Filter Content
- Messages from the Principal
- COVID Update
- Sharing Food and Food Allergies
- Term 4 Events and Costs to Parents
- Uniforms
- Messages from the Assistant Principal
- RE News
- Aboriginal Education News
- Library News
- Persuasive Writing in Year 1
- Footy Finals Fever Raffle - last chance for tickets!
- P & F News - Tamburlaine Wine Drive
- Avalon's Sporting Achievement
- Parish Bulletin
- Athlete's Foot
- Children and Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum Online Seminar
- Why do Canteens Need to be Healthy?
- Healthy Lunch Box Website
- Sunsmart Snippet
- Saver Plus
- Cricket Blast
Term 4 has started very smoothly, and your beautiful children have returned ready to learn and work hard. On my walks and talks around the classrooms the children are all eager to share with me what they are learning and why, and how much they have improved in their own eyes in various areas such as maths, writing and reading. One area the teachers have noted for improvement, is in remembering to use the knowledge gained in spelling and punctuation and use it ALL THE TIME when writing. All too often the need to complete written tasks as quickly as possible results in poor spelling and simple punctuation mistakes. It is good being able to spell words correctly in a spelling test, but the skill only comes to fruition when words are spelt correctly in writing tasks. One very common mistake is using lower case i instead of upper case I when writing this pronoun. So, a little bit of work in the area of tenacity and precision when writing would be most beneficial to addressing careless errors.
So here’s to an amazing Term 4 where we work hard, achieve our PB in everything and celebrate everything we have achieved in this extraordinary year!
Mary-Anne Jennings
Principal
Last week we were alerted as to the small changes we can implement here on site at St Kevin’s. Not much will change, except for 2021 Kinder Transition. We can now have our new students visit us for transition days, but unfortunately this does not extend to the parents. Dates and times for these transition days have been sent to the 2021 Kinder parents, and we welcome them to our amazing community.
Our end of Year activities have not changed since the original COVID guidelines came into place. Speeches, awards and Nativity Play will all still go ahead but with no parent involvement or support. This has been a hard aspect of COVID to accept, as we are a school that thrives on parental involvement and support. We can’t raise and educate a child without the support of the whole community, and we are missing you at our various events and gatherings. So as these events happen in December we will take the photos and place them on our website and Facebook pages, so that you as parents can see what happened and hopefully feel a little bit connected to our community. Please keep an eye on the calendar page of the Newsletter for advance notice of end of year activities.
Sharing Food and Food Allergies
Sharing Food at School and Food Allergies COVID 19 restrictions state we can’t share food here at school. This includes birthday cakes, lollies drinks etc. All children can only eat what is provided for them in their own lunchboxes. So unfortunately this means no birthday cakes for children to share on their special day.
Questions have also been asked about peanut butter and other food allergens at school. We are a nut aware school but not a nut free school.We are an egg aware school but not an egg free school. We are a seafood aware school not a seafood free school. Staff are trained in anaphylaxis and are aware of all students with food allergies. Students are reminded to only eat food provided for them by their parents. We also ask that the parents of children who have food allergies remind them of the importance of only eating their food and not that of others. Our canteen foods are free from nuts and eggs, but not necessarily gluten free.
Term 4 Events and Costs to Parents
Saint Vincent De Paul Christmas Appeal
November 18 Out of Uniform– cash donation. Raffle tickets sent home for Christmas raffle drawn November 27. Tickets $1.
COVID restricted Swimming Carnival
November 24 Swimming Carnival for Years 3- 6 plus proficient 50m swimmers in Years 1 and 2. Cost $15 per students approximately.
Fun Sports Day
Week 9 or 10 – awaiting confirmation date. Whole school to participate in fun sport activities promoting teamwork and resilience and FUN. Cost $12 per child.
School Swimming Carnival
Our swimming carnival for 2020 can proceed but with restrictions. It is on November 24. Unfortunately, we cannot have any parents assist or watch their children swim on the day. The venue is for staff and students only.
All students in Years 3-6 will attend. Students in Years 1 and 2 who are proficient 50m swimmers are invited to submit a request to participate, nominating where they currently attend swimming club or lessons and identifying which swimming strokes they can swim 50m proficiently. All other Year 1 and 2 students will remain at school on that day.
All students will travel to and from the event in a bus. Parents cannot drive their children to and from the event due to social distancing requirements at the venue.
Please order your summer uniforms for 2021. Kim Ragen is the person to contact on a Monday or a Wednesday for uniform enquiries.
Messages from the Assistant Principal
Dear Parents,
This week our school leadership team attended our follow up session via zoom (all the way from Canada!) facilitated by Dr Lyn Sharratt, based around the “14 Parameters”. These parameters have been embraced by all schools across our Diocese and highlight the learning progression of each child based on data informed learning.
The Leading Learning Collaborative has taken our focus on learning to significant new levels by:
- Having systems and schools working together with a clear focus and common parameters
- Utilising a data-informed approach to learning enhancement
- Recognising leadership in learning is a key role for each of us
We were proud of our work here at St Kevin’s in continuing to develop our school as a true Professional Learning Community (PLC) with a common goal of increasing students’ achievement through collaboration, building collective capacity and embedding a common language of school improvement.
This year our school is participating in Socktober to kick some goals for kids in need around the world.
To help them join in the fun and make a difference, please register your child as a Socktober Star today, and start them on their mission journey. As of this morning we have 21 students registered and $1083 raised already. What a phenomenal effort. So please join in and help us make a difference!
Children to wear free dress, ensuring they are wearing a closed in shoe suitable for kicking soccer balls.
Students will be engaged in a variety of activities throughout the day including : the socktober challenge, fun sport activities, liturgy, mission awareness and normal classroom routines.
The children enjoyed listening to the Creation story ‘Why the Emu Cannot Fly’. The text and illustrations are by Margaret Adams, a Kamilaroi woman from Moree. Her family totems are the goanna, the native bee and the carpet snake.
Margaret learned this story from her mother’s family and her storytelling is a continuation of the Dreaming of her people. ‘Why the Emu Cannot Fly’ tells about how people looked upon the Emu for many things. One of them was for protecting a tribe at night. The Emu would fly up to the top of the highest tree and warn its tribe if danger was coming.
One time, many people of the tribe went away on a big walkabout and Emu was left to look after the rest. Everything was going good, until another tribe came in. The Emu’s tribe were all sleeping… and so was Emu. He should have been watching. Many people of the Emu’s tribe were killed. When the others returned and found out what happened, they were very annoyed. They lit fire onto a candle stick and burnt Emu’s wings. From that day on, the Emu would never fly again.
The message in the story is clear. Be vigilant and look after your mob, otherwise bad things may happen. We can apply this to many situations in life, including the current pandemic and the need to do all the things that keep us safe. It is worth noting that Aboriginal communities have been extremely good at this, especially in outback, remote areas. They have kept their mobs safe by communicating the health messages to their people and ensuring their communities are protected by having restriction zones around them. In effect, lockdown and ring-fencing to keep the virus out, while ensuring they have enough food, water and other provisions.
The Emu - Dhinawen was very special to the Kamilaroi people because it was talked about in Dreaming stories. The emu is depicted in cave paintings and rock shelters, and around sacred sites. The Dhinawen were hunted for food then cooked on very hot coals and shared among the group. They were danced about in the Corroboree. The Dhinawen feathers were made into shoes, put on ceremony headdress and belts and used around sacred objects. (from the Aboriginal Literacy Resource Kit).
.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
National NAIDOC Week 2020 celebrations will be held from 8-15 November.
Planning is underway for our school celebration of NAIDOC Week this term.
More information soon.
Stay safe, and look after your mob.
Phil Taylor
Aboriginal Education Teacher
Thank you for our wonderful Book Week celebrations. Students and teachers had a fantastic time dressing up as their favourite book characters, curious creatures and wild minds. The money raised by the book fair is still being tallied and we greatly appreciated everyone who purchased items to raise money for our library revamp. Can’t wait to do it all again next year!
Year 1 have been learning all about writing Persuasive texts this term. This is our Persuasive Text Bump it Up Wall which shows us how to achieve AMAZING writing goals.
First, we brainstormed lots of topics. Our favourite was to write a class letter to Mrs Jennings convincing her to allow us to have a special HOT CHIPS treat on Friday.
We started by making a plan… Mrs Boudan’s drawings make us giggle!
Then we turned our plan into a letter with 3 strong arguments for why we should be allowed to have hot chips on Friday. We all signed the letter and put it into an envelope with a special stamp and delivered it to Mrs Jennings in her office!
Did we manage to convince Mrs Jennings to let us have hot chips?
Keep your eyes on Facebook to find out!
Footy Finals Fever Raffle - last chance for tickets!
FOOTY FINALS FEVER
SIGNED NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS JERSEY
St Kevin’s have been very lucky to receive from the Newcastle Knights a signed jersey to raffle. A book of ten tickets has been sent home to each family to sell. Tickets are $1 each. Extra books are available through the school office or you can purchase last minute tickets via Eftpos by phoning the office on 4954 0036. Raffle will be drawn on Friday afternoon at 2pm. The winners will be notified via Compass and Facebook. Good luck everyone!!
P & F News - Tamburlaine Wine Drive
Thank you to the St. Kevin’s school community, the P&F netted a profit of over $980. A fabulous effort. Cheers!
On 3rd October, year 6 student Avalon participated in the NSW Figure Skating Championships held at the Hunter Ice Skating Stadium. Avalon is coached by Kailani Craine, 6 x Australian national champion and 2018 winter Olympian. After the competition, Kailani stated, '"Avalon was very successful in achieving this year's skating goals which included beating her Personal Best".