11th February 2022

Principals News

Dear Parents and Carers,

A warm welcome to a brand new school year! It is indeed an exciting time in the lives of our students, especially our kindergarten students. It has been a wonderful start to the year and may I commend the students for the manner in which they have returned to school: excited, happy, ready to play and make new friends and ready to learn and grow! 

We welcome Lyla into Year 2 and we welcome her family to Holy Spirit along with our 45 Kindergarten students who wear the biggest smiles every single day.  The kinders have learnt to walk into the school gate by themselves or hop out of the car independently...as parents you should be so very proud! 

Starting anything new comes with both excitement and challenges. Starting school is a milestone in a child’s life and at Holy Spirit we want to make sure we are supporting every child to be successful.

“Children’s mental health and well-being is supported when staff and families work together to enable children to have positive goodbyes - this could be achieved through such actions as:

• Gradually build up your child’s experiences of separation so that they feel safe and reassured.
  • Spend extra time with your child when you reunite to reconnect again.
  • Allow children to express their distress, acknowledge the child’s feelings and avoid labelling or criticising.
  • Talk with your child about what you can do when you see each other again.
  • Increase the child’s feelings of safety and connectedness by bringing a familiar toy or photo from home.
  • Talk with your child about their day and what they enjoyed.”

A gentle reminder for parents that the start of the school year means your child will be learning new class routines; getting to know their new teacher/s and settling in to five days of learning. In other words, they have a very big cognitive load which can make them tired and irritable of an evening. A regular dinnertime and bedtime routine will support your child to be well rested and able to manage the day ahead and that goes for our Year 1 and 2 students too. You will also find that hot weather impacts on a child's tiredness. When children are overtired and grumpy they aren't able to be as resilient as usual and this can have a negative impact on their day. A regular dinner time routine and bedtime routine will really help to set your child up for a successful day of learning at school. 

A reminder the morning bell goes at 8.55am and all students need to arrive prior to this time please. Due to our Covid Safety Plan, our staff are already doing extra supervision duties every day and we don't have the ability to have staff supervising at the gates after the morning bell. Thank you for your understanding. 

The afternoon dismissal bell is at 2.55pm. Our friends from Aspect School are collected via Kiss and Ride from 2.30pm and we cannot have our parents lined up too early as these children often travel in pre-arranged transport vehicles that have a schedule to follow. Again, our thanks for your understanding. 

We have welcomed several new staff to our Holy Spirit Community for 2022: 

Administration   Mrs Dot Seamer (M-Th) & Mrs Lisa Bolam (F) 

Kinder White      Mrs Meagan Edwards

Kinder Blue         Miss Jessica Laczkowski/Mr Brodie Flynn 

Year 1 White        Mrs Heather Porter-Kay/Mr Brodie Flynn

Year 1 Blue           Miss Helena Elias

Year 2 White       Mrs Carlia Collingwood 

Year 2 Blue         Miss Sarah Lutze

Learning Support Teacher      Mrs Nicola Matheson 

Learning Support Assistants   Mrs Leah Shakespeare, Mrs Janelle Williams, Mrs Amanda Focic and Mrs Lisa Bolam.

EALD  Teacher/s     Mrs Nicolette Fredsall and Miss Dana Romeyn

Specialist Science and Technology Teacher   Mr Brodie Flynn

School Leadership Team: 

Miss Jessica Laczkowski      Religious Education Coordinator

Mrs Heather Porter-Kay      Acting Assistant Principal 

Ms Diane Murphy                    Principal 

We are enjoying working together as a new team! 

Building Works Update

Phase 1: Administration Refurbishment 

The building works refurbishment of the Administration block is almost complete. Our sincere thanks to the Catholic Schools Office for supporting the project;  to EJE Architects for their clever design and to J&J Killelea Constructions for their excellent workmanship. The refurbishment will provide our school with a new entry foyer; a customised Administration office; a refurbished sick bay and upgraded interview room for parent meetings. We will also have work spaces for teachers for their collaborating and planning time and the staffroom itself has been refurbished and relocated to accommodate the growing staff at Abermain. Our staff are very hardworking deserve to have a new and spacious work space and we are excited to move in across the coming weeks. We will keep all parents informed of when this will occur. 

Phase 2: Outdoor Covered Learning Space and Walkway

You'll have noticed scaffolding in our playground as the work has begun to erect our new covered outdoor learning space and covered walkway. This structure is to assist students in Year 2 and Aspect classes to be able to access the new toilet block under cover. The steel is in place and we are waiting for the roofing and then the sandstone tiered seating to be put in place. Our students all enjoyed watching the crane working on site. It will be a most welcome additional learning space for our school.  This outdoor learning space will be in addition to the Kinder outdoor grassed space that runs along the rear of the administration building which our Kinders have enjoyed exploring in the last two days. At this time we are unsure of a completion date due to covid impacting the supply of materials. 

Canteen News

Calling all volunteers...we need you!

Our canteen operates as a service to our families and is a very important part of life at Holy Spirit Infants School as our early learners have the opportunity to be responsible for their money and make decisions when purchasing items at the canteen. They love it! Our canteen volunteers are required to be double vaccinated and must have a current Police Check for volunteers. We are desperately in need of some volunteers to assist to run our canteen.

In 2021 we operated on as Monday and a Friday for lunch orders and ice blocks and currently we don't have enough volunteers to operate. It is only a short amount of time, a couple of hours as we don't open at the recess break now. Please consider volunteering your time- it's not hard and you'll get to work alongside other parents.

If you are interested please contact Mrs Seamer in the office to discuss.  We'd love to hear from Mums, dads, grandparents! 

Rapid Antigen Tests 

Thank you to our parents of Kinder, Yr 1 and Yr 2 for collecting your child's RATs for the next two weeks. A reminder to contact the school on Friday to arrange collection. Our sincere thanks for your support of this initiative as your efforts are helping to keep our school community safe. I will update you about the expectations for the weeks beyond 24th February. 

If your child is unwell, please do not send them to school. We do not have a designated sick bay due to being in the hall and as such parents need to come and collect a sick child immediately. I appreciate the difficulty this causes parents and thank you for assisting us to minimise time spent in sick bay. 

Celebrating Birthdays

At Holy Spirit we celebrate every child's birthday by singing to them at assembly and presenting them with their birthday certificate. Sometimes parents want to share a celebratory cake with the class however at our school we have deemed this to be too much of a risk given we have a number of students with food allergies. Please do not send in a cake as we cannot cut it up to share it. If your child wishes to celebrate with their classmates, a water ice block or Zooper Dooper for the class is acceptable. Having said that, this is not an expectation and doesn't need to happen. If you have any questions please contact me at the school. 

Uniform and Belongings

Thank you for dressing your child/children in their uniforms. They all look so very smart in their summer and sport uniforms. A reminder that summer uniform for girls includes white short socks and for boys grey short socks. Sport shoes are asked to be predominantly white where possible please. 

A gentle reminder to please clearly label every one of your child's belongings. This helps us to give things back once they've been lost. Thank you.

SPORT NEWS

This term our students will participate in an Athletics Skills program in preparation for the Athletics Carnival which we propose to be later this term or early in term 2. The provider is Fit4Kids and we are looking forward to seeing our students develop and challenge themselves to learn these new athletic skills across the term. 

Swimming Carnival Success

On Tuesday I was very proud to accompany three brave and excited Year 2 students who competed in the 8 year old swimming events at the Holy Spirit Primary carnival at Kurri pool. Congratulations to Macy Bauer, Travis Koshoorn and Max Brogan for your terrific confidence and "can do" spirit that you showed. 

All three students competed in the 50m freestyle and Travis also participated in the 50m junior backstroke.  Both Macy and Travis qualified for the regional carnival at East Maitland Pool next Tuesday 15th February. We wish them both all the very best in their next swimming campaign. 

Swimming Carnival

ROAD SAFETY around our school 

A reminder that when utilising the Kiss and Ride zone of a morning or afternoon that drivers MUST NOT overtake and leave the line of cars at any time. Several families have younger children in their vehicles and so our school students may need to alight from the vehicle on the road side of the car. Kiss and Ride is THE safest way for your child to enter the school and we are very fortunate to have a Kiss and Ride zone operating. Your patience when using this process, which is to assist all families to keep every child and staff member safe, is very important. 

A reminder to ALWAYS hold your child's hand when crossing a road near the school as we do not have a designated crossing. Parents/carers MAY NOT park in the church carpark at the request of our Parish Priest Fr James due to his safety concerns that cars leave and drive across a designated footpath used by students and their families. 

All roads around our school are a 40 zone.

We also do have the Cessnock Council Rangers patrolling to ensure the safety of all.

Please obey the parking signs.  Thank you.

Our newsletters are fortnightly and other important information is shared via Compass. 

Have a blessed week! 

Kind Regards

Diane Murphy

Principal 

Health News Update

We have been notified of a case of Hand, Foot and Mouth virus in our school. This is highly contageous and it is important parents/carers check their child for symptoms: 

Acting Assistant Principal News

To all our Holy Spirit Community, welcome to the start of the 2022 school year at Holy Spirit Infants School.

I hope you enjoyed a wonderful break and you have returned re-energised and ready to start the new year. A very warm welcome to all members of our school community, particularly to our Kindergarten students and their families and, also to a new student who has joined us in Year 2.

The new school year promises to be successful and positive. It was a joy for me to see so many happy and smiling faces on the first day back. It has been a busy start to the year with many birthdays being celebrated in the first few weeks of school. All planned events for our new year are on the Compass Calendar which you can see. If you are having trouble accessing Compass, please see our school secretaries Dot (Monday-Thursday) or Lisa (Friday) for support.

My role this year is Acting Assistant Principal, Pedagogical Mentor and Year 1 teacher. If at any time you wish to discuss any aspect of school life with me, my executive office day is every Tuesday, this is when I will be available for appointment. You can arrange a time to meet via phone call to the school or alternatively my email heather.porter-kay@mn.catholic.edu.au.

SUCCESSFUL FOUNDATIONS

Play is the Way! Our school is one of many schools to collaborate with Taylor Stokes and Bridy Stanger, Project Officers Early Learning (Catholic Schools Office, Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle) and Dr Cathie Harrison (Australian Catholic University) to provide a series of open-ended play experiences for learning and wellbeing in the first hour of the day over the first five weeks of Kindergarten (weeks 2-7).

This year Successful Foundations continues through to Year 1, where students are invited to engage with open ended play-based provocations to extend their thinking providing a successful transition to Year 1.

Successful Foundations is based on declarations, which are belief statements about children. The declarations are the foundation of the Early Learning Policy for all primary schools in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

The Kindergarten and Year 1 teachers are excited about this initiative and are looking forward to sharing with you their discoveries on Seesaw and our newsletter.

A more detailed note about Successful Foundations will be sent home to all kindergarten families yesterday via Compass. If you have any questions about this initiative please ask the Kindergarten teachers- myself, Meagan Edwards or Jessica Laczkowski.

Thank you for your continued support, many blessings

Heather Porter-Kay

Acting Assistant Principal

Religion News

Welcome back to a new school year! I hope that you had a restful break and enjoyed spending the Christmas season with loved ones (whether in person or online).

For those who do not know me, my name is Miss Jessica Laczkowski, and I am the newly appointed Religious Education Coordinator at Holy Spirit Infants School, as well as one of the Kindergarten teachers this year. I am very privileged to take upon this role considering I once attended this beautiful school myself as a student. My hopes for this year are that as a community we can grow together in God’s love, and really live out our faith in all we do.

Throughout the year student’s Religion work may be shown in the newsletter, school foyer and display boards around the school. These spaces will give you a snapshot of your child’s learning which we are so proud of!

This Term, we will be having a few important events. These include:

• Opening School Liturgy (Tuesday 22^nd February)
• Welcome to Kinder Mass (Sunday 6^th March)
• Ash Wednesday Liturgy (2^nd March)
• Joseph's Day (18^th March)

At this stage they will be school only events with no visitors on-site, in line with Covid restrictions. If advice changes, we will inform you but in the meantime, we will endeavour to take photos of these events to share with you.

FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT

Each fortnight students will learn more about the Fruits of the Spirit. These are kindness, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.

This fortnight, our focus is Kindness and at our assembly on Monday we discussed as a school how we can show Kindness to others.

WAYS TO PRAY WITH YOUR CHILD AT HOME

While at Holy Spirit, your child has many opportunities to engage in prayerful experiences such as class prayer, liturgies, masses, Christian meditation, etc. It is great for families to further support this at home too. This does not have to be a chore, but as simple as:

• Talking to your child about what they learnt in Religion or what Fruit of the Spirit they are focusing on that fortnight. You could help them brainstorm ways to show that spirit in their day-to-day life.
• Before they go to bed saying a prayer where they thank God for something good that happened during the day.
• Saying grace before meals – they could say the one they say at school if they would like!
• Setting up a prayer table where they could say their prayers and light a candle.

By supporting students in ways such as these at home, your child can feel comfortable sharing and discussing their faith with you rather than seeing Religion and faith as just a ‘school’ thing. As always, if you need any assistance or advice in supporting the faith life of your child at home, please feel free to reach out.

Yours in faith,

Miss Jessica Laczkowski

Religious Education Coordinator

Kinder News

Welcome to Term 1!

Kindergarten are off to a wonderful start and have thoroughly enjoyed starting each day with play, spending time with their buddies and making new friends. It has been fantastic to see how independent our Kinder students are already as they walk in by themselves of a morning and unpack their note folders and Crunch N Sip- well done!

Our play each morning is part of the Successful Foundations action research project which supports the positive transition to school of 2022 Kindergarten children and supports system wide implementation of the Early Learning Policy for Catholic schools in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. During this time children have the opportunity to actively demonstrate their knowledge and interests, build relationships and become familiar with the context of the school. Successful Foundations also provides teachers with the time and opportunity to develop meaningful relationships as they observe and interact with the competent, creative and capable child.

This week we have had our first assembly, sport lesson, library and science lesson! We look forward to many more fun times in the weeks to come.

Meagan Edwards and Jessica Laczkowski

Kindergarten Teachers

Kinder 2022

Year 1 News

A warm welcome to our year 1 families. What an amazing start to 2022. All your beautiful children are happy, settled, and eager to learn. We are enjoying the continuation of ‘Successful Foundations’ (play-based early years learning) and have been focusing on ‘bucket filling’ and treating each other with kindness and respect. We have been busy bees, writing, learning to use cards and dice for maths and responding to many books that focus on kindness, being brave and understanding how our body reacts when nervous. We hope you enjoy the photos of our first days at school.

Year 1 Team

Helena Elias, Brodie Flynn, Heather Porter-Kay

Year 1 2022

Year 2 News

We are so proud of our year 2 students and the way they have stepped into their leadership role here at Holy Spirit Infants School.  Year 2 have been setting such a good example for all the students at our school.   Year 2 have embraced their buddy role in style taking such good care of their kindergarten buddies making sure they feel welcome and safe.   Year 2 truly are to be commended for all their hard work in the last fortnight.

We are looking forward to a wonderful year.

Sarah Lutze and Carlia Collingwood Year 2 Teachers.

Office News

Office Hours

Monday to Friday 8:30 am to 3:30 pm.  Monday to Thursday is Dot Seamer and Friday is Lisa Bolam.

New Finance Platform

More changes are happening with our new Student Information System!

Our finance system will be replaced and centralised within the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese.  This will require a new platform for Compass and the Finance system.

What do I need to do?

To prepare for this change, it is time to ensure that your information is up to date.

Please review the details we currently have for you.  If any of your personal details have changed or are incomplete, please return the form with your latest information or contact our office with the new details.

What’s changing?

• New online Parent Action Centre and account details via your Parent Portal
• Online consents for student excursions and events
• New Compass Billing system

How will this impact me?
In addition to the new functions in your portal, the school’s finance and administration system will be offline during cut-over.  Please be patient with us and avoid making payments over the counter at the school during this period.

Please note, you may experience issues connecting to your school portal directly after we cut over.  This is normally caused by a consolidation of your user account across more than one school.  You will now have one username and one password.

If you receive a message prompting you to login or delete your school account, please: -

1. Enter your normal password.
   If you don’t know this or it doesn’t work, please reset via the prompts.
2. If this doesn’t work, please delete the school account and ‘Add’ once again.
   If you have another school account that works ok, please use this username instead of your old one.

Important Points

• The school finance system will be offline between 17/02 and 18/02/2022
• Transactions can be viewed via your Parent Portal
• Event consents are processed online with payment (if applicable)
• Your future statements will look different

School Fee Information Forms 2022

Thank you to those fee payers who have returned their payment frequency form.   If you have not returned yours, could you please do so by Monday 14th February at the latest?   Fee statements will be reissued via email and at the end of each month as a notification of your fee status.   All fee payers must commence their repayments by 31st March.  For fee payers who are facing genuine financial difficulty, please contact the school so that options can be discussed.    

Health Care Card holders are reminded that a new form needs to be completed every year along with a copy of your current health care card.

School fee statements will be issued in the first week of March.

Compass

Guardians of all our new students should have access to Compass. It is important that you download the app, use the password given to you and then change the given password to one that you will remember.

Most of our school communication is done through Compass. You may still receive some paper notes via student note folders when permission slips are required to be signed and returned to school. Newsletters are also distributed via Compass. If you would like the Newsletter to be emailed to you, please ring the school and provide this information. 

If your child is absent from school, you may record this via the Compass app also. Please be mindful of choosing the correct day/date when doing this as you can record an absence from a previous day or for a date in the future.   An alert will be sent to your mobile if your child is not present at school and the absence has not been explained.

At the end of Term 2 and Term 4, school reports are also sent out via Compass. They are not printed off and sent home. 

If you are a guardian of a child and have not been given access to Compass or are having problems with connecting to or using the Compass app, please come and see Dot in the office for assistance. 

Library News

Issue 1 of Scholastic Book Club

Orders from this campaign need to be in by Thursday 17th February.   Note all orders are now done online, you will find instructions on the brochure.  Please do not send in any cash to school for book club orders. 

Kay Woods, Library Assistant.

Safer Internet Day

You might want to have a look at the link below. Often, parents and carers share images of their child in school uniform online, particularly in these early school days. Parents and carers should be encouraged to check their privacy settings to ensure they are only sharing with those people they know and trust.

A few Top Tips from the Australian Federal Police include:

Top tips for parents and carers

• Keep your child's personal information including full name and age private
• Ensure the background of photos or videos doesn't give away your address or location, (and don't post your location or 'check in')
• Avoid posting photos in school uniform
• Only share images of your children with people you know and trust
• For community accounts, consider having a closed group with approved members and ensure you have strong privacy settings in place.

Dates for your Diary

Community News