“She came and knelt before Him, saying, “Lord, help me.”

Matt 15: 25

(from the Gospel for the twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A)

Dear parents and carers

Our Crazy hair day last Friday was a great success. It seems we have many budding hairdressers in our community! You can view the creativity on our facebook page. There were certainly some very impressive hair-dos!! Everyone had a lovely day.

Also on our facebook page, you can see some pictures of the structured play opportunities we are offering at second break each day. We wanted to give the children further play options and alternatives. Mrs Iliani and Mrs Claremont are doing a great job in bringing the fun!

Looking after our wellbeing and mental health is so important and especially at this time. We have pushed out mindfulness and well being apps to our school managed iPads. The free apps we have selected are Smiling Minds, Dreamy Kids Meditation and Stop,Think, Breath. We strongly encourage you to download these free apps if your child does not have a school managed device. We also recommend the Pray as you Go which is suitable for adults. There are of course, many other resources to help with mental health and positive mindsets. The actual resource or activity you choose to use is not what is important. What is most important is that we each take some time for ourselves and try to maintain as best we can to stay positive, healthy and hopefully, happy. Self care is a gift we can share with our children.

Check the CEDoW COVID-19 website for updates

Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong (CEDoW) has created and regularly updates a COVID-19 specific website to communicate accurate information to all our school dicosean communities. The CEDoW COVID-19 Information centre is available here. We ask that you review this website regularly. A link to the COVID-19 Information Centre has also been placed on our school website home page. 

On going COVID-19 Phase #3 precautions currently in place at St Paul’s until further notice

I would like to reassure you that, within the ever changing management and subsequent restrictions required during the COVID-19 emergency, the measures we implemented upon the return to full time face to face learning and teaching in Week 5 of Term 2 have remained in place at St Paul’s. The current Phase #3 measures are

• Twice daily cleaning of all high touch surfaces in the school in addition to the normal school cleaning schedule
• No whole school assemblies on Friday afternoon (virtual award assemblies will continue)
• No sporting carnivals or inter-school sporting events
• No excursions or incursions
• Regular teaching and reminders of COVID safe hygiene practices with all children
• “Wash your hands, cover your cough, stay home if you are sick” mantra.
• Continued adherence of social distancing protocols, especially for adults
• No unnecessary visitors at the school
• Students and staff, if unwell, are expected to stay at home until symptoms resolve
• Any child or staff member presenting with symptoms of a respiratory condition will be immediately sent home
• COVID-19 response action plan is established against the possibility of a positive COVID-19 test result in a community member (student, staff, parent)
• Staggered, colour house afternoon pick up from Innes Road

We have provisioned the school with hand sanitiser, disinfectant surface wipes, surgical gloves, PPE and face masks. Should the NSW government direct CEDoW to change our management protocols, be assured we are both ready and well supplied. In all instances, we will of course keep you informed of any such changes.  

Modified Sports Arrangements for 2020

We are planning to conduct adjusted and modified versions of the cross country, athletics carnival and the basketball gala day. 

Cross Country: we will run age based cross country events each afternoon spread over a week for Year 2 to Year 6. Single age based events will be run by age group after second break over the course of Week 6. Kindergarten and Year 1 will run their modified cross country after second break on Tuesday 1 September.

Basketball skills clinics: we are organising weekly class based basketball clinics at the stadium commencing in Week 7 until Week 10. This would involve the children in Year 2 to Year 6 walking down to the stadium for a 30 minute clinic one class at a time. We will confirm this planning once all the details are finalised.

Athletics Carnival- we plan to conduct the range of events of the athletics carnival over a period of weeks at the beginning of Term 4. For the track events, we plan to conduct single age events on different days over a period of a couple of weeks in a similar fashion to the cross country noted above. For the field events we will offer a modified version of our normal practice. In the past we have conducted skills clinics and then competitive heats for field events in the weeks leading up to the carnival, with just the finals of each field event being held on the carnival day. We intend to use a similar approach this year with finals being held immediately after the heats.

Water Safety Programs- we are hoping these can proceed at the end of Term 4. We are working with the service providers. We will keep you informed as to the progress of these negotiations.

It is obvious we will need to continue to meet COVID-19 safe protocols. These are the directives we are obligated to and must continue to operate within. Under the Phase #3 restrictions we currently have in place, gathering adults to spectate is not going to be possible unless the government directives change. Consequently and unfortunately, parents and spectators will not be able to attend these planned events (unless the directives change to permit such access). 

Clearly, all this planning is contingent on COVID-19 restrictions. Our plans may be subject to change at short notice or may need to be cancelled. In all cases, we will keep you informed. Meanwhile, we will continue to work to provide these opportunities to our children.

Sport Uniform Days by Class

Your child will need to wear the sport uniform on the following days each week.

Kindergarten- Friday

Year 1- Thursday & Friday

Year 2- Thursday & Friday

Year 3- Wednesday & Friday

Year 4- Wednesday & Friday

Year 5- Wednesday & Friday

Year 6- Wednesday & Friday

On 15th August the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Assumption of Our Lady when according to our faith, the Holy Mother, “having completed her course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory”. The Assumption signals the end of Mary’s earthly life and marks her return to heaven to be reunited with Jesus.

Catherine du Bois

Religious Education Coordinator

The parent portal is a one stop shop of information for families about school life and has been recently updated. The portal was originally set up to support remote learning and is now transitioning into a parent portal where you can see what is happening at school in your child’s classroom.  The term overviews have been published on the class pages. You will find links to a variety of websites that support faith development, learning and families.  Our students use websites and interactive programs, with their iPads, that support their learning in the classroom. You will find information about these on the classpage link so please take some time to look through the portal. We welcome feedback which can be given through the feedback form.