noodles, the ockey straps and the sail. Of course, we bought the pool noodles but the ockey straps and the sail were from Susan’s house. We made the sail out of a pillowcase, that we cut up into a sail. We also had a television made from cardboard and painted black, on which the backdrop beach setting would sit.

What we did on the day

When the day came (8^th of September) we arrived at the host school (Newcastle Grammar school) and met up with our team. The first challenge was the Long-term challenge, which we had to perform in a 3m x 3m area on stage, in their theatre/auditorium room. After, we were asked some questions about our machine, and how we had planned with careful consideration of the challenge question. After the challenge ended at around 10:00am, we went into the Spontaneous challenge room, where we had to keep the challenge topic secret. The challenge was -what the sign meant; code navy blue – “Go this way!” We thought this meant a celebration for the team ‘Navy Blue’ who supposedly won the Grand final for NRL. Then, at quarter to 12, we went home. 

What we thought afterwards

We thought this was a great learning experience for everyone, improving our growth mindset, our teamwork and our perspective on rubbish polluting the environment. The Tournament of the Minds is an activity open to Years  4-6. Looking back, there are many people in this school that are fitted with the mindset of TOM. It is a great experience to make your kids smarter to get them ready for high school So, get your kids to sign up whenever possible!