16 August 2021

Newsletter Articles

Our Mission @ SJM

St James’ Primary School community excel in education through living and learning in Christ.

Quote

Never see a need without doing something about it. Saint Mary MacKillop

Principal’s Message

I am compiling this Principal Message for you as I work from home. I have been assisting three of my four children to learn from home today. It surely is a juggle to do this. I take my hat off to those families that are doing this each day.

As per CSO recommendations we are further minimising staff on site. As such all executive will also be working at home from time to time. Please see the roster below:

Exec @ SJM – Week 6

Please know that I am contactable at any time, whether I am working from home or at school. You can contact me via email – aaron.moon@mn.catholic.edu.au or on the school phone – 6543 3094, on the school Facebook page or on my mobile – 0438 344 757.

A lot of the information below I have shared across the last few weeks, but I thought I would share again for you to peruse.

STAY AT HOME ORDERS / SCHOOL OPEN FOR STUDENTS OF ESSENTIAL WORKERS

The safety, health and wellbeing of our students and staff is paramount and we continue to work with the relevant authorities to monitor and respond to developments of COVID-19.

The current stay at home orders across Hunter New England have been extended for one week until 12:01am Friday, 20 August. These rules apply to people in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens, Singleton, Dungog, Muswellbrook and Cessnock.

However, we wish to assure you our school remains open to support parents that NEED to send their children to school. If there is a parent/carer at home I urge you, as per our Premier’s recommendation, to please keep your child at home.

Please be aware that some of our teachers and staff may be working from home to develop plans to ensure continuity of learning for their students.

SJM HOME LEARNING – WEBSITE / ZOOM / OFFLINE LEARNING

Our 2021 version of our Home Learning Website is live at the link below –. Please go and take a look at it at your leisure. I would like to thank Mrs Hall for all of her work in preparing the 2021 version of this site across the past week.

‘ZOOM’ is our preferred platform. This is approved for use by the Catholic Schools Office. This has been used successfully over the course of this past week and will be expanded next week. Our aim is to have set times for classes to join a Zoom meeting together at least 2 times per week. Meeting links will be provided in the School’s Home Learning website. Keep an eye on COMPASS, Facebook and the home learning page for the updated times for next week. Please note you have already received the password via COMPASS for these meetings. We have selected the Zoom platform as it is available across a variety of devices, including PC & Phone. We believe that this will be the easiest way for us to communicate with classes. We encourage all parents to download this platform on their phone, iPad or computer. You can go to the link below for download details.

If you need anything printed off the website please call the school on 65433094 or email Mr Moon – aaron.moon@mn.catholic.edu or your child’s teacher.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Vigilance must continue to ensure that staff and students of essential workers do not attend school or work if they are unwell.

• Students absent or sent home due to flu like symptoms need to be tested.
• Students must not return to school until they receive a negative COVID-19 result and are symptom free.
• Schools must sight the negative COVID-19 test result prior to allowing students return to school.

Canteen is closed

Assemblies have been postponed.

Parents and carers attendance on site of a morning or afternoon is not permitted. Pick up and drop off will continue in the Visitor Car Park.

Parents visiting the office

• The office door is locked. Please stick you head in the office window for assistance.
• All printed booklets are outside on the tables.
• Please ensure social distancing
• Please sign in with the QR code available.

Please stay safe and stay strong – both physically and mentally. If I can be of assistance please let me know.

I do hope and pray that this lockdown is over soon and that I can see all of your smiling faces. I am blessed to be a part of such a special community. SJM rocks!

Cheers

Mrs Aaron Moon
Principal

Religion

Saint Mary MacKillop feast day was celebrated on Sunday 8 August. Mary

MacKillop was canonized as Australia’s first Saint. Education was close to Mary’s heart and she knew its power to life communities out of poverty. Our celebrations honouring the life and achievements of St Mary of the Cross have been unable to occur due to Covid restrictions. A great quote from St Mary of the Cross is “Never see a need without doing something about it”. At this time the Mini Vinnies students have great plans for fundraising to support our local community. We hope that we will be able to come together as a school community soon and share these with the students.

One Mini Vinnies event which would have taken place on Thursday 12 August was our Mini Vinnies Sleepout. This year due to Covid restrictions Mrs Ballard and myself were going to host a Mini Vinnies sleepout without sleeping. This would have given the students an opportunity to discuss concerns about homelessness and participate in a variety of activities that highlight the need to support the homeless in our community. Here are some ways that we can support the homeless by donating money to St Vincent De Paul:

Each story of homelessness is different and there are many different causes of homelessness.

Before the start of lockdown students started our Lolly guessing competition. Well done to all students who have placed their guesses. A great effort from Mini Vinnies students who gave up their lunch time to sell guess for our Lolly prize. Mrs Ballard and I look forward to announcing the winner in the coming week.

Mrs Jane Jacobs
Religious Education Coordinator

Assistant Principal

Thank you to everyone who has assisted with home learning since our snap lockdown was announced by the Premier of NSW at the end of Week 4. Each and every one of you have ensured the children in our community are feeling safe and loved. You are all doing an amazing job!

My advice to all of our parents, students and teachers … go easy on yourselves. We are all doing the best that we can in this awful situation, and we need to be supportive of each other and understand that things are different. If something doesn’t go to plan, then we may need to think about stepping away and trying again later. As a parent, if your day is focussed on getting your own work done at home because your boss has given you a deadline, be flexible with the times that you work with your child … sometimes a child sitting at the bench doing some work while you are cooking dinner or eating breakfast is OK. If you can’t get to one of the zoom meetings because one of your other children is using the device … don’t stress, just try again next time. If you find that you have three kids at home and they are all doing different work and you’re not coping, scale it back and look at what all three can do together … a dance lesson, copying words they can find in a book or magazine, a book report on something are reading or listening to at home, create a play or PowerPoint telling us about your day, draw a picture of something that you love, do maths while jumping on the trampoline or running around the backyard or shooting hoops.

Please note, the students working at school are doing the same work as the students working at home.

As teachers, we are well aware of the stresses happening at home at the moment. We love that you are doing your best, and that you will be there to support us in your child’s learning when we are all able to get back to school after this lockdown ends. We are in this together, and we are here to support you if you need it.

Pupil Free Day

We have booked in a Pupil Free Day for tomorrow - Tuesday 17 August. As all staff will be attending this important professional learning opportunity, we have asked for you make alternate arrangements for your children tomorrow. We will be working with Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey, who will guide us through processes and practices to develop an effective writing program here at SJM. We will be working with other schools from the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, as they join with us on our Zoom link.

Life Education Van

Unfortunately, we were unable to go ahead with our visits to the Life Education Van, as we were forced into lock down the week that Healthy Harold was due to visit us. We are currently trying to re-book the van for later in the year, but as you can imagine, they have lots of schools trying to rebook at the same time. For those families who sent in an order form for merchandise, we will send home the note and money when your child returns to school.

Absences during lockdown

We have been advised that you will not need to enter your child’s absence into Compass whilst we are in lockdown. We have been advised to enter all students into a LEARNING FROM HOME event Compass, which means the absence will not be counted as an absence for official records for your child. If your child does need to be at school for the day, we will then enter them here at school using our processes, ensuring we have a record of the students who are on site if we have an emergency.

Mrs Shannon Hall
Assistant Principal

Primary Coordinator

Looking after you and your family during this challenging time…

Many of us are facing challenges that can be stressful, overwhelming, and cause strong emotions, both adults and children. Public health actions, such as social distancing, masks and lockdowns are necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19, but they can make us feel isolated and lonely and can increase stress and anxiety.

Here are some simple ideas to help during this time:

• Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including those on social media. It’s good to be informed, but hearing about the pandemic constantly can be upsetting. Consider limiting news to just a couple times a day and disconnecting from phone, tv, and computer screens for a while.
• Take care of your body
  - Take deep breaths, stretch, or  meditate.
  - Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals
  - Exercise regularly
• Get plenty of sleep
  - Avoid  excessive alcohol, tobacco, and substance use
• Make time to unwind — Try to do some other activities you enjoy e.g. listening to music, doing a puzzle, completing a workout.
• Connect with others —  Talk with people  you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling.
  

MINDFUL MINUTES with Miss Hand

Over the next week, I will be running a Mindfulness session with students via zoom. During these sessions, we will complete a short meditation, checking with our feelings and emotions, stretch and move our bodies and practice some gratitude.

I look forward to seeing the students then!

Monday: 11am
Wednesday: 11am
Thursday: 11am
Friday: 11:40am

Please keep your eye out on the SJM Home Learning website, Compass and Facebook for the Zoom link.

Thought of the week:

Stay safe, calm and kind.

Miss Eloise Hand
Primary Coordinator & Lead Teacher of Positive Education

Class News

ES1

Lockdown, boo! We were all looking forward to seeing Healthy Harold and going on our excursion to Highbrook Park, and then just like that, it was all taken away. The good news is, we are all safe, we can see each other on our zoom meetings, and Healthy Harold and Highbrook Park will happen at a later date. In times like these, it is so helpful to be grateful for the things that we do have. Mrs Jacobs and Mrs Smith have been grateful for the smiles and enthusiasm during our zoom meetings. What are three things that you are grateful for today?

Mrs Donna Smith and Mrs Jane Jacobs

Stage 1

We hope you are finding time to relax and enjoy family time while undertaking home learning.

In Science and Geography the students have collected weather data, learning about temperature, wind speed and direction and precipitation. We discussed the clothing we need and suitable activities we participated in each season relative to the weather. The students used algorithms with Bee Bots to map a path to images of clothing suitable for each season, working together and becoming aware of left and right.

We have looked at an Indigenous perspective of weather and the seasons and how the seasons are significant for plants, food and animals. We learnt Aboriginal people use different names for seasons and the weather is separated into more seasons than Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. These seasons change according to location in Australia and different language groups.

Stage 1 have enjoyed watching and learning about the Tokyo Olympics. Students have explored countries, flags, Olympic History and many different sporting events. We have investigated different athletes, past and present. We became a great cheer squad for not only the Australian athletes but whoever was winning, great sportsmanship.

Miss Emma Beletich, Mrs Mary Ballard, Mrs Trishelle Threadgate and Miss Jane Boyle

Stage 2

This week we should have been reporting to you about the wonderful time our Stage Two students had visiting the Life Education Van. Instead we are congratulating our students on their resilience and adaptability to returning to Learning from Home. As always we are here to support you. We do not want stressed out parents, or children. Take time to be thankful each day. Take time to be still each day. Take time to move each day. Take time to read each day. And finally, take time to be present with each other, each day. Please keep in contact with your class teacher and let us know how you are all handling remote learning.

In other news, Flat Stanley has been on some amazing adventures already. He has been to Sydney city and Bankstown. Despite there being COVID Lockdowns in place Flat Stanley has still been able to travel because he can travel through the mail, therefore not breaking any of the lockdown rules! He has been to the steelworks at Whyalla SA, Bredbo NSW via the ACT, Dungog NSW, and we have heard through the grapevine that he has even headed over to IRELAND!! We cannot wait to see where Flat Stanley gets to on his adventure. Mrs Watt is trying really hard to get her technology skills up to scratch to help the students create an interactive map of Flat Stanley’s travels that we will be able to share with you all.

If you haven’t sent your Flat Stanley off on an adventure yet, please send him off this week, or send him back to school and Mrs Watt will send him out for you.

Mrs Katrina Clement, Mrs Jane Dengate and Mrs Donna-Maree Watt

Stage 3

“Stay safe” is the message from all of the Stage 3 teachers! We realise that these are trying times for all of us and we thank you so much for your patience and support. We are blessed to have a resilient and hard -working team of students who have embraced the challenges of home learning and have continued to work to the best of their ability – we are all so proud of them. We would also like to thank the parents/carers who have helped to facilitate and encourage their learning.

Assuming that there will be no further lockdowns, we will continue working with our English Text, Misery Guts in English as well as general grammar. In Mathematics, we will be working with the Number and Geometry strands and in Religion we will complete our studies on “what is Prayer?”. In Science we will continue to study plant and animal adaptations, while in HSIE we will take a deeper look into Australian democracy and how it has shaped our nation today. Further research about Jeanie Baker and collage will be the focus in Creative Arts and in PD/Health the students will be learning about growing and changing.

Mrs Rebecca Harrod, Mrs Jane Harris, Mrs Clare Collett and Miss Lauren Osborne

Learning Support

Helping your child understand the pandemic and supporting understanding during home learning.

Individuals and children may have varied levels of understanding about the COVID19 virus, how it spreads, how to reduce the risk of exposure and why the rules keep changing. This can be particularly difficult for children with additional needs such as Autism, Anxiety and Intellectual delays.

At SJM we are here to support you and your family to navigate this ever evolving pandemic situation. If you are struggling during this period of home learning – please reach out to the Learning Support Team for assistance.

We have a range of resources on hand including social stories, visual supports and strategies that may make this time easier.

Remember to give children regular breaks during their learning time. Take a walk, get up and have a dance or just do something fun for a while.

Many children need extra time or warning before moving on to a new activity. This is especially true if they are leaving a preferred activity (say their iPad or favourite TV show) to attempt something they dislike or find difficult (maths or spelling for example). Counting down from 5 or using a timer on your phone or watch can help but students often need visual cues to support this transition. Visuals don’t have to be fancy or expensive, use whatever you have on hand and do what works for you.

CILSP Sessions

Students are making some fantastic progress in these groups. The hard work is certainly beginning to pay off with some students making the equivalent of more than 1 years growth in just a few months! The Learning Support Team are excited and wish to see this progress continue for our students. We are in the process of figuring out what these sessions will look like if we move into an extended lock down period and will be in touch with all parents of CILSP students soon.

Mrs Renee Gavin
Learning Support Teacher

Sport

Diocesan Athletics Carnival

Congratulations to our 15 students who attended the Diocesan Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 28th July at Glendale. The children all competed strongly on the day and a big congratulations to Toby Large who will be progressing to the Polding Athletics Carnival for Senior Boys Long Jump.

Rugby League

New dates will come out for our Rugby League carnivals when we come out of lockdown. The under 7,8 and 9s will be included in a Catholic Schools development day with a mini games being played after skill development. Later on it is hoped that a gala day with our region will be able to take place.

Mrs Jane Dengate
Sports Co-ordinator

Library News

Library Books

Students of essential workers are able to borrow on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, during the lockdown period.

Book Week

Students can continue to work on the book nook and poster competitions. All entries are due by August 25th or when students are able to return to school.

Poster Competition

Create a poster from one of the Book Week books or on the Book Week theme –“Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds.” (A4 – cardboard size)

Interpreting the Theme

Old Worlds – Books set in past times (historical fiction) or old cultures, e.g. Aboriginal.

New Worlds – Realistic stories set now or in the future with new ideas, new cultures, new thoughts and look at the impact of new worlds on old worlds.

Other Worlds – All types of fantasy and science fiction or look at the worlds of other people, other cultures. (Ipswich TL Association)

Book Nook Competition

A Book Nook is a bit like a mini diorama that is created to fit into a small space between books on a shelf. The book nook is usually an imaginative creation of a scene from a book, and lends itself to a fantasy setting which could fit the Other Worlds part of the CBCA Book Week theme. They become like a hidden entrance into a book’s world.

Another way of creating a scene from a book is using plastic drink bottles. Cut off one end.

Assemble the world inside the bottle. It could be one of the shortlisted books or just a favourite book.

Book Fair

We are unsure what will happen with Book Fair at this stage.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

The Premier’s Reading Challenge deadline has extended and will finish on Thursday 2nd September. If your child is partaking in this important challenge, please ensure they are meeting the requirements. Remember the list of challenge books is available on the website.

You may email a copy of your child’s PRC record to lisa.wilson@mn.catholic.edu.au

Happy Reading and stay safe!

Mrs Lisa Wilson
Teacher Librarian

Let’s Yabber – Indigenous News

We have been patiently waiting to hold our St James’ NAIDOC. Unfortunately due to the restrictions in place we have had to keep postponing this event. There is half a deep freezer full of Wattleseed ice-cream waiting to be consumed so it will definitely go ahead as soon as possible. We will notify you as when a date can be confirmed.

This year our NAIDOC theme is ‘Heal Country’. Many children have assisted in maintaining our Yarning Circle garden, nurturing it & connecting with it. It is so good for the soul to see the children get their hands in the dirt and to answer their barrage of questions about what each plant is for. What does this plant do? Is it a medicine plant? Is it a bush tucker plant? What part of the plant can be used? How much water does it need? Is this berry ripe to eat?

During this lockdown period remember to take time outside. Get your hands in the soil. Stop and take in the sights, sound & smells of nature around you. Connect to the country you live on.

Earlier this year many of our students participated in an ANZAC colouring competition run by Koori Kids in association with Department of Veterans Affairs. They received around 64 000 entries! We were astounded to hear that a student from our school had won one of the categories & would be presented with an ANZAC competition medal. Unfortunately we were unable to present this to her at the Monday morning assembly so we surprised her by popping in to her class zoom meeting with Mrs Watt. Congratulations Daniela Finnan!!

Mrs Tania Thompson
Aboriginal Education Teacher

St. James’ P & F Association

P&F Committee Contacts