Dear Parents and Carers

100 Days of School

On Monday, our Kindergarten children celebrated a big milestone: their first 100 days of school! It was a big day, and a very happy one, as children came dressed up for the day (as did their teachers) and participated in many fun activities befitting the occasion. Congratulations to our Kinder students, and their teachers: I am very proud of you all. May there be many more ‘100 days’ to come!

School-Wide Positive Behaviours

Yesterday, our Assistant Principal met with members of the staff and the student body, to continue our School Wide Positive Behaviours support plan. We will be launching the plan soon with our whole community, which includes, among other things, a reframing of our school rules: ‘Succeeding Together Safely’, which captures our life at school very well: succeeding in learning, within a community, in a way that supports the learning wellbeing of all. My thanks to Anna and all staff and students for their hard work.

Mini Maths Mornings

Starting on Tuesdays in Week 5, at 8.15am, we are holding Mini Maths Mornings for parents of children in Grades 3 – 6. These sessions filled up fast! Registered participants will spend time on these mornings unlocking the ‘mystery’ of the way Maths is taught in the upper grades, and how Maths concepts are unpacked by teachers. The use of Maths manipulatives, or concrete materials, is a particular highlight. My thanks to Anna Williams for coordinating these mornings and to Sarah Walsh and Sarah Kennelly for their participation and support.

NAPLAN Results

Parents of children in Years 3 and 5 will be receiving their child’s NAPLAN results this week. Year 5 parents (and parents of Year 3 students who have older children) will note the change in grading terminology. This change in terminology means that Year 5 parents will be unable to compare their children’s results from Years 3 to 5. They can, however, still see how their child’s progress measures against the national average. Anna Williams has written about this below. Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions.

Feast of the Transfiguration

On Friday, our Parish celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration, an occasion which sees the two schools in the Parish – Sts Peter and Paul and Holy Trinity – come together for a day’s shared activities. We begin with Mass together, at the Church at Curtin, followed by a day’s activities with buddy classes, then a shared lunch. It is always a wonderful day and a great deal of fun for the students. My thanks to the Religious Education Coordinators for both schools, Veronica Hall and Emily Capper, for their great work, and to all staff for their support.

Have a wonderful week with your families.

Best wishes

Cameron Johns

Principal

First Eucharist Home Groups

The First Eucharist books and Leader’s book should be ready to take home at the end of this week. As a community, we pray for the students and families as they begin their preparation to receive the Body and Blood of Christ at the table of the Lord.

Feast Day of Mary MacKillop

On Tuesday 8 August, we will celebrate the Feast Day of Mary MacKillop with a prayer liturgy. All members of the community are warmly invited to pray with us at 12 noon in the hall.

Feast of the Transfiguration - Friday 4 August 

We are looking forward to celebrating the Feast of the Transfiguration with our parish school Holy Trinity and the parish community on Friday. Thank you to all parents for completing the consent form online. If you still need to give consent, please email your child’s class teacher. 

Sunday Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9, The Transfiguration of the Lord Year A

His face was shining like the sun.

Gospel Reflection

Jesus takes his most trusted disciples up a high mountain to allow them to share in what he knows is about to occur. It is a very clear teaching moment in which Jesus hopes the disciples are going to finally grasp the truth about him. As the disciples stand by, Jesus is transformed before them – suddenly bathed in light and his clothes become dazzlingly white. The disciples also see Moses and Elijah standing and talking with Jesus. Moses was the great Law-giver of Jewish tradition and Elijah the great prophet. Together, they represent the Law and the Prophets – the combined wisdom that make up the tradition of Jewish teaching and Jewish scripture. It is the Law and the Prophets that Jesus’ life and ministry brings to fulfilment. It is fitting that Moses and Elijah appear beside Jesus, as the three figures combined represent the fullness of Jewish tradition – the Law of Moses; the challenge and promise of the Prophets; and the compassion of Jesus that completes the other two.

Sadly, the disciples don’t really get the point of what they see before them. Peter, caught up in the moment, wants to build tents on the spot to mark the moment and to continue to dwell in the moment. Jesus, however, leads them back down the mountain – back into the valley; back into the reality of life; back into the tragedy that he knows lies before them. No matter how powerful a religious experience may be, Jesus shows us that we always have to return to real life. It is not possible to remain on the ‘mountaintop’ as Peter would have liked to do; we have to take the experience back into the everyday of our lives. (Greg Sunter).

Blessings for the week ahead,

Veronica Hall

Religious Education Coordinator

Commencing on the first Monday of September and running through with some breaks until a little after Easter 2024, we will conduct an RCIA journey.  The RCIA is a journey for those seeking to come into the Church or for those looking to complete their sacramental initiation, having been baptised Catholic or in another Christian tradition.  There is an Inquiry phase when folk share what they value and what has drawn them to the RCIA.  This is followed by the Catechumenate where there is a consideration of life experience in the light of the Scriptures and Church teaching and practice. During Lent there is time of personal renewal in preparation for Reception into the Church at Easter.  This is followed by a time of consideration of how one might live out the faith received in this time and place.  Further, the RCIA journey requires a group of parishioners to journey with those inquiring about our Catholic faith. If you or someone you know is interested or would like to be a part of a diverse RCIA Parish Team of parishioners to accompany the candidates, please contact the Parish Office or Fr John. Please pray for this initiative and consider whether you might be more personally involved.  Perhaps this could be source of renewal for you?

Do you have a couple of hours to spare for our beautiful school community?

Please come along to our Spring Working Bee this Sunday August 6, 9:00am - 11:00am to meet other families and freshen up our school grounds.

Father's Day Celebrations

SAVE THE DATE!

 To celebrate Father's Day this year we will be holding a Father's Day breakfast

 FRIDAY 1^st SEPTEMBER 

7:45am - 9am in the school grounds

This will be followed by a Father's Day stall for the students - further details to follow!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to those students who are celebrating their birthday this week

Elijah C

Anwesha K

Zachariah R

Joaquin C

Abigail B

James O

Awards will be presented at our assembly on Thursday, 10 August at 2.15 in the School Hall.

Principal's Award: 

A very worthy recipient will receive an award ...... but it's a secret.

Learning Support Awards: 

Daniel B, 6M; Sofia M, KM; Luke B, KM

(please note that LS awards are given to any child in the school that the Classroom Support Assistants have noticed doing something wonderful): 

Another productive school council meeting was held last night, with exciting opportunities and ventures planned to enhance the relationship between families and our beautiful school.

The school council has agreed to fund a 'wish list' put forward to purchase 720 new decodable readers for our school - we can all agree that is a worthwhile investment into our school and our children's literacy.

We have been fostering the idea of enhancing the partnerships between our school and its communities- to 'succeed together safely'. Many new events are planned in the coming months - you can make reference to some of these in the very snazzy term events overview (see article below in the newsletter). Two notable events include the working bee this Sunday (a great way to meet fellow Sts P&P families) and our Fathers Day breakfast and stall on 1st September.

And lastly, but certainly not least, the council are very excited to announce that Sts P&P will host 'A night with Andrew Fuller' on 14th November.

Andrew is a very decorated clinical psychologist and author, who works with schools and communities specialising in the wellbeing of young people and their families.

It will be a great honour to have Andrew come and speak to our community, and a wonderful opportunity for parents and carers to learn from him. More information will become available soon, however, tickets will be limited and we will also be extending an invitation to some of our partner and surrounding schools.

 **If there is a parent in the school who has a graphic design background and would like to help, we would be very grateful! 

Here's to the weather warming up!

Tegan Ingold 

Our beautiful school is characterised by strong, supportive partnership and a culture of connection to the community. The following flyer highlights and celebrates our partnerships and community connections. Please know you are warmly invited to join in these many wonderful school community events.

NAPLAN Report Changes

In Term One, our Year 3 and Year 5 students sat NAPLAN assessments. This week parents will receive NAPLAN reports detailing student results in the coming months. From 2023, proficiency standards will replace the previous numerical NAPLAN bands. This change has implications for reporting, support, and interpretations. 

Proficiency standards provide simple and clear information on student achievement for each assessment area: numeracy, reading, writing, and conventions of language. 

The proficiency scale has 4 levels: 

• Exceeding: The student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing. 
• Strong: The student’s result demonstrates proficiency by meeting challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing. 
• Developing: The student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing and are approaching proficiency. 
• Needs additional support: The student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.

It is important to note results from 2023 onwards cannot be directly compared with results from 2008 to 2022. This is because a new measurement scale that is more suited to the online tests has been introduced with the new standards. Also, in 2023, the tests moved to Term 1 from Term 2. However, as in previous years, you can continue to see your child’s achievement against the national average for the year.

What NAPLAN assesses has not changed? NAPLAN results should be considered together with school assessments and reports. As it is held once every 2 years for each student, NAPLAN results cannot replace the extensive, ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance. Your child’s teacher will have the best insight into your child’s educational progress.

For more information, please read the supporting information sheet for parents. 

Yesterday our School-wide Positive Behaviours (SWPB) Team worked together to continue building our Succeeding Together Safely behaviour expectations matrix. The student representatives were pleased and proud to see their Term 1 work reflected so carefully in our behaviour expectations. The children enjoyed practising the Auslan signs that our Sts Peter and Paul school community will soon use to communicate and celebrate positive behaviour at our school.

In a few weeks we will prepare SWPB presentations to share with the students, staff and families to unpack our project successes. The SWPB Team will also begin writing, teaching and learning programs to explicitly teach our behaviour expectations to every class in the school in Term 1 next year.

We thank our SWPB students, Mr Gereis, Mrs Halis-Pratt, Mrs deJongh and Mrs Gill for their enthusiasm and creativity.

The Australian Maths Competition, an annual international competition, was held here at school today. 

All Year 3-6 students at Sts Peter and Paul School were invited to participate, and pleasingly, a whopping 86 students chose to register and participate in this online competition.

The competitors found the questions had an emphasis on problem solving, and the problems became increasingly complex, so that by the end of the competition, even our most gifted students were challenged.

Each of the competitors will receive an official AMT certificate in the coming months, celebrating their effort and results. We congratulate all of our students who joined in this Maths adventure. 

Would you like to try some AMC Mathematics at home? Past test papers and details regarding the competitions and programs offered by the Australian Maths Trust, can be found here https://www.amt.edu.au/

Sts Peter & Paul School will be celebrating our ‘Annual Science Day’ on Friday 18th August, 2023.

In class groups, students will participate in a variety of engaging science activities. Keeping with tradition, the Year 6 students will lead the experiments with teacher support and supervision. Students from all grades are invited to dress up as their favourite Scientist for the day. 

The National Science Week theme for this year is ‘Innovation: Powering Future Industries.’

Activities include: 

• Rocket Balloons, Twirly Birds, Air Cannons, and Plastic Bag Parachutes.

IMPORTANT: In preparation for Science Day, we need your help, please send in recycled materials for the activities we will be conducting. If you have any of these materials that you were going to throw out anyway, could you please send them to school with your child. 

The list of materials that we will need to make our annual Science Day a success: plastic shopping bags, cardboard cylinders/rolls. 

For ideas and activities to try at home, please see Questacon’s activity page https://www.questacon.edu.au/learn-and-play .

We look forward to an exciting day of Science! Keep an eye on our Facebook page and newsletter for photos and student reflections. 

Science Week Coordinator 

Paul Jenkins 

Library Lessons for Term 3 & 4 have changed! Please remember Library Bags!  

We still have 214 Library books overdue! 

Book Week Information

The most exciting time of the year in the Library is almost here! We love celebrating Book Week at Sts Peter and Paul Primary and know many families are preparing their Book Week costumes. Remember, it is a dress up parade of students’ favourite characters from books. It is wonderful if students can bring the book that their character is from. Our parade will be at 9am on Tuesday 22nd August (Week 6) and we warmly welcome parents and carers to join us to watch. 

After the parade, students will participate in a range of art and craft activities based on the Zart Art Book Week ideas. 

On Friday of Week 6, Mrs Raccosta is very kindly organising a ‘Book Week Themed’ canteen menu which was incredibly popular last year!  

Please see the CBCA website for more information on the shortlisted books https://cbca.org.au/

Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge

We have finally finished the Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge! A huge congratulations to all students and a massive thank you to the teachers who have supported this initiative. Congratulations to Year 2M who completed their challenge this week! 

Book Club 

Orders close this Friday 4th August. It will then take up to two weeks for the books to arrive at school and be handed out. 

All orders are placed online via the LOOP app- please note we do not accept cash or orders at school as all orders are placed online. Click here to access an online version: https://www.scholastic.com.au/book-club/book-club-parents/ 

Our school is St Peter and Pauls when you are in the LOOP app. 

Please contact amanda.basedow@cg.catholic.edu.au if you have any questions regarding the Library or borrowing.

Keep reading!

Mrs Basedow

ACT Rugby League 

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to Lachlan A from 6M who is currently in Townsville representing the ACT in Rugby League as his team's captain. We are extremely proud of your sportsmanship and leadership of your teammates.

South/Weston Region Athletics Carnival Thursday 17th August at Woden Park Athletic, Ainsworth St, Phillip ACT 2606.

If your child has qualified for the South/Weston Region Athletics Carnival please remember to complete the permission note via Compass at your earliest convenience, where you are also provided the opportunity to pay. If your child does not wish to attend, please email me so that I may ammend qualifiers. 

Boorowa Touch Football/Netball Carnival Friday 20th October

Thank you to all the parents and carers for returning their child’s note to attend the Boorowa Touch Football/Netball Carnival. If your child is attending and you will be driving them, please consider volunteering as our success at this carnival will depend on volunteers. Thank you to those who have already raised their hand! We still need quite a few volunteers (particularly referees), so if you are driving your child to this event please consider volunteering.

I am currently in the process of organising the teams for this event. Once this is arranged, a coach/manager will be assigned to each team alongside a team list.  Please note that I am unable to accept any more notes for your child to attend from today onwards as teams need to be finalised. Thank you for your understanding. 

If you ever have any questions about anything related to Sport, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Luke Gubler (luke.gubler@cg.catholic.edu.au) and Sarah Walsh (sarah.walsh1@cg.catholic.edu.au) and hopefully we will be able to help you out!

In the kitchen last week the children were learning about the Grains Group. They made bruschetta with a cherry tomato topping. We grew the tomatoes in our garden so they were extra special and tasty. The children also continued learning new skills such as chopping, stirring, and reading a recipe.

Unfortunately, garden club was rained out – but the garden received a water so that’s good news!!

For more information or if you have a question, please email katherine.birch@cg.catholic.edu.au

The Garden Club

THE CANTEEN IS CASHLESS FOR ALL LUNCH ORDERS

Families are required to place ALL lunch orders via Qkr! before 8.45am

Please purchase over-the-counter sale items (snacks & treats) for your child in a lunch order,

or

Purchase a “daily counter sales voucher” via Qkr! for your child to go to the canteen to purchase (snacks & treats) at lunchtime.

CANTEEN VOLUNTEER ROSTER

Please contact me if you are unable to help out on your day.

ARE YOU ABLE TO HELP OUT IN TERM 3?

 If you have any spare time and would like to help in the canteen, PLEASE feel free to contact me through email at lauretta.raccosta@cg.catholic.edu.au

or click on the link below to slot a time in.

https://stpandp.schoolzineplus.com/CanteenTerm3

All volunteers must have a WWVP card.

 Qkr! TIP

 Is your child sick and not going to school, and you have placed a lunch order on Qkr!?

 You have till 8.45am that morning to cancel the lunch order - instructions on how to cancel lunch orders are below.

YEAR GROUPS ARE HOSTING SPECIAL LUNCH DAYS AGAIN!

  

 Mrs R is so excited to be having volunteers back into the canteen

that we are having Year Groups host the special lunch days!

 Year 1 will be hosting our next special lunch day.

If you are a Year 1 parent/carer and can help on the day (even for a short while), we would love your assistance!

No training required.

 Helping in the Canteen that day is a great opportunity to meet parents in your child’s class. No doubt your child will get a buzz from seeing you at the school too! 

OPEN TUESDAY MORNINGS

8.30 – 9.30AM

The Uniform Shop is a service for the parents and children.  

We sell New & Quality Second-hand school clothing, and all money raised goes back to the school to provide resources for the children.

The School Uniform is available via Qkr!
Tuesdays - Fridays, orders will be delivered to your child’s classroom. Orders need to be placed before 8.45 am. 

The Uniform shop is stocked up with second hand uniform, please visit on a Tuesday morning to purchase second hand uniform.

The uniform shop is limited with space, so if you wish to donate pre-loved items, PLEASE ONLY DONATE CLOTHES

that are washed and in perfect resalable order.

Thank you

 Please visit the schools website for the Uniform price list.

Lauretta Raccosta

Uniform Shop

Lauretta.raccosta@cg.catholic.edu.au