Our Faith Community

Religious Education News                    

Term 4 at St Patrick’s will be filled with opportunities for students, parents, younger siblings & our extended community to come together in the spirit of our motto “To Love is to Serve.”

Weeks 2 - 4     Mission Stalls & Socktober

This week, we enjoyed our first mission stall. At St Pat’s, mission stalls are organised using house teams. Green hosted this week, followed by Gold house on Tuesday, 21/10, then Red on 29/10. On the 29th, we will also support Caritas with Crazy Sock Day.  Our annual Socktober soccer activities will take place during recess. 

Mission stalls are a long-held tradition in Catholic schools in our diocese. Raising awareness and money, we acknowledge how lucky we are to live in the circumstances that we do while learning about the work carried out by Catholic organisations such as Caritas.

Week 5   Remembrance Day

A special service will be held at school on Remembrance Day to pray for those involved in war, past and present. We connect with our wider community on this day, sharing sacred time and rituals.

Week 8 - 10    Advent Assemblies & Advent Family Session

Week 8 is our first Advent assembly.  Advent officially begins on Sunday, 30th of November, 2025.  This marks the start of a new Church year.  Because school finishes before Christmas, we begin our Advent preparations a little earlier. Over 4 weeks we gather at our Friday assemblies as a school community in preparation for the celebration of the birth of the Christchild.    

On Friday, the 28th of November, we invite family members to join us as we take a breath and prepare for the business ahead.  We will spend about an hour before assembly focusing on the true spirit of Christmas.  Parents, grandparents, and other family members are warmly invited to join us as we complete a simple Advent activity and enjoy each other’s company.  We will then join together as a whole school for our first Advent assembly.

Week 10    End of School Year Mass & Graduation Ceremony

We come together officially for our End of Year Mass on Tuesday, the 9th of December, 2025. Following our liturgy,  we will have our traditional graduation ceremony in the Cathedral hall.  If your family would like to participate in this liturgy, please message me at kfinn@spballarat.catholic.edu.au. We would love to include as many families as possible.

Week 11  Last day of school.   Nativity Assembly

What a beautiful way to round out our school year!  We look forward to sharing the Nativity story as portrayed in a prayerful way by the youngest students in our school.

Phew…. If you’re still reading this, I’m impressed.  Back to Week 3! Next Wednesday, the senior students will have their focus clearly on how we as a community are striving to live our motto, “To Love is to Serve.”  They will have an opportunity to gather away from school, to ‘retreat’ into a different space and way of thinking as they reflect, pray, create, and share their thoughts to bring our motto to life.  All members of our community are welcome to join us for a liturgy in the Cathedral at 2 pm to finish off our special day.

Yours in solidarity with all members of our community, near and far

Kathy Finn

Religious Education Leader

St Patrick's Primary School