24th March 2022

Principals News

Dear Parents and Carers, 

On Tuesday we celebrated Harmony Day at our school. Thank you for supporting us to share the message that Harmony Day is about inclusiveness, respect and belonging for all Australians, regardless of cultural or linguistic background, united by a set of core Australian values. Our school looked wonderful with the students and staff in their orange and rainbow clothes. Our thanks to Mrs Fredsall our EALD Teacher for her planning for the events of the day which everyone enjoyed. It has been a busy fortnight at Holy Spirit Infants as last Friday we celebrated the Feast of St Joseph, the Patron Saint of the Universal Church and of the Sisters of St Joseph who founded our school over a century ago. Following our liturgy, it was delightful to see the joy the students showed as they played games together such as sack races; egg and spoon races; various games and ball games and the most popular activity- the dress up relay! These special event days are always opportunities for our students to learn inclusiveness; to learn how to respond to friendly competition and how much fun it is to encourage others who belong in our team. It was terrific to see our Year 2 students stepping up as leaders and helpers during the activity tabloids. The staff enjoyed sharing these special moments with their classes too! My thanks to all our staff for such a great day! 

2022 School Leadership Team 

We will present the leaders with their badges on Tuesday morning 29th March at 9am at our morning our assembly. The children have endured a long wait as the waves of covid moved through. Parents of Macy, Amalia, Zara, Aymon, Travis and Jude are warmly invited to please join us at morning assembly where the leaders will be presented with their badges and then they will present the awards for the week and proud parents can be there to watch.  Sincere thanks to the children and their parents for their patience and understanding. The leaders recently received a copy of the Cessnock Advertiser where their picture was published announcing their roles at our school. Congratulations once again! 

Parents welcome on site each morning from Friday

You'll have noticed that notifications to you about positive cases of covid-19 in our school have dwindled across the past few days..."Thank goodness I hear you say!" and yes, it has been such a challenging time for our community. It's been hard for our students who have been sick or been in isolation or else been at school whilst their friends are at home sick; for our parents - many of whom became sick themselves whilst caring for sick children and were unable to get support; and for our staff who have also been affected/impacted through illness or isolation themselves. We have all had to dig deep and I sincerely thank every member of our school community for all you have done to help us get through this situation. There will likely be further cases and parents must continue to notify the school and NSW Health when a child test positive. 

We have more Rapid Antigen Tests at school and if any student has used up all their seven tests, please contact the office to arrange for the collection of more. We are now at the point where students and staff are testing when they experience any symptoms. Again, we thank parents for using the RATs and for keeping sick children at home. Please remain vigilant. 

From Friday 25th March we will be able to welcome parents back into the school grounds at morning drop off. You are welcome to walk in with your child to their classroom of a morning if you'd like to. Please be mindful that every child has managed to be so independent in walking into school all year so having mum/dad/grandparent walk inside the gates will likely seem 'strange' for the children and may cause them to become upset when parents leave. Perhaps you could make sure your child knows that you can walk in with them but that you will be leaving before/after assembly and will look forward to seeing them again at the end of the day.  The gates will remain locked for the day and of an afternoon as this allows for a controlled and safe dismissal. 

Our refurbished administration office is open but not quite finished. We look forward to an official blessing/opening once it is all completed. If you need to see Mrs Seamer (M-Th) or Mrs Bolam (Fri) you are most welcome to come into the office area. Teachers are very busy each morning preparing lessons for the day ahead and we do ask that parents kindly make an appointment if you need to meet with your child's teacher rather than catching them on the run. We appreciate your understanding. 

WELCOME BACK! We have surely missed you all! 

Sport News Cross Country Success

On Tuesday 22nd March, Holy Spirit Primary at Kurri held their Cross Country event at Biralee Oval and I was delighted to hear that three of our Holy Spirit Infants students excelled! 

Congratulations to: 

Boys 2km (qualifying time 11 minutes)

• Tyreze Kiyega- 10.15 minutes
• Aymon Lee- 10.21 minutes

Girls 2km (qualifying time 13 minutes)

• Ruby Dodds- 12.40 minutes

Tyreze, Aymon and Ruby will be our representatives in the All Saints Regional Cross Country Event. We are so proud of all our runners! Keep training and we wish you the best of luck. Details about the regional event will be shared with those parents.

Our own school Cross Country Fun Run will be held early next term when we hope the phase two of the building program- the outdoor learning centre and covered walkway will be completed.  

Athletics Fun Day: We are planning an Athletics Fun day also early in term 2 and we would like to hold it at school if we possibly can with parent helpers assisting. 

Support for Flood victims in Lismore with a "Little Cooks Cake Stall" 

As a catholic school we would like to support the people who have been affected by the floods in Lismore. We are called to reach out and help others in need and many of you may know family/friends who have lost their homes ort livelihoods to this weather event. Many Catholic Schools in Lismore Diocese have been impacted. They are now open, some in alternate places. The upheaval is hard to put into words.  We would like to hold two good old fashioned cake stalls at school on two difefrent weeks to raise funds to send to the Diocese of Lismore Flood Appeal. https://www.lism.catholic.edu.au/ 

On Friday 1st April we will invite the our Kinder classes to bring in something to contribute to a cake stall for the whole school. Everything on sale will be $1.

Then the following week on Wednesday 6th April we would ask that Year 1 classes kindly bring in something to sell at the $1 cake stall. We will get our artists busy making some great Cake Stall signs. 

Please keep in mind that our young students loose teeth so no toffees or toffee apples please and that portions need to be small and generally, our students are not great lovers of cream.

Perhaps cupcakes, biscuits, slices, chocolate spiders...whatever your child may like to make with you. This way they can learn how their actions can really make a difference to others. We would love to see some pictures of our "little cooks" at home so please Seesaw any to your child's teacher.  Thanks and have fun! 

If your child has food allergies please send in a treat that they can eat, labelled with the child's name and class and we will keep it aside for them at the cake stall so they can purchase something. Parents may like to make a donation directly to the appeal via the link above.

All donations will be sent on behalf of our school community to help those in need and to show we care. Thank you in advance of your support of this initiative. 

Building Update

We look forward to welcoming parents/grandparents back on site and to our Administration Office which is in the brick building. Whilst it isn't quite complete, we love it and once the finishing touches are in place, we hope that our students and parents will feel as proud as our staff do of the new facilities. 

The playground outdoor learning space: Some very large sandstone blocks were delivered on Monday in readiness for the next stage. It is a slow project as we have seen with covid impacting many aspects of it. We are all very patient and look forward to when the children can fully utilise the new learning space. Hopefully we are not too far away from that. 

Have a wonderful fortnight everyone! 

Diane Murphy

Principal 

Acting Assistant Principal News

PBL

Our school is a Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) School. PBL brings together the whole-school community to contribute to developing a positive, safe and supportive learning culture.

Our Positive Behaviour for learning focus for weeks 9 and 10 is ‘I include and don’t exclude’. This focus contributes to becoming a RESPECTFUL learner.

Jesus gave us the perfect example of inclusivity. Jesus never excluded anyone. In fact, he went out of his way to include the very ones that were excluded by most of society. He was frequently accused of hanging with the wrong people. He makes it very clear to us that we, as his followers, are always to keep his example.

We encourage all children to be inclusive, and to accept others this was evident during our Harmony Day celebrations in the classrooms.  We are teaching them though guidance and role modelling that when they see someone being excluded, we can support them. We support them by inviting them to play and by inviting them to sit with others during lunch and recess eating time. At Holy Spirit Infants we are an inclusive school that cherishes kindness, respect, and friendship.

When students are seen following this PBL they receive Gotchas and selected children who consistently follow this PBL focus are awarded with merit certificates at assembly.

Seesaw

A quick Seesaw reminder, if you haven’t joined your child’s or children’s classes please do so as soon as possible. Seesaw is an fantastic learning and communication tool that gives you insight into student learning. By joining Seesaw, you can quickly communicate with teachers, receive instant messages, and catch up on student learning either by photo or video. If you need a new Seesaw code, please contact the class teacher.

God Bless

Heather Porter-Kay

Acting Assistant Principal

Religion News

Fruit of the Spirit

For the remainder of the Term, we will be focusing on the Fruit of the Spirit, Peace. We introduced this at our Award Assembly on Tuesday. The students were able to identify how important it is to be peaceful in their interactions with others and that they can find peace in God when things do not go right.

A Prayer for FoTS Peace:

Lord, thank you for providing what I need today to experience lasting peace. When my soul is troubled, your Spirit's presence calms my heart and soothes my mind. Your peace is a gift that no one can take from me. During those times when fear surrounds me, help me to remember your love and promises.

New Religious Education Curriculum

This year was the first year of the New Religious Education Curriculum for our Early Stage One students, with a big focus on the pedagogy of encounter. Our Kindergarten students and teachers have enjoyed engaging in the lessons which this term has focused on ‘Knowing God the Father’. The below file goes further into the pedagogy which underpins the curriculum as well as the topics the students will learn this year. Stage One will be coming on board with the new curriculum next year and our Stage One teachers are excited to get started.

St. Joseph's Day

On Friday 18th March, we celebrated the Feast of St Joseph. Students enjoyed learning how St Joseph sets a good example for us all.  Joseph showed us how to love, how to care for others and how to put the needs of others before himself. We had a liturgy run by our Year 2 leaders and had tabloid games on the school grounds which everyone enjoyed.

“In the Gospels, St Joseph appears as a strong courageous man, a working man, yet in his heart we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love.”

Harmony Day

On Tuesday this week, Holy Spirit celebrated Harmony Day with a special out of uniform Day. The students engaged in activities throughout the day with the theme 'Everyone Belongs". Hopefully, you would have seen some beautiful headbands, wristbands or artwork come home. Thank you parents for sending your children in so many wonderful colours - our school was a beautiful rainbow!
We celebrated a liturgy during the day which our Year 2 leaders led beautifully. We focused on the idea of how even though we are all different we include everyone and we are all Australian.

Holy Week Liturgy

Families and parishioners are invited to attend our schools Holy Week liturgy on Friday 8^th April (Last day of Term) at 12:30 pm at St. Francis Xavier’s Church. This will be followed by our Easter Hat Parade and Raffle within the school grounds.

The students have been listening to bible stories and learning about the events of Holy Week within their Religion lessons. Kindergarten will re-enact the events of Palm Sunday; Year 2 Blue The Last Supper on Holy Thursday and Year 2 White The Crucifixion on Good Friday. Year 1 classes will re-enact Easter Sunday and the resurrection when we return to school in Term 2 on Tuesday 26th April.

Yours in faith,

Miss Jessica Laczkowski

Religious Education Coordinator

Year 2 Student Reflections

Water Show:

There was a cool robot and it was hiding from the science man, Travis and I had to wear silly glasses. The robot got confused, it said I was Travis and Travis was me. It made me laugh so much. - Grace Sharpe

The water show was hilarious and serious. - Emalyn Currie
St Joseph's Day:

I had so much fun on St Joseph's day because we did so many activities. We got to play rob the nest, it was my favourite game! - Jett Walker

I loved playing egg and spoon race, sack race, clothes relay and rob the nest. - Estelle Palmer
Harmony Day:

I had really a lot of fun, my favourite thing was that I could wear orange clothes.  - Heart Hardes

I loved being out of school uniform and making the harmony day medals - Max Brogan

Harmony Day was fun, I liked seeing everyone's clothes. - Travis Koshoorn

Office News

2022 Annual School Fees

Annual School Fee Statements were sent out via email recently.  Please check your statement carefully and notify the office if you are unsure of the details.

If any family would like a hard copy of their statement please email admin@abermain.catholic.edu.au and a copy will be sent home.

Thank you to those families who have already commenced a payment arrangement.   Please do not use Compass Pay as a method of payment as it attracts hefty administration costs.

Fees can be settled via:

BPAY using the details on the upper right hand side of the statement

Direct Debit - CDF
EFTPOS/Credit card
If paying via a direct debit arrangement please use the CDF Direct Debit Form – this is available for parents/carers to complete here:

If you are a Healthcare/Pension Card holder and would like to apply for a concession please fill in the forms below and supply a copy of your Health Care Card.   When all forms are returned and checked a discount will be applied to the tuition fee component of your school fees.

Understanding the payment timeline:

1. For those parents nominating to pay by instalment (being weekly, fortnight or monthly) the first payment must be made by 31 March 2022 with the view to extinguishing debt by the end of November.

2. For those parents that have nominated to pay in one instalment this must be received by 30 June and fully extinguish the school fee balance.

Enrolments 2023

Do you have a child ready to start school in 2023?   The official enrolment period for Kindergarten 2023 is now open (1st March to the end of May 2022). Please contact Holy Spirit Infants School within this time frame for your enrolment information pack.  Office hours are  8:30am – 3:30pm Monday to Friday.   If you are unsure if your child is ready for school, please talk to your preschool director and teachers.  If you think your child has a disability, please discuss this openly with your child’s preschool professionals and see your doctor for the appropriate health professional referral.  This information will assist us to have the necessary measures in place at time of enrolment. Early intervention is vital to give your child the support they need to succeed at school.   Families will be contacted regarding tours, interview times; playgroup opportunities and Transition to School session dates. Consider starting your child's educational journey with us!

Easter Raffle

Raffle tickets can be purchased on QKR! and can be found under the ‘Special Events Tab’.  See below flyer on how to download QKR app for your mobile phone.

The Easter Raffle is live!! Get your tickets on Qkr! now. $1 per ticket. Qkr Raffle tickets will close at midnight on Wednesday 6th April and the winners will be drawn on Friday the 8th April after the Easter hat parade.

Thank you to everyone who has already sent in Easter Eggs for the raffle, we really appreciate your support.

Canteen News

All lunch items are to be ordered through the Qkr App and orders need to be placed BEFORE 8.30am on canteen day. Please make sure you have selected the correct date for the order and have updated your child’s class and their status before ordering so their lunches get to them without fuss.   

Awards Term 1 Weeks 8 & 9

Dates for your Diary