St Patrick's Primary School Stratford eNewsletter

Dear Parents, Carers and Guardians,

Over the last two weeks St. Patrick’s has been a very busy place. Students celebrated Shrove Tuesday with beautiful pancakes that were cooked by our Parents and Friends group.

Ash Wednesday brought all students together to celebrate the start of Lent with a whole school Mass. During this Mass, ashes were blessed and distributed to students. These are made from the olive branches or branches of other trees that were blessed the previous year.

Our Year 5/6 students were lucky enough to participate in a leadership presented by The Museum of Australian Democracy. Students participated in activities and real-world examples to reflect on what leadership qualities they have, consider areas for personal development and consider how they can work together to create positive change.

The 2023 SRC students have been announced.

Congratulations to the following students:

Year 3 - Steele Baxter and Alivia Costanzo

Year 4 - Max Bartlett and Isla Dorning

Year 5 - Matilda Dower and Jaxon Rawson

Year 6 - Ella Patrick and Sonny Johnson

The 2023 Year 6 Liturgy Leaders have also been announced.

Congratulations to the following students:

Noah McLay, Nellie Bubb, Adara James, Amelia Nock, Ruby Mowat, Myles Witt, Jamieson McNicol, Chase Baxter, Ebony Bubb and Harry Rowley.

On Tuesday 22 students travelled to the Sale Swimming Pool to represent St. Patrick’s at the Heyfield and District Swimming Sports. It was fantastic to see such team spirit and determination displayed by all students on the day. We had some fantastic individual and team placings which led to St. Patrick’s claiming overall first place for the second year in a row. These 22 students will now compete on Monday in the Wellington Division Swimming Sports.

Thank you to our Parents and Friends group for organising a welcome back BBQ on Thursday evening. It was a great opportunity for families to catch up with one another as well as touring classrooms and meeting classroom teachers.

Parent Teacher interviews will take place next Tuesday 7th March and Thursday 9th March from 3.50pm until 6.00pm. Bookings can be made via PAM.

Lastly, a reminder that Friday 10th March is a student free day. On this day, staff members will have Professional Learning sessions where they will continue to develop their literacy pedagogical practice.

Kind regards,

Shane

KEEP UP TO DATE WITH WHAT'S HAPPENING AT

ST PATRICK'S BY CHECKING OUR CALENDAR ON OUR WEBSITE.

Go to: www.stpstratford.catholic.edu.au

Monday 6th March	Wellington Region Swimming Carnival
Monday 6th March	Shakespear rehearsal - Year 6 students only
Tuesday 7th March	Parent Teacher Interviews from 3.50pm to 6pm
Wednesday 8th March	Parent & Friends Meeting - 2.30pm
Thursday 9th March	Parent Teacher Interviews from 3.50pm to 6pm
Friday 10th March	School Closure Day
Tuesday 14th March	Shakespear rehearsal - Year 6 students only
Wednesday 15th March	First Communion - Final meeting 6.00pm
Thursday 16th March	Gippsland Region Swimming Carnival
Friday 17th March	St Patrick's Day Whole School Mass/Liturgy TBC
Monday 20th March	Shakespear rehearsal - Year 6 students only
Wednesday 22th March	Reconciliation for First Communion candiates 6pm - 7pm - St Mary's Cathdedral Sale
Saturday 25th March	First Communion - St Mary's Cathedral Sale
Thursday 6th April	Last day of term 1 Finish at 2.30pm
Monday 24th April	School Closure Day
Tuesday 25th April	School Closure Day - Anzac Day Public Holiday
Wednesday 26th April	First day of Term 2 for students

5/6 Project Rockit

St Patrick's Primary School recently had an incursion workshop from Project Rockit. Project Rockit is an organisation that was first discovered in 2006, who go around to schools to do workshops and teach life lessons. Their mission is to make kids feel safe around their friends, at home and at school. They also have a YouTube account with videos on how to handle friendship dramas, bullying and values, which we have been exploring in class.

Our main focus today was ‘to be a part of the solution and not the problem’. They broke this quote up for us over our period of time, they acted out a situation of how you can stand up for someone, even if it's someone that you don't feel comfortable standing up to. We learnt, if you don't want to be a part of the problem or the solution you are automatically a part of the problem. To make this world a different place you have to be a part of the solution to fix the problem.

Our presenters, Ella and Carly wanted to make sure that we felt 100% comfortable around them by telling us embarrassing stories of their own to encourage us to open up about our problems to be discussed. They shared people's personal stories as an example to teach us on how to recognise behaviours that we both agree with or disagree with.

As members of the Grade 5/6 team, we very much enjoyed this experience and have taken home lots of skills from these sessions. Knowing that we have quotes that will stick by us for life and guide us through our friendships is reassuring. Some of our favourite quotes from Ella and Carly were; “People's differences make them unique” and “Make choices knowing the consequences.”

By Jamieson McNicol and Gracie Gartung

Last week we had Engineers from The University of Melbourne deliver an incursion called 'Engineers without Boarders'. The students loved it!
We researched what an engineer is, what they do and how many different jobs link with engineering. They had hands-on tasks where they were creating, thinking, laughing, and problem-solving.