8th February 2024

Principal News

A very warm welcome to all our families and to our first newsletter for 2024! Our newsletters are fortnightly and this year we will be surveying all parents/carers to determine what are the key elements you'd like to see in our school's communication with you. 

Our staff came together to share Eucharist on Tuesday 30th January in the church when Fr James blessed us and we prayed together for a great year ahead. There was a terrific atmosphere of welcoming our new staff members and connections between colleagues. We welcome all familiar faces and also Mrs Nicole Elbourne (1W) and Mrs Grace Matthews (Music Specialist) to our staff. Please see our teachers' profiles later in this newsletter. 

Our Staff 2024:

Kinder White: Miss Kristen Pryor

Kinder Blue: Miss Jessica Laczkowski (REC) and Mrs Meagan Edwards 

1 Blue: Miss Helena Elias

1 White: Mrs Nicole Elbourne and Mrs Porter-Kay (Acting AP/GEM) 

2 Blue: Mr Brodie Flynn and Mrs Rebecca Kearns (AP/PM) 

2 White: Mrs Kate Kreutzer 

Learning Support Teacher: Mrs Kath Grey

School Counsellor: Mrs Eliza Fraser 

Teacher Librarian: Miss Evelyn Covita

EALD Teacher: Ms Nikki Fredsall     

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teacher; Mrs Ashlee Edwards

Music Specialist Teacher: Mrs Grace Matthews 

Support Staff: Mrs Leah Shakespeare, Mrs Amanda Focic, Mrs Lisa Bolam, Mrs Janelle Williams, Mrs Kay Woods 

Clerical Staff: Mrs Dot Seamer and Mrs Bonney Lane 

Cleaner: Mr Trevor Shakespeare

Principal: Diane Murphy 

The students were quite excited to return to school last week and begin learning in their new classes with new teacher/s, with the promise of new friendships and great things to come! Nervousness was quickly replaced with smiles and laughter as the students as the students reconnected at Holy Spirit. Year 1 and 2 have settled into their new classes. Our student leaders have been busy "on the job" of handing out the sport equipment and will lead our awards assemblies which begin in the next fortnight. 

On Monday, maybe the hottest day of the week, we welcomed our wonderful new Kinders for 2024 and their families to Holy Spirit. Implementing our belief that positive transitions through play are vital to ensure every child feels they belong, feels safe and feels supported has ensured a smooth beginning to the year for our youngest students.

Successful Foundations is our play based approach to support students beginning their school journey with us or transitioning into a new class. Year 2 have stepped up wonderfully into their role as a buddy for our new Kindergarten students with many of them sharing the responsibilities.  We have ensured we congratulated them on the kind, gentle and thoughtful way they have looked after their new buddy. 

There is a lot to learn when Kindergarten begins! Don't be worried if your child can't tell you in detail how their day went...that's normal because so many incredible things happen in any one day at school. It’s hard to remember it all!

Your child, at the start of the year will benefit from a regular sleep time; a regular evening meal and bedtime routine and opportunities to just "chill" when their busy day at school ends.   Thank you to all our families for providing children with healthy food choices in their lunch boxes! We are guiding the Kinders and establishing routines for eating and sipping water across the day. Not everything in a lunch box will be eaten as children are always keen to get to the playground even though we provide them with plenty of time to sit and eat.  Please notify your child's teacher if you have a concern. 

Thank you for sending your children looking terrific in their school uniform. The hot weather has made wearing new school shoes a bit tough this week, but the children have all managed very well. A reminder sport uniform is to be worn on a Wednesday. This also allows time for a quick uniform wash midweek should it be needed. 

We welcomed three new students last week: Mia into Year 1 and Bella and Milly into Year 2. We hope Holy Spirit will soon feel like home! The playground is a hive of activity as you may well imagine. It certainly is a happy place, and we are able to offer lunch club in the Learning Hub and recess club in the library across the week. We hope to offer Choir and Lego Club in term 2.

Our school improvement plan for 2024 is targeting Catholic Identity, creating expert teachers of Mathematics across our school and Wellbeing for all – students, staff and families!

We will continue to focus on explicitly teaching our students the Zones of Regulation to assist with developing ways to self-regulate, which is a skill for life. We utilise the Zones of Regulation and the four colours associated with these zones to help all students begin to learn to identify within themselves how they are feeling at any particular time and then, what strategies or tools they can use themselves to self-regulate.  Identifying a zone can then assist staff and the child to determine what they may need to do next in order to get back to "the Green Zone". This will be explicitly taught K-2 and we will share a graphic with our new families to foster that use of consistent language between home and school, which again, supports your child's development. We are also targeting the teaching of social skills through a specific program, called " What's the Buzz" and Stage One will undertake lessons and activities designed to reinforce concepts such as resilience; turn taking; listening; sharing amongst other things. Again, social skills are life skills and developing a high level of social skills and social competence, can be a predictor of success later in life. 

Operating hours: 8.25am (students should not be dropped at school earlier as there is no supervision) when a teacher is on duty. Coming at this time enables children to play and meet up with friends before the day begins.  

Morning Assembly: 8.55am (all students should be at school by this time and we encourage students to independently put their bag in the right place, unpack their crunch and sip and note folders). These are all routines which we establish early on to build your child's independence and sense of responsibility for their belongings. We pray together as a school each morning. Parents/carers are welcome to join us. Coming late increases a child's anxiety as they miss out on a message or games before school. Our day finishes at 2.55pm.

Parent Information Evening 2024:

SAVE THE DATE: TUESDAY EVENING 20th February 2024

TIMES: Session 1 5-5.30pm or Session 2: 5.35-6.05pm 

Session will be presented at the first time slot of 5pm and then repeated at 5.35pm. This allows parents with more than one child to attend two information sessions.  We look forward to meeting with you and sharing an overview of the year ahead!      All Parents are invited to come along!

Family and Community Engagement Meeting

All parents and carers are invited to come along to our next FACE meeting (previously P.E.G. Meeting) . The idea is for parents/carers to attend and for the first one, we will seek your feedback about ideas for what it is that you are most interested in learning about regarding how your child is being taught/what they may be learning/how you can support them at home. There will also be an opportunity for parents to suggest some fundraising ideas and plot them on a calendar (so we are not asking parents for contributions too often) and then for parents and friends to nominate to undertake organising these fundraisers with the support of myself as the principal.  Our school held one fundraiser in 2023, a wonderful Aqua Colour Fun Run event and a Book Fair where books were donated to the school library. In the current economic climate we are not seeking lots of fundraising ideas, but perhaps you have an idea that may be novel or interesting for our families. Details of the planned meeting date and time will be made available via Compass. We do encourage you to please come along; meet one another and let's work together to make our community even greater! Our students deserve it! 

HOLIDAY MAINTENANCE/UPDATES

During the break several maintenance jobs were undertaken and we are thrilled by the changes these jobs have made. Thanks to Mr Trevor Shakespeare for filling up our sandpit once again and for various painting jobs around the school. Thanks to Mr Sharkey for assisting with various jobs in classrooms!

All air conditioners were serviced; carpets cleaned; windows washed; pests sprayed and our grounds are looking good thanks to Mr Spencer.

We are experiencing ongoing issues with the birds roosting under our cola area every evening. The Diocese has supported us greatly by enclosing the steel supports with sound proofing and placing spikes on horizontal beams. Unfortunately, the birds are still roosting at night. Currently we have cordoned off the area to keep the children out until further measures are able to be implemented. Please feel reassured we are working hard on rectifying this issue.

We are waiting on the musical instrument play ground installation as well. The instruments are currently in Australia but have not as yet arrived locally ready for installation. We are looking forward to this new sensory addition to our play space.

During 2024 we will be removing the existing “cubby” house and are looking to replace it with alternative creative play options. We may seek parent support to help demolish the cubby – no date is as yet set for when we will undertake this work.  If parents have any ideas for ways we could improve our play spaces or our playground, I welcome your ideas! 

Please come and introduce yourself!

This is your school and our aim is to build positive relationships with all our families! 

Have a great fortnight settling in! 

God Bless You all,

Diane Murphy

Assistant Principle News

Assistant Principal News 

Positive Behaviour 4 Learning 

Positive Behaviour 4 Learning (PB4L) is a whole-school framework that promotes positive behaviour across a school and helps schools develop safe and supportive learning environments. PB4L is a whole school approach to teaching children positive behaviours to assist them in becoming more successful academically and socially. After all, if a child does not know how to swim or read, we teach them. However, if a child does not know how to behave, should we first teach them or punish them? 

At Holy Spirit Infants Abermain our PB4L Framework, seen below, has four main areas:  

I am Safe! 

I am Respectful! 

I am Responsible! 

I am a Learner! 

Under each of these headings are statements about positive behaviours we would like demonstrated by the students at Holy Spirit.  

We take one step at a time! Every 2-3 weeks the staff at Holy Spirit Infants will choose a positive behaviour to focus upon based on the needs of our students. This behaviour will be talked about with children at assemblies, in the classroom and on the playground. Questions such as “What does…. look like?”, “How do you know when you are…?” or “Why should we …?” help children to understand what positive behaviour looks like and its importance.  

For the first 3 weeks of term 1 we are familarising our students with the matrix and introducing our PB4L mascot, Wayilla. Wayilla is a black cockatoo often seen in the trees above our beautiful school. Wayilla serves as a visual reminder for our students to follow our PB4L rules. Wayilla has a special home in each classroom and students are completing artworks featuring Wayilla during the first few weeks of this year.  

Rebecca Kearns – Assistant Principal 

Sharing Our Faith

Welcome to the new school year! I hope you have all settled in well. As the Religious Education Coordinator, I will give updates in each newsletter about upcoming events such as liturgies and masses, what our fruit of the spirit focus is for the fortnight and giving you an insight into what our beautiful students are learning about in their Religion lessons. 

Fruits of Spirit

The Holy Spirit gave us the Fruits of the Spirit that we strive to live out in our day to day lives. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 

Each fortnight at Holy Spirit we focus on one of these fruits and encourage our students to display it at school. At the end of the fortnight we give one award per class for those who have done well showing this fruit. 

Opening School Liturgy

Next Tuesday 27th February, we will be celebrating our opening school liturgy, with Fr. James joining us for this event.  This will be held in the church (next to the school) at 12:30pm. It is a great way to start our year in faith and pray that the year ahead will be full of many blessings. Our school leaders will be presented with their badges at this special liturgy. All parents and family are welcome to attend. 

Welcome to Kindergarten Mass 

We invite all of our Kindergarten families to our Welcome to Kinder mass on Sunday 3rd March at 4:30pm. This will be held in the church next to the school, St. Francis Xavier's. This is a great opportunity to come together and join the School and Parish community for mass. The Kinder students will be preparing a song to perform on the evening, and we would love to see as many of you there as possible. We welcome all families, but especially our Kinder families, to join us for this celebration.

Shrove Tuesday & Project Compassion

On Tuesday 13th February, we will participate in Shrove Tuesday at school. Our students will enjoy a pancake at recess with either butter or jam. During the Lenten season, Catholics would not usually eat fat or egg products. They often made pancakes as they were the perfect thing to make to use these products before the start of Lent to prevent wastage. Hence why we mark the day with pancakes.  

Please bring a gold coin donation to purchase your pancake at recess from the canteen.

Our School Leaders on this day will attend the Project Compassion launch. They will represent our school at the Cathedral in Newcastle with many other school leaders from across the Diocese. 

New Religion Curriculum - Year Two

Following successful implementation of the new Religion curriculum for Kindergarten and Year 1 over the past two years, in 2024 Year Two join us in taking on the new curriculum. The infographic below explains the new curriculum which is focused on the 'Pedagogy of Encounter' where students are allowed an opportunity to encounter God, reflecting on their own backgrounds and then building upon where they are at.

Parish Mass Times

Saturday 10th February

9:00am Mass - St. Joseph's, Cessnock

6:00pm Mass - St. Joseph's, Cessnock

Sunday 11th February

8:30am Mass - Holy Spirit, Kurri Kurri

10:30am Mass - St. Joseph's, Cessnock

4:30pm Liturgy of the Word - St. Francis Xavier's, Abermain

4:30pm Mass - St. Michael the Archangel, Wollombi

Saturday 17th February

9:00am Mass - Holy Spirit, Kurri Kurri

6:00pm Mass - St. Joseph's, Cessnock

Sunday 18th February 

8:30am Mass - Holy Spirit, Kurri Kurri

10:30am Mass - St. Joseph's, Cessnock

4:30pm Mass - St. Francis Xavier's, Abermain

Yours in faith,

Miss Jessica Laczkowski

Religious Education Coordinator

Staff Profiles

Office News

Office Hours  The office is open from 8:30am to 3:30pm Monday to Friday to assist with all enquiries.   The admin email address is admin@abermain.catholic.edu.au

Change of Details    If you change your address, mobile number or email address, could you please let us know so we can update your details. It is very important that we are able to contact you in the event of an emergency. 

Compass  access is vital so you can stay informed of happenings at our school.   If you are having difficulty with the app, please contact the school and we will assist you.

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 on any day 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. Parents/carers will need to do this themselves. 

Hats, library bags and lunch wallets are available for purchase via QKR app and the item can be delivered to your child as required.  These items are always available from the school office.

Label your child's belongings - Please clearly label all of your child's belongings. This helps us to give things back if they've been lost. Thank you.

Finance News

Fee Statements  will be emailed to each family regularly.  Your fee statement will be an annual account.  When you receive your statement, instalment payments can be made either weekly, fortnightly, monthly or per quarter to suit your family budget.   BPAY is the preferred method of fee payment.  The BPAY details are on the upper right hand side of the statement. Please do not use Compass Pay as a method of payment as it attracts hefty administration costs.   If at any time you would like a copy of your fee statement, please email admin@abermain.catholic.edu.au and your statement will be sent to you.   

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 2024 with the view to extinguishing debt by the end of November. Our admin staff are able to assist families to calculate an instalment amount to ensure fees are covered 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.

3. If your child is in Year 2 and will be leaving Holy Spirit Infants to attend Holy Spirit Primary at Kurri in 2025, please be aware that a fee clearance is now a requirement from our school before offers of placement can be made for Kurri school.  

Health Care/Pension Card  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.  Please note that all fee payers who have a current Health Care Card/Pension card need to fill in new forms each year.  

Volunteering at Holy Spirit Infants

Do you want to volunteer at our school in 2024?  We would love to have you.   Please click on the link below to complete the online application.  This only takes about 10 minutes to complete.   When you are approved you will be notified by the school office.

https://www.mn.catholic.org.au/people/volunteer/ 

Note:  If you have already completed this process and been approved, you do not need to reapply this year so please contact the office if you are cleared and available to help out.
Thank you.

Medications

If your child takes a daily medication, or has had a change to their medication regime, please let us know.  Children taking daily medication are requested to have a Webster Pack for the safe and organised administration of their tablets. 

If your child requires medication for a period of time (and the illness is not contagious) a permission note to provide medication must be completed. Please contact the office for details. 

All students with asthma will need to have an up to date asthma action plan and an in date puffer. Parents/carers are asked to hand this in at the office. 

All students with allergies will need to have the specific medication/cream supplied to school with the child's names and dosage. If your child has an allergy to latex/bandaids etc we also need to know and if you could supply the bandaids that your child can use, we would be most appreciative. 

Any students with Anaphylaxis require their Current Action Plan and an Epipen to be supplied. 

All our medication is kept securely and children are supervised when it is administered.

Thank you

Dot Seamer, Admin Officer.

Library News

Book Club    Issue 1 of book club closes on Thursday the 15^th February. 

  
It is easy to order. The Book Club LOOP platform for parents allows you to pay by credit card. Your child’s order is submitted directly to school safe and sound and the books will be delivered to class. You can place your child’s order at scholastic.com.au/LOOP or using the LOOP app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. 
  
Owning your own books is something special! I hope that you will encourage your child to order books this year. Each order helps earn free books and teaching materials for our classroom, however there is never any obligation to order. I know of no better way to encourage reading than to allow children to choose the books they want to read. 
No money for book club purchases will be accepted at school.

Kay Woods and Janelle Williams , Library Assistants.

Canteen News

Thank you to our wonderful volunteers.   We are able to continue to offer canteen again in 2024 on Fridays at this stage.  Our canteen coordinators for 2024 are Sharna Thompson, Paige Cussen and Tarsha Green.   Canteen rosters for Term 1 have been distributed.    If you would like to help out in the canteen please come and see Dot or Bonney for details.

Canteen will resume for 2024 on Friday, 9th February.

There have been some price increases on certain menu items, these will be automatically updated on the QKR app.

You will be prompted to update your child's class for the new school year the next time you go into the QKR app.

Dates for your Diary

Community News

The Maitland Show LEGO Competition will be running for the first time this year and we'd love to have your students, parents, and staff get involved!

Entries close on Friday the 9th Feb (next week!) via https://maitlugnsw.au  ​

Traditional place ribbons as well as LEGO prizes to be won courtesy of our exclusive sponsor Casey's Toys.

Your LEGO builds should be your own original design and no larger than a 16 x 16 stud baseplate.

There are four categories to enter:

• Railway
• Sci-Fi & Fantasy
• Technic
• Natural & Built Environment

and three age groups, with a small cost to enter (per entry):

• $2 for Juniors (5-14)
• $5 for Youth (15-25)
• $7 for Open (26+)

I have attached a graphic for printing in a newsletter or for posting online.

Please also see our Facebook post for more details, which you are free to share in your community.
https://www.facebook.com/maitlugnsw/posts/pfbid027gmwR4krh9SdNRPdZkhvddjjjVGfSQp16fpe96bthwYb4sXq1ipLpayk7kq7LVNsl