Term 2 Week 2 Newsletter 2022

Dear Parents, Friends, Staff and Students of St Catherine’s,  

It was wonderful to see all the smiling faces on the children as they shared their holiday stories with their friends and teachers when they returned to school this term. Last term was certainly a challenge with the ongoing impact of Covid along with the added inconvenience of vandalism that took place. Concluding last term with Sports Day was a great way to connect and celebrate as a community and I hope the holiday break provided you with the opportunity to relax, change routine and spend quality time together. I also hope all our mums had a special day last Sunday. 

As you are aware, changes were made to the Covid restrictions for schools from the start of this term. Please note the following: 

Monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms 

It is important that you continue to actively monitor your child for any COVID-19 symptoms. If any symptoms develop (even mild symptoms) students must not attend school and should follow SA Health advice in relation to testing and quarantine. If a positive result is advised, you will need to let the school know as soon as possible. 

We continue to work closely with SA Health, and in instances where there are 5 or more COVID-19 cases in a class, we will activate the Catholic Education South Australia Outbreak Management Plan for COVID-19 and communicate with families at that time. 

Masks in Schools 

For the first four weeks of this term, face masks are required to be worn indoors by staff and adults attending school sites as well as by all secondary school students. Masks are also strongly encouraged for Year 3-6 students. Whether this remains a requirement after week four will be advised as that time approaches. 

Parent/caregiver attendance at school 

Parents are welcome to come into the school grounds however we ask that parents refrain from entering classrooms except for pre-arranged meetings

Parents are welcome to attend school meetings, events and activities including as spectators for indoor sport, masses and assemblies. 

When indoors, please ensure you are wearing a face mask and maintain social distancing as best as possible.  

Activity settings in schools 

This term year-level and multi-class assemblies and liturgies will resume.  
Schools are also permitted to resume dormitory style school camps from week 3 of this term.  
We anticipate that whole school gatherings will also resume later this term.  

Close contacts 

Please ensure you that you are familiar with the changes to close contact rules that took effect from 30 April 2022. 

Please note that staff and students who are asymptomatic close contacts may continue to attend school, so long as they are testing in accordance with requirements and wearing a mask if they are over the age of 12. While there is no requirement for schools to keep a record of close contacts, please notify the school. 

Further information is available HERE

To access free Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs), close contacts must register at HERE and nominate the collection point from which they will pick up a free pack of RATs.  

Thank you for your ongoing support and understanding as we adapt to these arrangements in accordance with the SA Health advice to education settings.  

Term 2 Calendar and Curriculum Overviews 

The Term 2 calendar of events was sent to families via Skoolbag last week. If you have not received a copy of the calendar, please contact Cathy Fischle (cfischle@stcaths.catholic.edu.au). Our classroom teaching staff have sent an overview of the teaching and learning for their class for this term via email. Please make contact with your child's class teacher if you have not received this. 

Enrolment for 2023 and 2024 

We are currently accepting enrolments for 2023 and 2024. If you have a child that is due to start school next year or the year after and are yet to enroll them, please contact Cathy Fischle as soon as possible: cfischle@stcaths.catholic.edu.au 

Building Works 

There has been a flurry of activity with our Stage 2 building works over the past few weeks. The steel frame work has been constructed for the new break out space and office administration. The new OSHC room has nearly been completed and we are anticipating having use of this new space by week 4 of this term. The replacement cladding on the library is just about complete. The new basalt colour will take some getting used to, but will tie in well with the other building works taking place. Remediation of the watercourse in the Ditch and Wetlands area has been completed along with the pruning and clearing of vegetation in the Wetlands area. We hope to be able to make this space accessible to our classes again by the end of this term. 

Carpark 

A huge thank you to our families for the way you have been navigating the carpark in the morning and afternoon. The following is information shared earlier in the year as a reminder of procedures we have in place during the building project: 

We aim to keep the courts free of cars so that students can safely use the courts before school, at recess and lunch. This means that the car park will have limited spaces available for parent parking during our build period. Where possible, the Kiss and Drop lane should be used for students arriving and departing school.  

The carpark at the front of the school belongs to the Adelaide Hills Council. Please note that the parking spaces in the carpark are a variety of shapes and sizes, with a number of spaces being suitable ONLY for small cars. Please exercise EXTREME caution and patience when using this carpark. This includes ensuring children are not playing games and running around in this space. Please also note, the large trees along the kiss and drop lane do drop leaves, bark and pine cones at varying times throughout the year - especially when the cockatoos are in these trees, picking away at the bark and cones. 

Unfortunately, parking in the streets around the school is also limited and we ask that all drivers are considerate of the neighbouring residents. We are hopeful that by early next term, the building works will be complete and we will have greater access to parking spaces at the front of the school. Please also note that children are supervised after school at the pick up area until 3.30pm, so arriving from 3.15pm often means avoiding queuing along the road.  

Federal Election 2022  

Education is an important topic at every election. As we head towards the Federal Election on May 21, Catholics are being asked to consider how their vote will benefit the whole community. It is essential that everybody who cares about Catholic schools understands the key issues. A number of resources are available at Catholic Education South Australia | Federal Election 2022 (cesa.catholic.edu.au) 

Have a safe and relaxing weekend. 

Warm regards, 

John Low 
Principal 

A Huge Thank You 

Last term our fundraising efforts for Project Compassion raised over $1688. This comprised of money from the school based events organised by our School Captains as well as donations made through the small collection boxes sent home. It is wonderful to see the generosity within our school community continue to reach those who need it most. 

During this coming term we will turn our focus to supporting the work of St Vinnies. Stay tuned for more information about this.  

Student Leadership 

Our student ECO Leaders have been hard at work, and it was pleasing to see that even through the school holidays, they were inspired to share their learning with others. Tess in Reception spent time recording her ideas about how we can help care for the environment. This goes to show that you are never to young to take action. 

Tess put forward some great ideas about waste management and you may also be inspired to take some steps in your household to create behaviour change and reduce your environmental impact. Check out these ideas to see if you can make a simple change. 

How you can make a difference today 

The easiest way to make big changes, is by making small ones to your daily routine. 
Here are things you can do right now to get started: 

1. Separate your kitchen food scraps. By having a separate food scraps bin in the kitchen, this is a great way to teach children what can and can’t be composted. 
2. Make a compost pile or use a compost bin. Worm farms are also a great way to use up kitchen scraps. 
3. Prepare and cook only what you will consume, or use leftovers for the following night's meal. 
4. If you don’t yet have a compost bin to place your food scraps in, utilise your local council’s green waste bin. This will prevent food waste being mixed with household garbage and ending up in landfill, producing harmful methane gases. 
5. Check your local Council for a community garden, or drop off points. These initiatives are another way to help local residents turn kitchen scraps into nutrient soil for the community. 

YELP

I would also like to introduce our YELP (Young Environmental Leaders Program) leaders from Year 5. They will work with students in other schools and Green Adelaide to build a connection to and respect for the environment. I am looking forward to sharing their work with the wider community throughout the year. 

Commissioner's Student Voice Postcards 

Many South Australian primary school aged children are directly supporting the important work of South Australia's Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly, as active participants of her annual Student Voice Postcard initiative, currently being rolled our to all schools across the State. The initiative is helping Commissioner, Helen Connolly, gain a clearer understanding of what is important to primary school children. She is asking this under-represented group to respond to four simple questions that invite them to tell her what matters to them most, what aspirations they have, what worried them, and what they would change to make their lives better. All responses are anonymous. No personal information is collected. The Commissioner will use the postcard responses to inform her advocacy work to improve the lives of SA's children and your people. Any completed responses that you do at home can be returned to the school and will be sent on for you. 

Warm regards, 

Krystina Dawe 
Assistant Principal, Religious Identity and Mission 

Friday May 20th 2022 - Walk Safely to School Day 

Walk Safely to School Day asks that we all consider our transport habits and try to incorporate more walking as part of a healthy and active way to get around. Although walking all the way to school isn’t always realistic for many of us, it’s quite easy to figure our how you can build a walk into your family’s daily routine. 

You can commit to the healthy habit of walking more by:

• Walking with your child the whole way to school 
• If you use public transport, walk past your usual stop and get on at the next stop instead 
• If you have to drive, park the car a few blocks away from the school and walk the rest of the way 

Regular exercise like walking with your child, not only helps them beat chronic health problems like obesity and heart disease but has also been shown to improve mental health. It also gives you a great opportunity to teach you child safe ways to behave around roads and traffic and improve our environmental footprint.  

On Friday May 20th staff from St Catherine’s School will be walking to school from the Stirling Library departing at 8.10am. Parents and students are invited to also walk to school from this location as part of our commitment to Walk Safely to School Day. If you wish to join us on this walk please register your attendance via the Skoolbag eForm. 

We hope to see you there!

We have had a great start to the term in R/1BD. In Religion we celebrated St Catherine of Sienna's feast day by finding out facts about her life. 

We discovered....

• She lived in Italy. Charlie
• She prayed to God everyday. Bodhi
• She had lots of brothers and sisters. Harper

We drew pictures of St Catherine with white lilies because when she was older she joined the Dominican order. Sophie

This Term the Year 1/2F children have been participating in a wide range of learning experiences.

The children have been enjoying narrative writing where they have been expressing their creativity and imaginations through their stories. The children know a narrative must have a beginning, middle and end and that there is a problem and resolution. The children have been developing their skills in editing their work to ensure they are using adjectives, verbs, nouns, conjunctions and punctuation in their stories.

The children have also been learning language from the Seven Steps to Writing program which include Sizzling Starts to begin their stories in an engaging way and Ban the Boring to ensure they are using adjectives and exciting vocabulary in their work.

In HASS the children have been learning about natural, managed and constructed features in a garden. The children have taken photos of objects they find in our school garden and sorting these into natural, managed and constructed features. Their assessment was to design their own garden and label this using the language of natural, managed and constructed. Here are some photos of their amazing work!

The Years 5 and 6 classes are participating in a STEM research project with an Industry partner this term. On Thursday the classes were introduced to Stuart Nagel from SARDI Vetch Breeding group, agricultural researcher and plant breeder, who explain the importance of students being globally minded citizens, who are aware of the environmental impact of human actions and how they can be leaders of change in our world. The project will require the students to think critically and develop their understanding of sustainable farming practices.

At St Catherine's School, as part of our agreed literacy practice students from Reception through to Year 6 engage in the Seven Steps for Writing program. All teaching staff have attended the Seven Steps to Transform Writing Professional Development. Each newsletter we will add a step and an activity you can do at home to support your child.  

The Seven Steps are: 

• Step 1: Plan for Success – Learn how to brainstorm and develop ideas; use the Seven Steps writing graphs to structure narrative, persuasive and informative texts. 
• Step 2: Sizzling Starts – Start with a bang!   
• Step 3: Tightening Tension –Build momentum in narrative, persuasive and informative texts to keep the reader hooked. 
• Step 4: Dynamic Dialogue – Use the right words from the right people to bring texts to life.  
• Step 5: Show, Don’t Tell – Discover the power of ‘showing’ to engage the reader.   
• Step 6: Ban the Boring – Cut out the boring bits as you write and then as you revise and redraft. 
• Step 7: Exciting Endings / Endings with Impact – Know your destination before you start, and end your text in a way that satisfies the reader. 

Here are some examples of how our Year 2 Writers plan their narrative stories. 

Dear Families,  

Welcome back to yet another exciting Term at St Catherine's School. I hope you all had a wonderful break and that you found the opportunity to relax and reconnect with your loved ones.  

Action for Happiness Calendar - Meaningful May 

You don't need to have everything figured out to find meaning in life. There are lots of actions that help us live with purpose, even in difficult or uncertain times. Having a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives is an important foundation and source of happiness. Having ‘meaning’ is about feeling connected to and a part of something bigger than ourselves. To find out more about Meaningful May and to gain some extra tips and tricks about how to improve meaning in your life, I encourage you to watch the below short video 😊 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqyWEF_WYuQ 

Please join me in spreading some happiness and practicing ways to manage our own wellbeing. It’s important now, more than ever ❤   

Gifted Awareness Week 2022 

Students with gifts and talents have the capacity to perform at higher levels compared to others of the same age, experience and environment in one or more domains. While catering for children who may have a disability or those who experience challenges in their learning is crucial, it is equally important that children who are gifted and talented are also having their needs met. The Staff at St Catherine's have undertaken some PD in this area over the last year or so, with more exciting learning to come.  

Gifted Awareness Week Australia (GAW) will be held from 21 to 29 May 2022. The theme this year is “Like Minds”.  As part of GAW, Dr Jae Jung will be visiting from Sydney to present parent workshops. Jae is an Associate Professor in Gifted Education at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the Director of the Gifted Education Research, Resources, and Information Centre of UNSW. Dr Jae will be presenting some fantastic parent/carer workshops which I suspect will be popular. To register for this free opportunity, please follow the details on the flyer. I will be attending a session for school staff and I look forward to sharing some further information with you on gifted education in the coming weeks.  

Positive Education Parent Workshop  - Save the Date!  

At St Catherine’s School, we believe that each child is a competent and capable person from birth. We also believe that each child brings to our school community a great variety of strengths, interests and experiences which enrich us all.  We as a Staff are committed to Positive Education. We have done a lot of work in this area and now, we want to share our Positive Education philosophy with you!  

You are warmly invited to our Positive Education Parent Workshop on Thursday, 30th June 2022 at 6pm in Sienna Hall.  

The parent workshop will be presented by myself, with the help of some other familiar faces on Staff. I highly encourage you to attend this event if at all possible. We are excited to share all that we know so far about Positive Education with you and better strengthen our connections between home and school. Together, we all have the same goal. We want to see all of our children flourish!  

Parent and Carer Webinars - eSafety Commissioner 

In the world that we currently live in, Online Safety is paramount. The eSafety Commissioner are currently running two Parent and Carer webinars that could be of interest: 

• Safe Settings for online devices 
• Safer online gaming 

Please see further details below, with further information on dates, times and how to register. If any of you participate in the webinars, I would love some feedback! 

Autism Awareness Month - April 

April was Autism Awareness Month. With greater public awareness on Autism, it can help not just individuals with Autism, but also make lives easier for families and caregivers. In addition, we also enrich our society by accepting the wonderful differences that we all have. Please watch the short video below to find out more about Autism.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwRrVw-CRo&t=33s

Kerry Cornelius
Year 6 Teacher | Leader of Learning (R-6) – Wellbeing and Inclusion