St Benedict's Catholic School Shaw eNewsletter

Community Partnerships

Parents & Friends (P&F)

We are excited to hold our first P&F meeting next week - Tuesday 7th at 7pm. This is a great time to meet fellow community parents, keep up to date with all the goings on in the school, raise any points for discussion and there is always a chance for people to offer to be part of the great community events we hold each term. We will be looking for some additional core organisers to join with Mrs Renee Neville who is our parent coordinator. Renee does a great job of organising everything, but it can be a lot on one person's shoulders. Please consider if you could offer a couple of hours a term on a consistent basis for some behind the scenes work - ordering items, booking DJ’s and sometimes collecting items. Many hands make light work. As always, volunteers on the day of the events are always welcome. Looking forward to seeing you there.

School Board

Another great opportunity for community engagement is through our school Board. The role of our School Board is to provide broad, comprehensive governance of the school. They do this by setting long-term, strategic directions for the school, reviewing key policies for school usage, approving the school budget and providing invaluable support to the principal in administration, policy issues and management of educational change. Tenure on the board is for a period of three years, with meetings once a month. If you are interested in a role such as this, please contact myself or Mr Nick Christie.

Wet Weather and shoes

We’ve been blessed with mostly dry weather for the start of the year. With February and March comes the wettest weather. Traditionally, we have allowed alternate shoes on the days there is lying water on the ground - to try and protect the school shoes. We are happy for this to still be the case, however, on these days we are looking to make changes which involve wearing shoes that might be appropriate for wet weather, but also remain safe. As such, we would prefer students to wear footwear with an enclosed toe. This may mean Crocs, Reef Shoes, Gumboots or alike. Of course, school shoes are welcome to be worn. If your child attends OSHC, please note they have differing policies and guidelines and may require you to send an additional pair of enclosed shoes.

Tower Playground

The construction of phase 1 of our new Tower Playground is complete. We are awaiting the final playground inspections and appropriate sign offs before the space will be open. Only students from Year 3 - 6 will be permitted to access the playground, as this is the age group the space is designed for. Appropriate supervision will be in place at all times that students are using the playground. We can’t wait to hear what fun and adventures they will have.

Blessings

Ros

And that is our first “Full Week” back at school - it’s been great to see so many of the students settling is as I’ve moved around the school this week. I’ve seen some great work already come up to the office, PEACE stickers on shirts and a lot of evidence of students really starting to get into the routine of being back at school!

Vinnies Bin

You may have seen the blue Vinnies Bin at the front of our school - this is something that has certainly been well used. Vinnies have contacted us to request if we can keep this location as donations for clothing only as they aren’t currently accepting other types of donations from this location. They are very grateful for the generous support offered to them, and if you have items that aren’t clothes, they would receive these at their West End store. Thanks for your consideration with this matter.

Class Masses - Term 1

Please see the table below with a list of who is on assembly for Term 1, and also who is on class showcases.

Week / Date	Assembly	Showcase
Week 4 - 17/2	Beginning Year Liturgy	NA
Week 5 - 24/2	6 Crocodiles	6 Crocodiles & 2 Kingfishers
Week 6 - 3/3	3 Emus	3 Emus & 5 Dolphins
Week 7 - 10/3	4 Dragonflies	4 Dragonflies & Prep Bilbies
Week 8 - 17/3	NAPLAN	NA
Week 9 - 24/3	FUN RUN	NA
Week 10 - 31/3	5 Jellyfish	5 Jellyfish & 1 Bandicoots

DATE CLAIMER

Our assemblies this year will remain on a Friday at 8:45am in the Hall. I will include a timetable with classes in next weeks newsletter. These will begin in Week 5, Friday 24th Feb. Our Beginning Year Liturgy will be taking place on Friday 17th Feb at 9:00am in the Hall - our entire school community are invited to attend this event. I would particularly like to extend a welcome to our parents of Year 6 children, as we will be recognising them as leaders in front of the school for 2023.

Pax,

Nick

Parish_wk2.pdf

NAPLAN Testing - Moved to Term 1

NAPLAN has previously been tested in Term 2. This year, NAPLAN will be administered in Term 1. Without causing extra unnecessary test worry, teachers have already been helping our students become test ready so they know what to expect, and have the best opportunity possible to show their strengths.

NAPLAN is a national literacy and numeracy assessment that students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sit each year. It is the only national assessment all Australian students do.

As children progress through their school years, it is very important that checks are made along the way to see how well they are learning the essential skills of reading, writing and mathematics. NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard and compared with their peers throughout Australia. At the classroom level, NAPLAN provides additional information to support teachers’ professional judgment about student progress.

Year 3 and Year 5 students complete NAPLAN Online, with the exception of the year 3 writing test which is completed on paper. Coming up to the tests, students will be engaged in learning about the types of questions that will be on the NAPLAN test and how to navigate the site. Students will also participate in a practice test on Wednesday 22nd February in order to become familiar with the platform.

If you would like to, you and your child can access the Public Demonstration Site to familiarise yourselves with the type of questions and related functionalities available in the NAPLAN Online assessment.

This website (https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/parent-carer-support/) provides further information and resources about NAPLAN for parents and carers.

Parents or carers may choose to withdraw their child from the tests. It is recommended that withdrawal be considered in consultation with your child's teacher. If you would like to withdraw your child from NAPLAN please contact your child’s teacher as soon as possible and you will need to sign a form along with the Principal (Ros) by Monday 6th March.

The NAPLAN schedule for St Benedict’s Catholic School is below. Wherever possible, we will organise for individual students who are absent at the time of testing to complete missed tests at another time during the test window. Classes will resume as normal (no more catch ups) after Tuesday 21st March.

Time

Wednesday 15th March

Thursday 16th March

Friday 17th March

Mon 20 - Tue 21 March

9am

Year 3 Writing (40mins)

Year 5 Writing (42mins)

Year 3 Reading (45mins)

Year 5 Reading (50mins)

Year 3 Numeracy (45mins)

Year 5 Numeracy (50mins)

Catch up session

11:30am

Year 3 Conventions of Language (45mins)

Year 5 Conventions of Language (45mins)

Catch up session

Please click on the following link for more information

Insert Infographic

If you have any questions or concerns regarding NAPLAN please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher. As stated, we appreciate that NAPLAN is a point in time assessment, and we know your children for all their strengths and achievements outside of standardised testing.

Yours in Learning,

Aleesha Rockemer (Learning and Teaching Adviser and Acting Assistant Principal - Administration)

Social Thinking Framework Years 3-6

Social thinking is our meaning maker.

We observe and listen to interpret the perspectives of others.

When seeking to engage or simply share space with others, we use social thinking to adapt our social behaviours (social skills) effectively as a means to meet our social goals.

Our social thinking and social skills directly impact how others feel about us.

This impacts how we are treated, how we feel about others, and ultimately - how we feel about ourselves!

This year we have introduced to Years 3-6 in our Health units the Social Thinking Framework which extends on from Zones of Regulations. Students become “Social Detectives” - the social world can be a big complicated place. We are all social detectives as we observe and make sense of the clues in different social contexts to figure out the hidden rules for expected behaviours, as well as to understand how we each feel and think about what others say and do in a situation.

When we are at school we are all detectives, we observe, gather clues and solve problems all day long! We could be math detectives, science detectives, reading detectives, play detectives or even social detectives. The students are introduced to new characters that help them to unlock our social world.

For further information on the program, please reach out to Rhylie Mathiesen, Pastoral Care Coordinator or your child’s classroom teacher.

Tuckshop.pdf