He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 

‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

John 1: 23

(from the Gospel for the third Sunday of Advent , Year B)

Dear parents and carers

This is our last newsletter for the year... and what a year it has been!

We finish 2020 certainly tired... but also in a happy, cohesive state. Our school mission is to proclaim the good news of Jesus and build the kingdom of God under the banner of our school motto, which was inspired by St Paul, “All to all in faith and learning”. All we do is for the benefit of the children in our school.

The year began with our local district directly impacted by the catastrophic summer bushfires followed shortly afterwards by flooding. In mid March, the coronavirus pandemic caused schools across New South Wales to restrict our operations and then ultimately move our learning and teaching online during remote learning. We returned to full time on site operation in Week 5 of Term 2. Since then we have operated under rather tight COVID-19 restrictions. This has been our contribution to managing the pandemic.

I have been proud of the kind, generous and pragmatic manner in which our children, staff and community have responded to these unprecedented challenges. The response we mounted together as a school goes to the heart of who we are as a Catholic faith community. We have lived out in our actions the Christian virtues of charity, hope, faith and optimism, fairness, generosity and a shared concern for the common good. 

I am deeply grateful to our hard working team of teachers and school support officers who go above and beyond for the children every day. We are blessed to have a school staff who genuinely care for and love the children of our community.

The school staff, at times under great duress, have risen and risen again to many real and unique challenges presented to them this year. Mastering and then delivering digital learning and teaching was in itself an amazing accomplishment. This was subsequently augmented by supporting families in engaging with your children meaningfully with this profound change to the mode of schooling.

The necessary restrictions that we needed to comply with in managing COVID-19 meant that most of the events we had planned for 2020 could not proceed. We took the decision upon returning to school in midterm 2 that we needed to focus on the well being of our community with a particular emphasis on the children’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing.

We planned and held “fun days” to bring back some joy at school for the children. We had happy day, pyjamas day, crazy sock day, “talk like a pirate day”, crazy hair day and of course the fabulous book parade. We re-organised our plans to enable modified COVID safe sporting events to proceed. We were able to conduct a modified cross country, modified athletics carnival and water safety programs at Moss Vale Pool and at the beach at Bulli.

I will always be grateful to our parents who worked so cooperatively with the school. This gave us the time and the confidence to implement the many significant changes required to manage the demands made upon the school by the coronavirus. We have missed having regular contact with our parent body. Catholic education is premised upon the concept of “partnership” between home, school and parish. The requirement to socially distance and limit contact has made this foundational concept difficult to enact. We have done our best to stay in touch and keep the community informed using technology including using our new school website, facebook and COMPASS. We have created LOLS (Lessons of Liturgy and Scripture) with our parish priest, conducted Virtual Assemblies, created a parent portal and daily ZOOM assemblies.

Finally, I am grateful for the beautiful children of our school. They are the reason we are here together as a school. The children have been and remain marvelously positive. Their growth in faith and learning is the concern and goal of our whole community. It’s what we do and we are proud of them every day. For the children’s part, their job is to be the best girls and boys they can be; to try their best with their learning; to be kind to others and to be a good member of our school and parish community. Frankly, the children have been an inspiration to the adults of the community in their persistence, positivity and open hearted gratitude.

St Paul’s is truly a wonderful school and I am proud to be part of it. Staying focused on the many positives of our school community life and celebrating those positives is our collective responsibility. There is always much to be done in any school and in any community. We improve by working respectfully together. Ultimately, what we model as a community is what we teach our children about being in community. It is in working together for the common good, inspired by the person of Jesus, that we continuously build up our community and thus build the Kingdom and extend the reign of God amongst us. This is what Jesus wanted Christian communities to do and to be.

As St Mary of the Cross MacKillop famously observed we “never see a need without doing something about it.” This is what we do united and together every day.

I wish everyone a blessed, safe and joy filled Christmas. The promise of the Christ child is the promise of new life and renewal together. My prayer is that you will have quality time with your families, friends and loved ones. If 2020 has taught us anything, it has highlighted the vital importance of the simple, precious things in life time together, shared experiences and an outward looking attitude of gratitude. God bless.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP ELECTIONS

On Monday, we conducted our annual student leadership elections. Children in Year 5 self nominated for the roles of school captain roles and the colour house captains. Each candidate wrote an application, had an interview with the Principal and made a speech which we shared via ZOOM with the whole school. Our Year 3 to Year 6 children as well as the school staff then voted.

I would like to publicly commend the Year 5 children who put themselves forward for these positions. It is a challenging and serious step to take. I was deeply impressed by the thoughtful and mature manner in which each candidate presented themselves and spoke about leadership. Our school is in good shape when young people can speak so eloquently and with such insight about what it means to be a leader who serves their community. 

Congratulations to the elected candidates for student leadership roles in 2021:

School captains: Ella Casely, Gracie Ross

Blue House captain: Adriane Mallari

Red House captain: Charlie Dowler

Gold House captain: Brittany Wray

These elected leaders along with all Year 6 leaders for 2021 were commissioned and received a blessing at the Thanksgiving Mass on Tuesday. You can see a video of this on our school facebook page.

END OF YEAR ASSEMBLY AWARD RECIPIENTS FOR 2020

Each year, we confer six awards at our end of year assembly. These awards are sponsored by community groups and individuals. They are in recognition of specific qualities displayed by individual students throughout the year. This year’s award recipients are:

Veritas Award for Christian Living (sponsored by the Dominican Laity): Hannah Reynolds

Quiet Achiever Award (sponsored by Wendy Tuckerman MLA): Joseph Torrisi

Sports Person Award (Sponsored by the Williams family): Ayessa Cecilio

Chris Smith Memorial Award (sponsored by the P&F): Kaydee Cuttriss

Active Citizenship Award (sponsored by Stephen Jones MP): Eleanar Ragan

Year 5 Encouragement Award (sponsored by the CWA): Brittany wray

Reading SuperStars awards are given to two children in each class who have used our library frequently and borrowed regularly throughout the year.

Kindergarten: Georgia Allison, Jasmine Solari

Year 1: Anthony Vella, Lily Woods

Year 2: Sakari Curcuruto, Emily Pizzata

Year 3: Shannon Reynolds, Taliah Sidorenko

Year 4: Emiko Curcuruto, Adelyn Woods

Year 5: Ruya Gunduzlap, Brittany Wray

Year 6: Ayessa Cecilio, Isaac Hucker

This year, we had three children who participated in SPLICED, a diocesan curriculum initiative aimed at challenging and extending thinking in high achieving students. One of our students has had her work published on the diocese wide SPLICED website. Ruya's story can be found under the Student Work tab and then via the Storytelling link. The link to the SPLICED website is here:

https://spliced2020.dow.catholic.edu.au/

Congratulations to Ruya Gundazulp (Year 5), Ben Ruston (Year 6) and Lucas Holmes (Year 4).

Last week we acknowledged the children who had met the criteria for the Premier’s Reading Challenge for 2020. You can see their photos with certificates on our facebook page. We also had children who met milestones with the Premier’s Reading Challenge. Children who have met the criteria for four (4) consecutive years achieve gold certificate. 

This year the following children have received gold level:

Kapree Burgess (Year 3)

Harry Wexler (Year 4)

Nate Williams (Year 4)

Charlie Dowler (Year 5)

Children who have achieved seven years of reaching Reading Premier’s Challenge critiertia receive a platinum award.

This year Riley Englefield (Year 6) has reached this milestone.

Congratualtions to all our great readers!

YEAR 5 and YEAR 6 CAMP at TALLONG 

Year 5 and Year 6 are at Camp at Tallong until tomorrow (Friday). This is a significant event for both groups in our school year. Year 5’s camp is focussed on leadership, teamwork and collaboration. Year 6’s camp is a more reflective experience. The children will be asked to consider what they learned and the persons they have become during their primary years as they look forward to secondary school. Both groups will have a lot of fun at camp.

I would like to publicly thank the parents who drove the children to Camp yesterday and today. I especially thank Casmir Ross (Gracie’s father) for driving the St Paul’s International bus with Year 5 this morning. Cas is unable to drive the bus back from Camp tomorrow. Thank you in advance to the Year 5 and Year 6 parents who volunteered to bring all the children back from camp tomorrow afternoon at 1:30pm.

SEMESTER 2 REPORTS - Tomorrow 

On Friday 11 December, you will receive your child’s Semester 2 Report. These reports are closer to our “normal” report format than the COVID-19 adjusted Semester 1 reports. There are still some variations. Your child will receive an overall A to E grade only in Religious Education, English and Mathematics. The other Key Learning Areas will be reported against what has been taught and will not have an overall grade assigned. We want to be confident in what we report as evidenced by the learning demonstrated by the children in the assessments administered by the teachers. The reports will be shared via COMPASS by 4pm on Friday 11 December.

PARENT SATISFACTION SURVEY closes tomorrow 11 December

Our annual parent satisfaction survey will close tomorrow 11 December. We use this feedback to help inform our planning for 2021. It takes just a few moments to answer multiple choice questions. There is an opportunity to offer commentary if you choose to do so. The link to the survey is:

https://forms.gle/s6H4JQihdp74QuUR9 

TRANSITION TO 2021 GRADES

Our goal is to have the annual transition to the new class in the new year as smooth ans seamless as possible for every child. We have begun to transition children to their new teachers with visits and lots of little jobs. We will have a grade promotion afternoon on Monday 14 December with children spending the afternoon with their new teacher. The purpose of this work is to have the children get to know their new teacher and to feel comfortable in moving into their new class in 2021. 

YEAR 6 FAREWELL MASS Monday 14 December at 6pm

We will celebrate our Year 6 Farewell Mass in our school hall with Year 6 on the evening of 14 December at 6pm. Unfortunately, we will need to restrict visitor numbers to just two guests per Year 6 child. Choice of who the guest will be is up to the individual family e.g. mum and dad; mum and sibling; dad and sibling etc. The Year 6 child and guests will sit together in designated seating in the school hall. Again, this is not what we would ideally like to offer. It is all we can do at this time. It will be a lovely, simple celebration of the Year 6 children’s primary years.

Year 6 will have their annual “big day out” on Tuesday 15 December. There are going to Bundanoon pool for the day. Children need to be at school at the normal time and will walk to the railway station to depart on the 9.20am rail coach. They will return by a local Berrima coach leaving Bundanoon at 1.30pm. We will conduct a modified “guard of honour” for Year 6 at the end of the day as is our custom. 

We will video this event and post it to facebook given we are still not permitted to have parents and community members on site to witness it first hand. 

TUESDAY 15 DECEMBER LAST DAY FOR CHILDREN

The 2020 school year concludes for children at the end of the school day on Tuesday 15 December. 

DAYS AND DATES FOR TERM 4

I would particularly draw your attention to the Week 10 arrangements with Tuesday 15 December being the last day of the year for the children. 

Staff will continue to work on site until Thursday 17 December.

TERM DATES for 2021

End of Year Assembly and Thanksgiving Mass

On Tuesday the 8th December, we were able to hold our End of Year Assembly and Thanksgiving Mass. This was an opportunity to hand out many special awards, give some farewells and announce the Year 6 captains for 2021. During the Mass, all of the current Year 5 students received their 2021 leadership badges and recited their leadership pledge in front of the school community. A special photo presentation was also shown during Mass, celebrating the many achievements and experiences of a very challenging year. I would like to thank the many wonderful students who participated in this Mass, particularly the altar servers and readers.

Unfortunately, due to Covid restrictions, we were unable to invite parents to attend this special day. We have uploaded some videos of this event onto our school Facebook page.

Year 6 Farewell Mass

The Year 6 Farewell Mass will take place on Monday 14th December in the school hall at 6:00pm. The Year 6 students are able to invite two guests each. This is an important event for our Year 6 students and our staff as we bid them farewell. Mass will be followed by speeches and a photo presentation. Due to Covid restrictions, we are unable to provide supper after Mass. However, all guests will receive a special memento at the conclusion of this event.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Advent and Christmas

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and joyful Christmas. May Christ’s peace and hope be with your family now in in the weeks ahead leading up to Christmas. Your involvement and support throughout this particularly challenging year has been much appreciated. 

Thank you

Catherine du Bois

Religious Education Coordinator

Enjoying time with your child.

With the holidays approaching families are going to have more time to spend together. The Raising Children Network has some great links to the benefits of spending time together with your children. Special time with your child can happen while you're doing everyday activities like folding the laundry or watering the garden, or making time to go for walks or playing board games. Just sharing happy experiences helps to build a relationship with your child. The link to this page can be found on the parent portal as well as here in this newsletter.

https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/connecting-communicating/connecting/enjoying-time

I would like to wish all families of the St Paul's Primary School community a blessed Christmas and a restful holiday and I look forward to seeing the children return in 2021.

Parent Portal - https://sites.google.com/dow.catholic.edu.au/st-pauls-moss-vale/wellbeing

From 2021 we will unfortunatly no longer be taking Commonwealth Bank Student Banking at the school.  The demand hasn't been as high over the last couple of years, so the decision has been made to no longer offer it through the school.  However you can still do banking through your local branch and the children can still receive their rewards, etc.  Thank you for your understanding.