St. Columba's Primary School
NEWSLETTER | TERM 3 | WEEK 2 | 28 JULY 2022
From the Principal
Dear Parents and Carers,
This week students began their participation in the CEWA Performing Arts with a number of them participating in solo performances this week. We wish them all of the best and thank Mrs McDonald for her work in preparing and organising all of the students for their performances.
Thank you to all of the families for your support with our Covid protocols we have had to implement this term. It has made our school life just that little bit easier and we hope that there will not be a need for Covid Protocols next term.
Just a reminder to families when visiting the school, please do not leave bags, valuables etc. in sight in your vehicles at drop off and pick up times as we had a car broken into last week.
Please note that the P&F meeting has been rescheduled to Tuesday, 9 August.
God Bless and keep safe.
Allen McMahon
Principal
Important dates
Friday, 29 July - Assembly 3W
Monday, 1 August - Performing Arts Festival Year 1
Wednesday, 3 August - Performing Arts Festival Year 2
Friday, 5 August - Pyjama Day (gold coin donation)
Monday, 8 August - Feast Day of Mary Mackillop Mass - 9.00am
Merit award winners - Week 2
Year 1G - Nicholas, Henry
Year 1W - William, James. M
Year 2G - Noah
Year 2W - Arthur, Caroline
Year 3G - Leah
Year 3W - Miles
Year 4G - Valentine, James
Year 4W - Bonnie, Denim
Year 5G - Annabelle, Matthew
Year 5W - Milani, Maya
Year 6G - Nanditha, Ben
Year 6W - Tiago, Isabella
Vinnies Winter Appeal
The Vinnies Winter Appeal is this term's Catholic Charity Fundraiser the school will support.
This year Vinnies have asked us to collect sleeping bags and blankets, ensuring that all items donated are in good clean condition.
With the help of the wonderful P & F this fundraiser will run for the first 3 weeks of Term 3 (Thursday 21 July – Friday 5 August), culminating in a Pyjama Day (gold coin donation) on Friday, 5 August.
The P & F will distribute a washing basket to all classes and we encourage students to bring in blankets and sleeping bags to donate to those who need them. Students can bring these to school and place in the baskets for collection.
P & F representatives will empty the baskets at regular intervals and store the items for donation.
We thank parents in advance for their support of this charitable initiative.
St Columba's Parent and Caregiver Survey (PaCS) – Parent & Caregiver Voice
We are currently collecting information to help us make informed decisions about how we can improve our school. The aim of this process is to build and maintain a positive school climate in which your child/children will flourish. To help us in our efforts, we are inviting you to respond to the Parent and Caregiver Survey (PaCS), developed at Curtin University. Your response will provide us with the information and foundational focus points that we will use in planning our school improvement efforts.
Your confidentiality
To protect your confidentiality, the PaCS is completely anonymous, there are no names attached to the data and there is no way for us to access your individual response. All responses go directly to NSI, where the results are analysed and aggregated into feedback reports. NSI is bound by a Code of Ethics and follows strict professional conduct.
Use of the data
NSI will aggregate all responses and provide us with a comprehensive feedback report. To enable us to target our decision- making, we may be provided with information based on your background information (e.g., are you the mother, father or caregiver). To protect your anonymity, we will only be provided with this information when responses from four or more people fall within any given category.
How to complete the survey
Parents go to www.NSIPartnerships.com.au and enter the code SCPACS in the Start Questionnaire field.
Using the information above, you will be taken to our school’s PaCS where you will be asked to respond to statements that ask about your perception of different aspects of the school climate. These statements are about practices that may take place in our school, and we ask that you indicate how often you feel each statement takes place. All statements require your response.
The PaCS will ask you to indicate whether you are responding once for all of your children or if you are responding separately for each child. If you decide to respond once for all your children, you will not be asked to tell us what year level each child is in.
The survey will close on Friday 5 August (end of Week 3) and takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.
If you require more information or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact myself or the NSI Team. Email: jesse.yock@cewa.edu.au or NSITeam@NSIPartnerships.com.au
Your time and consideration are appreciated, and we look forward to working with you to improve our school.
Staff Wellbeing
One of our Catholic School Improvement Goals for 2022 focuses on making staff wellbeing more visible, measurable, and improvable in our school. A staff Wellbeing Team has been created with representatives from the office as well as teaching and non-teaching staff.
We know that when staff report high levels of wellbeing there are flow on effects to the classroom and student outcomes are increased. We look forward to using our data sources to identify actionable long-term initiatives that positively affect school climate and staff wellbeing. We are excited to journey together with staff, supported by the CEWA team, in this space.
ICAS Online Academic Competition - register by Monday, 1 August
ICAS is an online academic competition that is designed to assess students’ higher order thinking and problem-solving skills. At St Columba’s we will be offering the Maths competition in 2022.
Each assessment celebrates students’ accomplishments by providing opportunities for recognition and development. Every student who participates will receive a printed certificate and an online results report. Top performers will be eligible for medals.
Enrolment - we welcome new families
Help Catherine reach her fundraising goal - so close!
St Columba's parent Catherine Stokes will be sleeping out in the cold later this month to raise money for Vinnies Australia to provide crisis accommodation, food, healthcare, counselling, education, employment, and support to find a permanent home for thousands of people who experience homelessness. If you would like to help ensure Vinnies Australia can continue to be there, providing support services to get people experiencing homelessness back on their feet, please donate to the link below:
P&F News
Hi Everyone,
I hope all your children are settled back into school life, we have a massive term ahead of us.
The St Columba’s P&F are proud to be offering you our long running tradition - Tea Towels!
For those that aren’t aware, the tea towel designs feature self-portraits drawn by all school students and staff. The tea towel is a lasting memento to remember classmates and their very special time at school. A meaningful gift for family and friends, they are easy to post and make a fabulous reminder of your child's primary school years.
Prices are as follows:
1 tea towel - $15 each
3 or more tea towels - $14 each
ORDERS DUE FRIDAY 12TH AUGUST 2022
Purchase link:
https://expressions-fundraising.web.app/fundraising-schools/xRrUXZLIBHKBdxTWYG2M
Our school is now double stream, with more teachers and students than ever before. It is going to be one amazing tea towel.
We are also excited to be offering the PreK and Kindy students melamine plates (so cute!). Information will come to you via your teachers and class reps. I cannot wait to see the designs the children come up with.
This term we are excited to be able to hold our annual Fathers Day Celebration. This is currently planned for the morning of Friday, 2 September (PP-6) subject to any changes that may occur (thanks Covid!). More information to come closer to the date, but keep the morning free if you can.
Have a lovely week everyone.
Thanks!
Hayley Mitchell
P&F President
Dads of St. Columba's Footy Tipping 2022
Hello St. Columba’s Families,
A bumper update for you this week catching up on results over the holidays.
Some big changes on our leader board, check it out:
Round 15 Winner – AFLawton (RogerL) with a perfect 9 out of 9 round. That is some terrific tipping!
Round 16 Winner – Freo’Donovan (Pat D) with 7 tips and margin of 8 Freo’ Donovan pipped 6 other tipsters this round with the best margin
Round 17 Winner – Mat Smith (Mathew S) & Goal Sneak (Todd D) couldn’t be split this round both with 8 tips and 14 point margin
Round 18 Winner – Captain Shuey (Amelie D) with 7 tips and 9 point margin, again that margin result deciding the round winner from 2 other tipsters.
Round 19 Winner – Oggace (Brendon O) with a perfect 9 out of 9 round. Great work Oggace, no need for margin to determine round winners with perfect tipping!
The Overall Leader board:
1. Binns Clan – David B – 109 points
2. Freo Donovan – Pat D - 107 points
3. The Merenda Family – Lee M - 107 points
4. Trish09 – Tricia A – 106 points
5. Kinnane Dockers – Tristan K - 106 points
6. Scarymans - Mark S – 104 points
7. Oggace – Brendon O - 102
8. JChamps – Jennie D - 101 points
9. Lilanui – Lily D – 100 points
10. Captain Shuey – Amelie D – 100 points
With only 4 rounds remaining, Round 20 starts Friday night with Fremantle hosting Melbourne, which shapes as a critical game for the Top 4. The game starts at 6:10pm WA time.
Happy tipping!
Regards,
Todd Dawson
Scholastic Books
Every child deserves access to quality and affordable books, and Scholastic Book Club offers great prices with Value Books as low as $3 on every issue of Book Club. Best of all, if you order on Issue 5 you can select FREE BOOKS!
Place your Issue 5 order on LOOP to select up to 3 FREE BOOKS. To qualify all you have to do is spend over $30 and you can select 1 FREE book, or spend over $50 and you can select 2 FREE books or over $70 and you can select 3 FREE titles from a special online list. The list will display after you create your order and head to the checkout. See www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP for more information.
Did you know that 20% of your Book Club order goes back to our school in Scholastic Rewards? These Rewards are redeemed on Books and Educational Resources which helps stretch our budget further.
Entertainment Books
The year starts from the date of purchase of your Entertainment Book.
Bricks 4 Kidz - Term 3
School Term Dates
Term 3: Tuesday, 19 July to Wednesday, 21 September 2022
Term 4: Tuesday, 11 October to Friday, 9 December 2022
Pupil Free Dates
Term 3: Thursday, 22 September and Friday, 23 September (Catholic Day)
Term 4: Monday, 10 October 2022
Sacrament Dates
Reconciliation: Saturday, 12 November at 10am
St Columba's Catholic Primary School
Email: admin@stcolumbassp.wa.edu.au
Website: https://www.stcolumbassp.wa.edu.au/
Location: 30 York Street, South Perth WA 6151, Australia
Phone: (08) 6436 9500
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Education/St-Columbas-Catholic-Primary-School-South-Perth-173160579973945/