Dear Parents and Carers,

I would like to welcome you all to the new school year. 2024 is shaping up to be a very exciting time for our community. I am very much looking forward to the opportunities that Term 1 will bring.

Prep 2024 Sudents

I would like to formally welcome our 64 new Prep Students to St. Patrick's Community (across 3 classes). Their first day of school will be Monday 5th February (half day) and then they will be full time from Tuesday 6th February. My thanks to our amazing Prep team - Mrs Ady, Miss Murnane and Mrs Thorley for the many hours of work that have gone into individually testing the children this week and preparing them for their first day of Primary school next week. Special thanks also to our LSO team for their dedication and support to our students as well.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Miss Eloise Verstoep (Now Mrs Pearson - Year 3EP) who was married over the summer holidays. We wish her and her husband Adam all the best for the coming years. Congratulations also to Miss Stephanie Murnane (Prep SM) who became engaged over the summer holidays to her partner Luke. Special congratulations to Mrs Maria Scalzo (Year 4MS) who became a grandmother for the first time over the summer holidays as well. Baby Chloe is doing very well.

Condolences

Our deepest condolences go to Mrs Christine McMahon (Office) on the recent passing of her father. Our prayers go to her, and her family during this very difficult time.

Staffing Changes for 2024

Ms Jennifer Smith will be taking Term 1, 2024 as Long Service Leave. She is scheduled to return to St. Patrick's community in the second week of Term 2. Mrs Bianca Latto (Year 2) will take over the Leadership position of Literacy Leader for Term 1 and Mrs Joelle Diakrousis (Deputy Principal) will take over the role of Learning and Teaching Leader for Term 1 during Ms Smith's absence.

Due to unforeseen health concerns Mr Daniel Bau will be unable to take up his position in Year 3 this year. Mr Bau will still be at school, he will be a replacement teacher across all year levels. I am very pleased to announce that Ms Fiona Hossack will be the permanent Year 3 teacher replacing Mr Bau for the year. Ms Hossack will be very ably supported by the Year 3 Team of Miss India Mitchell-Fletcher and Mrs Eloise Pearson (Verstoep).

Welcome to our new Students for 2024

I would like to welcome our 25 new students who are starting with us this year.

Year 1: Stephanie G, Darcy B, Oscar C-C.

Year 2: Robert D, Ethan H, Liam C, Gunkaran D.

Year 3: Mateo V, Starry J, Wesley O, Archie S, Georgia B, Milla A, Ansh G, Lawson S.

Year 4: Xavier O, Marley M, Emma B, Yichen (Ella) W, Charlie B, James C.

Year 5: Indya J.

Year 6: Marcus R, Lucy S, Samuele C-C.

P & F - Prep Parents Wine and Cheese Night

Our Prep parents are invited to attend the annual P & F Wine and Cheese Tasting evcening scheduled for Friday 9th February. Details below.

Whole School Wellbeing Program

This year, St. Patrick's School will be participating in 'The Resilience Project' Wellbeing program. More information will be shared with the community as we progress with the program.

Whole School - Start of the Year Mass

Next Tuesday 6th February will be our start of the year mass for all students. Parents are most welcome to attend, mass will begin at 9:15am in the Church. We will be blessing, and presenting, the Year 6 student leadership badges at this mass.

School Canteen Update

I am pleased to announce that our new canteen provider - The Healthy Hut - is now up and running and ready for business starting on Tuesday 6th February. Please see below all the information you need to set up your online accounts. The canteen will operate on Tuesday's and Thursday's for the time being with the option of adding addition days if necessary.

Direct link to sign up for the online canteen HERE.

Please remember to click on 'New Parent Account' the first time you log in and then follow the instructions!

Pupil of the Week

This year the school staff have decided to discontinue the pupil of the week awards that are presented at our weekly assembly. We will still be presenting the 'Random acts of kindness' awards and also other awards as required by class teachers and specialist teaching staff. Thank you for your understanding.

Student Leadership Positions

This year we have expanded the student leadership opportunities across the school. Each classroom will appoint 2 x Social Justice Leaders, 2 x Sustainability Leaders and 2 x School Representative Council (SRC) members. These will be changed each semester. This will allow for 12 children per class to experience valuable leadership opportunities per year. The Semester 1 leadership badges will be presented in our first assembly next week on Monday morning. Student Leaderhip positions are located in this edition of the newsletter.

Taekwondo

Taekwondo sessions begin in the school hall this afternoon. Sophia Heares and her team will be again running sessions on Monday's and Thursdays. Please see below the most up to date information regarding these sessions.

Out of Hours Care

Enrolment Information https://www.kingston.vic.gov.au/Services/Family-and-Children/Before-and-After-School-Program

Kingston Council is proud to partner with St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School to offer a fun and exciting Before and After School Program that operates each day of the school term (excluding public holidays) in a supervised, relaxed, safe and fun environment. Each program has a dedicated Qualified Educator along with our highly qualified and experienced Educator team. Sessions offer a mix of structured and unstructured indoor and outdoor games, art, craft, cooking and special events.

Children are provided with a heathy and delicious breakfast in the Before School Program and nutritious afternoon tea during the After School Program. To make After School Care even more fun incursions and special visitors are a regular feature, past special incursions have included Bunnings workshops, Yoga, visits by Local Sporting Teams and Silent Disco to name a few..

For further information about the programs offered by the City of Kingston or to enrol in the service please click the link to visit their webpage:www.kingston.vic.gov.au/beforeandafterschoolprogram or call 9581 4867

Year 5 & 6 Upcoming Camps

The Year 5 Portsea camp is scheduled for Week 3 of this term on Monday 12th February to Wednesday 14th February.

The Year 6 Canberra Camp is scheduled for Week 6 of this term on Monday 4th March to Friday 8th March.

My sincere thanks to all of the school staff who are attending these camps that enable our students to access these amazing opportunities.

Watch this space for a proposed Year 4 Bike Ed style camp later in the year!

Chess Lessons

This Thursday we have Phil Hooton from Chess Kids visiting our school to promote our new chess club for 2024. the details are listed below.

Chess Incursion Details:

Date: Thursday 1st February.

Time: 1.15pm (lunch)

Location: Library

Chess Club Details:

Start Date: Wednesday 7th Feb

Time: 11am – 11.45am

Day: Wednesdays

Location: Library

Music Lessons

Our after school music lessons will begin next week. The lessons will be provided by the new company to St. Patrick's - Orange Tree. Please see below, booking information for this exciting new service.

Sibling - Prep 2025 Enrolments and Open Days

Sibling Prep enrolments for 2025 are now open and are accessible from our school website or from the office. Our 'Open Days' are scheduled for Tuesday 27th February, Tuesday 12th March and Tuesday 26th March or by appointment. As per our enrolment policy, current families will have priority enrolment, followed by baptised catholics in our boundries and then baptised catholics outside our boundries, if we have availablity, we can then accept other enrolments. We are currently expecting to have 3 Prep classes for 2025 of around 23-24 students per class. Sibling enrolment interviews will occur at the end of Term 1. This will enable us to determine how many places we will have avaliable for new families.

The school currently has 20 classes across 7 year levels - Prep to Year 6.

We have 3 classes per year level - Prep to Year 5 (average class size of just over 21 per class) and 2 classes in Year 6 (26 per class). This gives us a total enrolment of 432 for the start of the 2024 year - up by 42 students from last year. Next year we are expecting to have 21 classes P - Yr 6 (3 classes per year level) with an average class size of between 23-24 students across the school.

Rail Crossing Works

Please find attached below and update on the level crossing removal for Mentone/Parkdale.

New School Murals

Our new murals have been completed across the school and I am so pleased at how well they have turned out! My thanks to Mrs Jennifer Brown, our Art teacher, who organised the artist Alex Sugar to complete the murals. We are looking at getting Alex back in the not too distant future for some more murals around the school!

Office, Bins and Admin refurb

Over the summer break, we took the opportunity to replace the carpets and paint the walls in the office and admin areas. The results came out better than I expected, and I have posted some photos below. We will be continuing on with refurbishing the old school building (Senior Area). The Year 4, 5 and 6 classrooms will be completed this year in 4 stages to minimise interruptions to the classrooms and classroom learning. New carpets, pinboards, plaster work/paint work and an electrical fitout have been scheduled.

The school bins will be relocated from the front of the school entrance to behind the cricket nets this term. We had a new concrete slab poured over the holidays in preparation and I would like to thank Danny Benoition, our school groundsman, for his many hours of work in not only preparing this area, but in also getting our school ready for the upcoming year.

School Calendar and Website

Please use the following google link to add the school calendar to your own calendar for ease of information exchange. School Google Calendar HERE.

We are currently redeveloping our school website to a more contemporary look over the coming weeks and the first phase should be ready in early March. More information to follow in upcoming newsletters.

Finally.... Dont forget students are to be in sports uniform for Friday (Tomorrow) to participate in the Kaboom! Sports session to kick of SWELL Week.

God Bless

Pat Berlingeri

Principal

Wellbeing News