Dear Parents and Carers,

The Fourth Sunday of Easter (3rd May 2020) is called “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  In the Gospel reading we heard Jesus saying “When he has brought out his flock, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow because they know his voice” (John 10:4). Fr. Duane Fernandez Vocations Director for the Diocese of Wollongong reminds us that Jesus has already called each one of us by name through our baptism - and we have responded to his call. That’s worth celebrating! But his call is not simply something from the past – and neither is our response simply a one-time decision we have made. Rather he continues to “go ahead of us”, and the challenge for us is to continue to follow his voice every day.  

Now, this voice is not always as loud and clear as we may want it to be. Why not, we may wonder? In the words of Pope Francis “God comes silently and discreetly, without imposing on our freedom” (Message for World Day of Vocations, 2018). This means that one of the biggest challenges of modern times has been hearing that quiet, gentle voice of God when there is so much other noise and activity clamouring for our attention. But this year is different. This year we have entered together into one of the most unique periods of our lives. So many of the usual commitments and activities that fill our lives have been stripped away, for a time. This has understandably caused much grief to many of us; but on the other hand there is a unique opportunity being offered to us at this time to hear that quiet voice of our Good Shepherd more clearly – guiding us in our everyday lives. These words from Fr. Duane certainly resonate with us all regarding the remote learning enviroment and how we are all responding to the constant changes in our lives.  

I would like to thank all parents and carers, you have demonstrated your committment and have supported the remote learning environment. In particular, I want to pay tribute to our amazing staff who continue to be at the front-line of this new normal. The level of organisation and time that goes into producing the daily learning plans for students to complete and parents to supervise is far greater than what is done in a face-to-face learning environment.

We very much appreciate the patience and understanding of our parent community as we work to provide learning continuity to our students. We continue to be grateful for the support of our Parent and Parish Community and for the positive messages and feedback that guide our ongoing planning for all of our students.

Moving towards a Phased Transition Back to School Week 3

We will begin to transition each student back to school for one scheduled day next week. This transition is based on the approach advised by the NSW Government, the priority being to keep all members of the community safe – our students, families and staff. Last Friday a letter was distributed to parents outlining details about the transition back to school. To assist parents in navigating these changes, I have included answers to some Frequently asked questions you may also have. If you would like any other information please contact the school office via:  info@spapdow.catholic.edu.au 

When is my child’s scheduled attendance day?

Please refer to the letter you received from the school last Friday May 1. Your child or children will be scheduled to attend one day each week, until further instructions are given. This will be on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, according to the letter you received.

Will school still be open for children of essential workers each day?

Yes we are open to provide supervision for the children of essential workers.

What happens if my child attends school on a non-scheduled day? 

The school will provide supervision for children whose parents have had to send them to school. Students will be supervised in the School Hall by qualified teachers. Students will continue their learning through their remote learning platform.

Who will be teaching my child on their scheduled day?

We have endeavored for your child to be taught by their classroom teacher on their scheduled day. If the teacher is absent from school due to health reasons or because they are ill, your child will be taught by a qualified teacher.

What uniform should my child wear?

For the week starting May 11, students are required to change over from summer to winter uniform. Students on their scheduled day at school may wear their sports uniform. 

What should my child bring to school?

Students will need to bring recess and lunch to school each day as well as a water bottle and their hat. Please note that the bubblers are not in use. Students in Years 5-6 will be required to bring their iPad to school, and students in K-4 may bring in their personal iPad if you have completed the user agreement. Students are required to bring their headphones and remote learning book if they received a book. 

When will class and school awards be given out?

As of week 3 class awards will be given out as per the school PB4L policy. School awards will begin next week. 

New Chaplain for St Paul's

I would like to warmly welcome Mr Lawrie Burns to St Paul's. Lawrie will fill the position of school Chaplian, replacing Mrs Lisa Pannell. Lawrie is also the school Chaplain at St Joseph's Catholic High School and Corpus Christi Catholic High School.  

Happy Mother's Day

I would like to wish all mothers and grandmothers in our community a wonderful Mother's Day on Sunday. I hope you have a lovely day celebrating with your family, and on behalf of the St Paul's staff we thank the mothers and grandmothers in our school community for all that you do.

Wishing you every blessing,

Michelle Rodwell

Principal

HAPPY EASTER

Welcome back to Term 2 and a very different Easter Season to past years.

We explain to the children that Easter is not just one day of the year within the Catholic Church’s year but instead an entire season.  We celebrate Easter for 50 days from Easter Sunday up to Pentecost (the birthday of the Catholic Church)

Below are some ways to celebrate the 50 days of Easter with your family. You do not need to do them all, but you may like to pick a few favourite things to do with your children, especially in this rare time when we are still so restricted to go out in large numbers or to public places.

I hope this Easter season brings many blessings to each of your families

Some possible family activities are:

1. Make a Paschal candleand light it in your home during prayer time, meal time or even every Sunday during the Easter Season.
2. Display “Alleluia”somewhere in your home to acknowledge Jesus’ Resurrection!
3. Have an Easter Egg Hunt AFTER Easter Sunday.
4. Write a thank you card to your priest for all of the extra hard work he does for the school and parish.
5. Fold palm leaves from Palm Sunday into a Palm Cross and display them in your home.
6. Watch an Easter Story movie or Youtube clip with your family
7. Talk to your children about their Baptism
8. Make Easter Story Cookies
9. Decorate with white & gold (the colours of Easter) and bring special flowers like lilies into your home or garden!.
10. Make an Easter Sun Catcher Craft to display on your window.
11. Do a fun family activity each Sunday (or pick a special day of the week to do something
12. Make a Jelly Bean Jar and allow your children to earn a Jelly Bean with each act of service or kindness that they do.

ANZAC DAY

I would like to thank the following children for making a poppy for our ANZAC display on the front fence of the school over the ANZAC weekend, some children made more than one flower.

Lilly and Charley Mowbray, Abbey Adams, Mackenzie and Jackson Hutchinson, Myah Bramstedt, Matthew Parker, Sophie Jones, Alani West, James Schubert, Sam & Maya Huetter, Sam Mansbridge, Jasmine & Alexis Wau, Kobe & Addison Dunn, Charlotte & Kaleeah Van De Voorde, Kenzie & Corey Coull, Kyne McMahon, James Allen, Kyne Mc Mahon, Wes & Zali Barrett, Aspen & Chase Young, Jaida & Jazmine Gagnuss, Kate & Toby Bancroft, Abbey & Matthew McCabe, Mitchell Diamant, Wil & Kai Fleming, Savannah Apps, Wezley and Piper Smith, Sam and Cooper Shepherd.

Thank you also to Renae Adams and Amy & Lilly Mowbray for helping me put up the display. I have had a number of people speak to me about the display (some not from our school community) who appreciated the children’s work and their show of respect for those who have fought in wars past and present, especially those who gave their lives for us.

I will see each child when they return to school. Thank you to those families for their support.

Message from Trish McGlashan, mother of Rebecca McGlashan, School Captain:

I just wanted to say Thank you to Mrs Ferguson for sending home some activities for Anzac Day. Unfortunately we didn’t get to drop Rebeccas into school. Rebecca was concerned that she wasn’t able to represent her school and lay a wreath for Anzac Day but like many others she paid respect to the veterans in her driveway representing St Pauls with her poppy Mrs Ferguson sent out  I thought I would share.  Trish McGlashan

Julie Ferguson, Acting Religious Education Coordinator

A reminder that we are NOW ACCEPTING ENROLMENTS for Kindergarten 2021.

Interviews for Kinder 2021 enrolments are happening NOW, so please contact the school office for your enrolment package and to book an interview!

Or alternatively view our website – http://www.spapdow.catholic.edu.au/enrolement information

Annalise Hastings, Middle Leader 2

Staff Profession Learning

At St Paul’s our staff value ongoing professional learning and working collaboratively to develop our teaching practices to enhance student learning. This term our staff will be involved in professional development around writing Learning Intentions and Success Criteria in reading for our students in remote online learning tasks so that our students know and understand what is being learned.

Some of the Remote Online Learning Digital Platforms we are using at St Pauls:

The Learning Journal provides opportunities for students and teachers to really think outside the box. Students can show their work and thought processes in real time by submitting a video of themselves working through a math problem, taking a picture of a their writing, recording themselves reading a story, or uploading a file to demonstrate their learning. Our teachers are able to provide feedback and offer suggestions on selected content.

Google Classrooms Years 5 and 6

Our Stage 3 students know and have already been using this digital platform across a range of subjects in the classroom all year. Google Classrooms allows the teachers to provide learning content and set tasks with accompanying support materials and short videos. Teachers can also push out assignments to students to individualise instruction. The students and teachers can communicate with each other, ask questions or clarify their understanding. The students: complete tasks, upload photos of their work, use editing tools and are required to ‘hand in’ their work for teacher feedback.

Zoom

This digital platform is a live video conferencing tool that our staff and Stage 3 students currently use for meetings and for check in. Zoom is a video conferencing app that enables us to work together collaboratively "face-to-face" when meeting in-person isn't possible. It has been essential in order for us to feel and stay connected as a school community. The staff regularly meets with each other to engage in professional learning and to work collaboratively. Zoom allows the host to share their screen to deliver and share ideas or content. Some of our students in Stage 3 are meeting regularly for Zoom meetings with their teachers to listen to literature being read and to hear instructions for set tasks.

PM eCollection Digital Readers Kinder to Year 4

By now all K-4 parents would have received their username and password to access these digital reading books. Our teachers have individually assigned books to your child at their appropriate reading level. This is a great resource to access for your child’s reading as we continue home learning in Term 2. The PM eCollection is a series of digital texts both fiction and non-fiction that our students can access on apple iPads and computers at home and in the classroom. Many of these books are familiar to the students and have been used by our teachers during guided reading groups within the classroom at the students reading level.

The PM eCollection application is available as an iOS app (for Apple iPad users) and as a browser-based website for all other tablet or desktop devices. Google chrome is the preferred Internet browser.

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Belinda Evans, Acting Middle Leader 2

As we transition to students returning to school you may wish for your child (ren) to bring their own iPad to use at school for Supervised Remote Learning as of Week 3 - Monday 11 May 2020.

Please find attached a copy of our Personal Electronic Device Use During Remote Learning Agreement 2020 which we require parents to complete if their child is intending on bringing their own device to school.

This is only relevant to students in Kinder to Year 4.

Rebecca Nunes, Assistant Principal

During the holidays we took delivery of 6 new 6 Eco Sheltered Seating structures and these were erected in our playgrounds yesterday.  We have installed two in the Front Playground, one in the Central Playground Area, and three on the Top Oval Area.

The children who attended Supervised Remote Learning at School yesterday were lucky enough to use them first!!!  We are sure all of the students will benefit from this recent purchase funded by the school's budget.

Brian McCann, Sports Coordinator / Acting Middle Leader 2

Parents and Carers we wish to inform you that at this stage for the remainder of Term 2 our School Canteen will remain closed.

We wll communicate with you later in the Term in relation to a possible reopening date.

Students will need to bring their own lunch and recess as well as a water bottle to school everyday at this stage.  

Notes from your school CatholicCare Counsellor:

During these times, you might be noticing more emotional reactions from your children. While this is not unusual in stressful tines, it's important to model and teach emotional regulation to our children.  Emotional regulation is the ability to recognise and manage our own behaviour and reactions to the emotions and situations around us.  For example, to be able to calm down after something exciting or upsetting happens, to be able to focus fully on a task and regulate emotions like frustration or anger.  Following are some tips from NSW School Link newsletter, which have been slightly reworked for your needs.

HOW TO ENCOURAGE SELF-REGULATION IN YOUR CHILD

Monitor your own overwhelming feelings:

If your child is becoming dysregulated, do not join in with them. Monitor your tone, volume, language and body language. They will only dysregulate even more if you are both reacting the same way. Calm is contagious.

Emotion naming:

Have your child name what he is actually feeling and describe how it makes him feel. It can be really hard to do this, but it will be important for your child to emotionally regulate and improve their emotional literacy.

Emotional regulation takes time:

Don’t expect your child to nail it on the first go. It takes time to master the skill and there may be some good days and some bad days at regulating emotions.

Co-regulation:

Provide assistance and support for your child to self-regulate through warm and responsive interactions. Support and model how to regulate thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Allow a space for mistakes to happen.

BEHAVIOIR STRATEGIES: PLAN – PRAISE - MODEL

Plan

If you know your child struggles in certain situations, discuss this before-hand and identify your expectations. For example, “The shop will be busy and noisy.  It's okay if you get frustrated, but if you do, just take a deep breath, and tell me so I can help."

Praise

When your child does manage to self-regulate, offer praise.  For example, “I know you wanted to get out of there, and you really managed your frustration today, I am so proud of you."

Model

Demonstrate when you have self-regulated and tell your child. For example, “I was frustrated, but I'm glad I didn't get angry because I might have ruined the day for us”.

We're always here if you ever need...

These are challenging times for everyone and we are here to support your clients to navigate the uncertainty. We offer confidential online (Zoom) and phone counselling to support them with the frustration of managing family emotions, relationship pressures and employment changes.

Our skilled and caring team can support individuals, couples and families experiencing: 

• Trauma
• Life Changes
• Health and Wellbeing concerns
• Depression and Anxiety
• Family and Relationship Challenges

We are not a crisis service - all clients require a phone intake session prior to booking an appointment with one of our counsellors.

To find out more about our counselling services visit our website, to book an appointment or make a referral please call 4254 9395 or email intakeservice@catholiccare.dow.org.au

Doreen Waddington, CatholicCare Counsellor

The health, safety and wellbeing of our communities and our people remains our highest priority. Due to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding coronavirus, the School Banking program will remain on hold. We will continue to monitor the situation and keep you informed with any updates including how we will be managing Dollarmite tokens for students. 

In the meantime, here are some handy online resources for parents who wish to maintain momentum with their child’s financial education: 

• Start Smart: these resources have been created to improve children’s money management skills, and is aligned to the Australian Curriculum and the National Consumer Financial Literacy Framework. 
• The Beanstalk: offers videos and fun activities for children to learn about money.