20 September 2023

Our Mission @ SJM

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

Quote

"May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in faith so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit". Romans 15:13

Assistant Principal

It has certainly been a whirlwind these last few weeks to end Term 3 on a high note.

Positively promising our brilliant students continued to work hard, learn and have laughter at St James’.

A few weeks ago, I, along with other Assistant Principals in our diocese visited several schools in the Tamworth, Armidale diocese. There we visited classrooms, spoke to teachers, students and staff about their learning journey. We too, are on the Learning Collaborative Journey and took away some great ideas to improve on what we do here at St James’.

Stage 3 attended the Canberra excursion a few weeks ago. The children were incredible and made our whole community proud. A highlight for me was seeing the joy on the faces of students who accomplished firsts on the trip – such as the mighty gravity drop at Questacon and seeing the future proofed buildings made at the Exhibition Centre – the students worked as a team to build a city full of wide open and green spaces for our future. The students showed promise as town planners in the making. Another first was visiting all the Embassies – including India and Ireland – some people got very excited and saw a photo opportunity too good to be missed.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics) flight excursions for Stage 3 saw students creating planes and flight pathways – hopefully some more career ideas for the future. Flight has always captured our imagination. Early aircraft designers used all kinds of materials and designs to achieve this dream. A key to their success was understanding how things work by making and testing ideas, and not being afraid of failure. In this project funded by Muswellbrook Council and held at the Donald Horne Building, students needed the same approach. Before solving problems, all designers and engineers start by exploring and learning the basics – a bit like the Paper plane challenge on Father’s Day. It is good to be curious, so a wonderful place to start is with the history of flight and learning about basic aerodynamic principles associated with the design of aircraft. Students worked together in teams in several parts to then test the results of their flight.

As you can understand planning and taking students away from school takes a lot of support from all our community. I would like to thank the parents who volunteer their time to help us at school and when on excursions.

All the best for the holidays and we will see you back at school on Monday 9^th October for Term 4, 2023.

God bless you and your family,

Mrs Helen Feeney
Assistant Principal

Awards

Class News

Stage 1

Wow! We cannot believe we’ve made it. Term 3, Week 10! Congratulations to all our little people, and yourselves for making it through another busy and successful term.

Year 1 had a blast at their excursion last Thursday. Thank you to Miss Fitz and Mr Sabotic for all your hard work in organising a fantastic day for our year 1 students. Please see Facebook for some photos from the day.

Year 2 students are eager for their excursion occurring Wednesday Term 4, Week 4. The notification has been sent out on COMPASS – please let us know if your child will be attending on the day. Unfortunately, we are not accepting any parent helpers for the day.

Stage 1 have had a fabulous term learning all about ‘Seasons’ in Science, Geography, and Art. Thank you, Mrs Thompson, for visiting our classrooms to teach us all about Indigenous seasons.

We hope you all have a happy and safe two-week break, soaking up this warmer weather. We are excited to welcome a fantastic final term of 2023.

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s classroom teacher for any questions you may have regarding your child’s learning. Thank you for your ongoing communication and cooperation.

Kind Regards,
Miss Annerley Fitzsimmons, Mr Bradley Sabotic, Miss Rachel Cooper, Miss Claudia Becus 

Stage 2

Stage 2 have had a very busy fortnight leading up to the end of term. Students are very excited for the holidays and for our end of term reward. This time it is ‘Movies and M&Ms’. Each class will hold a different film, the students will choose which one they prefer, and they will watch that on the day. 

In English, we have wrapped up Matilda and the students will be watching the movie to celebrate their hard work studying the text.

• 3M redesigned the original book cover for Roald Dahl’s masterpiece, which they thoroughly enjoyed.
• 4G created some outstanding character profiles for both Matilda and Miss Trunchbull. Some students were even lucky enough to present these to Mr Moon.

We have now moved onto informative texts. The students are very excited to begin researching and writing an information report.

In Science, we have completed our topic of Erosion and moved onto our new topic Rocks and Fossils. The students were very creative in their assessment tasks, with some writing rap songs and others making posters. 3M did an experiment to test out their theories of erosion, they worked in small groups with paddle pop sticks to try to prevent their sand homes from being eroded away.

In Maths, we have been looking at fractions and decimals. Both 3M and 4G, introduced ‘Fairy Bread Fractions’, where the students had to create a paper version showing fractions, for example, a square cut into quarters, then they were able to use actual fairy bread to cut into fractions as well and of course eat afterwards.

In Religion, we have started exploring the Beatitudes, which are teachings created by Jesus in the Bible story ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ One of the teachings are: Blessed are the

Staff had a wonderful time at our spirituality professional development on September 11^th during the pupil free day. We have learnt and gained much knowledge to bring and share at school. We hope all students enjoyed their long weekend.

Mr Cody Somerville, Mrs Jane Dengate, Miss Gabrielle Dafter, Mrs Jane Jacobs, Mrs Mary Ballard

Stage 3

What a busy term we have had in Stage 3.

Students are looking forward to the holidays and for our end of term reward.

‘Movies, Maltesers and M&Ms’. Each class will hold a different film, the students will choose which one they prefer, and they will watch that on the day.   

On Wednesday and Friday of week 9, Stage 3 had the opportunity to visit the Muswellbrook Council to work with Matt exploring STEM and specifically the art of flying. The students worked in pairs to build their own planes using balsa wood and clips. They were able to test their planes by connecting to a power source and control their take off and landings. Some had a shaky start but with some adjustments and trial and error they were flying beautifully.

The Stage 3 teachers would like to congratulate all the children on their positive and enthusiastic approach to their four-day excursion to Canberra.

Cooper – ‘I was so excited to get to go to the Mint. I was able to buy a few more coins to add to my collection.’

Miss Isabelle Lamont, Mrs Melissa McLennan, Mrs Lauren Gehrig, Mrs Helen Feeney, Miss Alyssa Pritchard

GEM News

On Sunday August 27^th, St James Muswellbrook competed in the Tournament of Minds, Hunter Branch Regional final. The competition formed part of our gifted, talented and high potential extracurricular offerings for students this year at SJM. 

Tournament of Minds (TOM) is an Australian educational program developed especially, but not exclusively, for talented and creative students across all sectors of primary and secondary school education. It provides a dynamic approach to learning, whilst developing students’ enthusiasm for experimentation, problem finding and problem-solving.

SJM’s team included; Katie Watt, Prestyn Boyle, Max Gallagher, Kieren Chick, Justus Matheson, Nicholas James and Bradley Watt. The team spanned across Years 3 to 6 and each student brought a wide range of gifts, talents, skills and interests to the team. The team entered the Social Sciences category and were asked to present a 10-minute dramatic performance to explain their long-term solution to the “Clash of the Ages” challenge. They also solved a spontaneous challenge to a second panel of judges as per the format of the competition.

The team were ecstatic to discover they were awarded a prestigious, Honours award in the Social Sciences category as well as a second award “The Spirit of TOM” for respectful, creative and positive interactions throughout the tournament. This was a fantastic academic result for a team entering for the first time and as a school after an extended period out of the competition.

The students showed great determination over the six-week preparation time to think creatively about their solution. They overcame many challenges and formed a strong sense of teamwork and connectedness. The students thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of the tournament and will remember it as a highlight of their learning across their primary schooling years.

After the success of our team this year, it is hoped we can offer this wonderful academic and creative opportunity to a growing range of students again in 2024.

A special thank you must also go to our families who supported the competition with an amazing level of commitment and enthusiasm. The team also would like to acknowledge our Principal, Mr Moon and their class teachers who encouraged and supported the team throughout the preparation and competition period.

Mr Bradley Sabotic
Gifted Education Mentor

Sport News

Polding Golf

GREAT NEWS!!!

Congratulations, Oliver Partridge in Stage 3, who has made the NSW golf team and is off to Perth in November.

Last week Oliver played in the State Schools finals at Batemans Bay.

He had scores of 86 and 81 to finish 6^th out of 70 boys from all over NSW to qualify in the NSWPSSA team.

Well done, Oliver, we wish you all the best in your upcoming tournament.

Debbie Carroll Shield Ladies League Tag Day

Last Thursday, 14^th September two teams represented SJM at the Debbie Carroll Shield League Tag Day.  

Both teams played four games each with the weather being quite warm. The students had some strong games and displayed sportsmanship and showed improvement in their skills during every game.

Mrs Melissa McClennan
Sports Co-ordinator

Community Notices

St. James’ P & F Association

P&F Committee Contacts