St Bernadette's Primary School

Good afternoon all,

Firstly, a very Happy Mother’s Day to all our mother’s, grandmother’s, aunts, sisters and all the other significant women in our lives. I hope that you are generously spoilt over the weekend with plenty of big hugs, breakfasts in bed, a pressie or two and of course, the men and children doing all the house work! A big thanks to everyone who came in early today to help us celebrate and we hope you had a relaxing morning. Also, a huge thanks to all the staff who helped us out, especially Mrs Ritikis, Miss Roberts and Mrs Redburn who were the brains and organisers behind the operation! I would also like to thank Mrs Cosgrove, Father G and the Year 3 teachers and students for leading our Mother’s Day Mass so beautifully, this was a great way to end the week!

This week was the first our swimming lessons and thanks to Mrs King and all our staff for making this run so smoothly. Can I please ask parents to remember to label EVERYTHING and remind your children to be vigilant in looking after clothing. As a parent I understand how expensive this can get so will be backing you up here at school. On that note, as we move into the second week of lessons, can I also ask parents to chat to their children about being responsible and listening to their class and swimming teachers all the way to the end. We know that this can be a really tiring time and that in those moments we can make choices we don’t usually make. I encourage everyone to get to bed early, eat healthy meals to ensure we stay happy and healthy at school and at home!

As many of you may have seen there has been a bit of work carried out over the holidays behind Pre-Primary with the old container being removed. This is part of our Masterplan for the school, and we are currently planning the new Sustainability Area for this space. Over the next 6 months we will be looking to consolidate all our sustainability resources and projects into this area including the gardens, chickens, a small fruit orchard, worm farms and recycling bins. Mrs Murphy, Mrs Cosgrove and I will keep you updated as it progresses and there will likely be a busy bee required later in the year if people can help!

I hope you all enjoy your weekend, look after your loved ones and we can’t wait to see you all here next week!

Geordie

Big Buddies

This term we have extended our Big Buddy Program to include students from Years 3 and 4 who wanted to volunteer their time to help out in the Pre-Primary and Kindy Playgrounds at lunch time. The students attended a lunch-time session with Mrs Deshon to prepare them for this act of service. We are so proud of our students for volunteering their time and contributing positively to the Wellbeing of our school community.

Thank-you to all our staff who continue to support our Big Buddies to develop their leadership skills and demonstrate the virtues of kindness, honesty and respect.

Friendology

Over the next two terms our students will be introduced to the URSTRONG’s whole-school friendship strategy Friendology. This whole school approach has improved the social climate in schools around the world, connecting over a million kids, parents, and teachers with a common language of friendship. We are proud to be a URSTRONG School and are committed to empowering your children with friendship skills.

You are invited to take advantage of a FREE Parent Membership to access hundreds of resources – including an 8 session video series. This will allow you to learn the same language & strategies being taught in the classroom through the Friendology 101 curriculum. We hope that, as a URSTRONG Family, you will reinforce the important messages of empowerment, self-compassion, & kindness at home.

As a next step, we would recommend:

Click here to view an overview of URSTRONG.
Activate your FREE Parent Membership and explore all the resources available to your family.
Explore the hundreds of resources available to you!

We believe that empowering our students with these skills will create a culture of kindness at our school and we hope that, together, we can support your children to have healthy, feel-good friendships.

Jacqueline Deshon

Pastoral Care & Wellbeing

It's National Walk to School Day and we would love to see as many students and families walking to school on Friday 19th May.

Warm milo's will be free for students who participate, to save our environment, please bring your own small plastic cup to enjoy your milo in 🙂

Secret Harbour Clean up - calling all Eco Warriors!

Clean Up Secret Harbour is back! Please diarise Sunday 21 May and round up all your environmental troops!

Bags, gloves and tongs will all be available on the day and The Whistling Kite are kindly providing a drink and nibbles as a reward for everyone's hard work!