St Paul's Catholic Primary School Newsletter 2022 Term 1, Week 8
Principal's Message
Good afternoon St Paul’s families,
We are currently working with Catholic Education Northern Territory to finalise and confirm our Annual Implementation Goals for 2022. These were shared with our St Paul’s School Board Meeting at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Wednesday evening.
I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to reiterate our St Paul’s Vision statement and really highlight that we ‘walk together’ to keep this document alive. We work in partnership with families to ensure the best learning and wellbeing outcomes for our students. Next week, our Three-Way Interviews will be a great opportunity to ‘live’ this intention. We have included an online option for parents so that we can better reach families who might otherwise not be able to attend in person or who would prefer to attend online. This is the first time we have done this so we will be interested in your feedback after the sessions.
Vision Statement
We walk together in faith towards a future filled with hope and love.
Faith - we are growing in God’s love
Hope – we are creating our tomorrow
Love – we have love for ourselves, each other, our creation and our learning
The statement embodies key teachings of St Paul (1 Cor, 13:13) regarding ‘faith, hope and love’. The Vision Statement is brief and can therefore be simply articulated by all in the school community.
The Vision Statement gives a strong sense of a preferred future and hope by including the words ‘towards’, ‘future’, ‘hope’, ‘creating’, ‘tomorrow’ and ‘learning’. The visual of ‘walk[ing] together’ provides a sense of a three-way partnership between school-students-parents. There is a focus on hope for the future for our relationships with God, each other and our earth. It conveys a strong message that learning is important – we are ‘creating our tomorrow’ and we have a ‘love…[of] our learning.’
Embedded in this is a hope that our students will develop a love for their learning and develop the skills and faith needed to navigate their unknown future. Love of God’s creation is also included to give a sense of hope for the future of our planet. With recent Climate Change discussions and a focus on Laudato Si (Care for our Common Home), it is imperative that our children have an understanding that they can make positive contributions to the future of the planet.
On Wednesday evening at our first face-to-face board meeting, we welcomed new members, Costi Bucella, Tony Rowland, Alicia Sherwood. We thank them for their time and commitment to working with us for continual improvement for our school community.
We look forward to seeing many families at our Swimming Carnival on Thursday, April 7th and then an official welcome back to families after Easter at our Alleluia Day on Tuesday, April 19th.
May the spirit of Jesus fill your hearts.
Ms Megan Evans
Upcoming Events
Adults who would like to volunteer to help at the Swimming Carnival please use the link below to register and ensure you have proof that you are double vaccinated and that you have given reception a copy of your valid Ochre card.
APRIL SCHOOL HOLIDAYS
Last day of Term 1: Thursday the 7th of April - St Paul's Swimming Carnival is on this day
School Holidays: 8th of April to 18th of April
Children return for Term 2: Tuesday 19th April
VACATION CARE:
Vacation care is available during the school holidays, please check Operoo for the Vacation Care form.
Please complete the form for each school aged child by Thursday 31st March when registrations close.
General Information/News
PLEASE CHECK PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS IN NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE ON SZAPP FOR ST PAUL'S GENERAL INFORMATION
SCHOOL FEE INVOICES
Dear St Paul’s families,
School Fee Invoices were emailed to families in week 5 of this term. We have identified a technical glitch which means some families did not receive their invoices (the email has triggered a security response to certain email accounts and therefore has not been delivered to email inboxes).
If you have not received your invoice for School Fees, please contact Finance at finance.stpauls@nt.catholic.edu.au
Thank you to all those who have already paid or have a payment plan in place.
Please note the 5% annual discount on the tuition portion of fees is only applicable if full fees are paid before Term 1 ends on 7th April.
When paying fees please ensure you include a reference for what the payment is for, either 'School Fees', 'OSHC Fees' or 'ELC fees' in the name.
If you have not used your Back to School Voucher, please ensure that you have visited the front office and signed for your voucher in order to redeem your $150. This voucher must also be used by the last day of Term 1 on the 7th of April.
All Back to School Voucher credit that is not being used for uniforms will be applied as a credit to your book and resource portion of your school fees in the coming weeks.
Thank you,
St Paul’s Finance Team
RE NEWS
Dear Families,
The end of Term 1 is approaching quickly. However, there are many exciting events happening in the last two weeks of school.
Important Dates:
Sunday 27th March – Children’s Mass, St Paul’s. All families are invited to attend this special Mass at 8:30 am.
Tuesday 29th March – Students have been preparing for the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. They will celebrate their Reconciliation at St Paul’s Church at 6:00 pm.
Friday 1st April – Free Dress Day. Project compassion/Harmony Day is the focus. Students may choose to wear a traditional costume or something orange. Gold coin donation, please.
Tuesday 5th April – Year 5 / 6 students will be presenting a re-enactment of the important days of Holy Week to the whole school at 8:30 am. (Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday – The Last Supper, Good Friday – The crucifixion).
Thursday 7th April – Last day of school! Please remember to return mission boxes. Thank you so much for your support during this term of Lent. As part of our response to Pope Francis’ message to heal the world through taking care of creation and the needy, we hope to make a difference in others’ lives.
- Preparation for the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist begin on 19th April at 6:00 pm at St Paul’s Church.
The MJR focus is to be a Grinner and a Winner, not a Moaner and a Groaner. It is very special when we win a prize or a game but that’s not the only thing we can win in life. We can win by making right choices in life. We are winners by showing the best attitude, motivation and determination through personal goals. Students are given ways to be a winner; I can be positive, I can try my best in all that I do, I can help others be winners. Grinners and Winners also show appreciation and gratitude.
At St Paul’s, we remind ourselves and others of the two commandments that Jesus left with us to live by. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds and souls and to love one another (Matt 22:37-40).
St Paul the Apostle addressed the meaning of love and how we are to love one another.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (1 Cor 13:4-8).
Curriculum News
3 Way Interviews Semester 1 2022
3 Way interviews will be held in Week 9 on Tuesday 29th & Wednesday 30th of March
Booking link below this info box.
Bookings close 2:59PM MONDAY 28th March
Our 3 Way Interviews for Semester 1 will offer both ‘face-to-face’ AND ‘Zoom’ sessions.
Please ensure you are double vaccinated against Covid-19 if you are planning a face-to-face session.
Proof of vaccination will be required upon check-in. Please have your vaccination certificate document number ready.
Each interview will last 15 minutes.
Face to face interviews will be conducted in the ILC (school library). The times for ‘face-to-face’ will be from 3pm to 4:15pm.
Zoom interviews will be offered from 4:30-5:45pm. A Zoom link will be sent to you directly from the teacher to join your interview. Teachers will let you in as you click into the waiting room at your given time. It may take a few days after you have made your booking for you to receive the link.
Room 10's 3 way interviews will ALL be conducted face-to-face only.
These opportunities are another effective way of informing about your child/ren’s learning successes and areas for improvement.
Bookings close 2:59PM MONDAY 28th March
Booking link below this info box.
Please enter and exit through the side gate next to the Admin building & allow time (at least 5mins) to complete the School's Visitor Check-in.
Classroom News Room 9
Kids News
OSHC & ELC NEWS
The ELC team are engaging in some professional development to expand on our knowledge of guiding children's behaviour using the Phoenix Cups.
The Phoenix Cups Framework draws on current ideas for understanding human behaviour to help us answer these questions:
- Why do children behave?
- How can we support children to build skills around behavioural, social, and emotional learning in our education and care settings?
- How do we, as educators, respond to behaviour?
- How do we, as educators, plan for learning environments in which children can get their needs met?
- Why do children behave the way they do?
The Phoenix Cups Framework suggests the answer to this question is:
- Just like you and I, children choose behaviours to meet their needs (or fill their Cups).
- The research behind operant conditioning and the behaviourist movement certainly gave us plenty of evidence about why animals behave, however, it did not consider the holistic behaviour of humans.
- As you can see, the school of thought arising from the humanistic movement and beyond brings with it entirely different ways of not only viewing children’s behaviour, but supporting children’s behavioural, social and emotional learning (as opposed to managing children’s behaviour). It is these theories on which the Phoenix Cups Framework is based.
In fact, it has been argued that every single behaviour we do is to meet one of our basic human life needs. Now let’s imagine those needs as five different sized Cups. We call those Cups your Safety Cup, your Connection Cup, your Mastery Cup, your Freedom Cup, and your Fun Cup. The difference between each of us is that we all have different sized Cups which makes up our unique Phoenix Cups.
When our Cups are full (or filling), we have a strong sense of wellbeing. When they are emptying, however, we are driven to choose behaviours to fill them. Throughout our life, the environment, our physiology, our own behaviour, our own thinking, and our perceptions, impact on us and can affect how full or empty our Cups are.
Using this analogy, you could say that every behaviour we choose is to fill a Cup. All of our behaviour is purposeful and is our best attempt at the time, given the resources at our disposal to meet our needs. The way we choose to fill our Cups is our own unique way of getting our needs met. These behavioural choices depend on our experience, brain maturation, skills, personality, knowledge about social expectations, desire to be considerate or cooperative, and even success using that strategy before.
The ELC is calling for empty tins!
Please donate any empty coffee or baby formula tins to the ELC - any size is helpful :)
OSHC BOOKINGS, CANCELLATIONS, CHARGES & CHANGES
- Cancellations must be made before 8:00am the day off booking for no charges to apply.
- For regular ongoing bookings $25 fee is charged
- $30 casual fee is charged for casual days or for any extra days booked regardless if you already had other days booked that week.
- Vacation Care enrolment forms received after the submission date will incur an additional cost of $50 per child (please note that enrolments may be rejected if submitted after the submission date).
- Vacation Care requires 24 hour in advance written notification for cancellations.
- All bookings and cancellations must be in writing and made through the front office/ operoo /website or the app. Email accepted, please email: admin.stpauls@nt.catholic.edu.au or anna-lea.higgins@nt.catholic.edu.au
- A $2.50 per minute per child will apply if your child is collected after 5:30pm.
- As per the Terms and Conditions on the OSHC enrolment form, public holidays will be charged if the front office has not received a cancellation of booking for that date.
- Students who have not been collected by 3:00pm will be sent to OSHC to ensure supervision. Once a child is signed in at OSHC the casual rate will be charged.
- Emergency contacts and people approved for collection of children must show identification when collecting students from OSHC and be of at least 18 years of age.
ELC & OSHC INVOICES
Please note, if you do not see a payment you have made in the past week on your invoice, please do not worry. There is a data entry delay, we receive our transaction report for the previous week’s payments each Monday where payments get assigned to accounts (we manually record payments in the system). This means that your payments will appear behind but in actual fact it is simply the data entry delay. Please also take note that if you pay on a weekend we don’t receive the monies until the Monday so your payments may appear 2 weeks behind.
If you have any issues with your Child Care Subsidy please call:
CCS Helpdesk
1300 667 276
St Paul's Parents and Friends
School Counselling Program
Hi, my name is Sarah and I am the School Counsellor from CatholicCare NT. I am located St Paul’s Catholic Primary School one day a week on Wednesdays and I'm here to provide students with support and emotional well-being. Through the School Counselling Program during a counselling session I conduct Child Centred Play Therapy modality which is a developmentally appropriate, evidenced based, therapeutic intervention for school aged children from 3-11 years old. This approach is based on the belief that "play is therapy" for children, like when adults talk through their problems to solve them, here children play through their problems to solve them.
What is Play Therapy?
Play therapy builds on the child’s inner resources and strengths, which are supported by the therapeutic relationship to bring about growth, development and healing in the child. Play therapy helps children develop confidence and positive self-esteem, find healthier ways of communicating and can promote resilience and coping, in ways that are appropriate to their developmental stage.
Here are some of the following referral reasons that your child may be struggling with and that Play Therapy can be an effective therapeutic approach by referring to the School Counselling Program; divorce & separation of parents, anxiety & depression, low self-esteem & self-confidence, social difficulties, angry & aggressive behaviour, trauma & abuse, grief & loss, autism spectrum disorder, attachment issues… and more…
Play therapy is a gentle intervention that provides a safe and secure space for children to process their thoughts, feelings, and experiences through their first and most natural language; play!
Referrals can be made through completing the form below and sending to admin.stpauls@nt.catholic.edu.au
Community Flyers
Over the next few weeks,
parents of 2-10 year old children with eczema are able to access Healthy Living Triple P FREE OF CHARGE
as part of a research project through the Queensland Children’s Hospital, Griffith University, and the University of Queensland. For more information, please visit us at https://exp.psy.uq.edu.au/eczema/, contact Dr Amy Mitchell on 0401 512 035, or email healthyliving@uq.edu.au.
