Term 3 Week 10 - 26 September 2024

Principal

kmps@lism.catholic.edu.au

Reminder: the last day of Term 3 for students is Thursday 26 September. Please note that the College, including the office, will be closed on Friday 27 September to allow all staff to attend the Staff Spirituality Day (Bishop's Retreat) off site.

Students return to school on Tuesday 15 October. The College office will be open for phone and in person enquiries from 9am - 3.30pm on Monday 14 October.

Communications during the school holidays may be sent to kmps@lism.catholic.edu.au, however, please note, this will only be checked intermittently.

HSC Preparation
Now that our Year 12 students have been farewelled from the school they are preparing for their final examinations. The first HSC exam takes place on Tuesday 15 October and the exam block concludes on Friday 8 November. We wish our Year 12 students all the best as they revise for their exams.

Equipment - Please restock in the holidays!
This is another plea to all parents and carers to please check in with your children regarding their equipment. Students need to ensure they are fully equipped for lessons so they can be prepared for their learning. We have several students at the moment coming to school without the basic equipment for class and this makes learning and teaching a real challenge. Please check in with them this holiday period while you have time to restock.

Atomi
Congratulations to Lionnel Nyurka and Joe Lines who were the highest Atomi users over the last 7 days! The students will receive a canteen voucher for their reward. Many students have benefited from this website over the exam period!

Please reach out if you have any questions about the learning for your students.

Ms Kate Fullbrook - Assistant Principal - Learning and Teaching

kate.fullbrook@lism.catholic.edu.au

Learning Walks and Talks
A Learning Walk and Talk is a way for teachers and school leaders to observe how learning is progressing at the College, by talking to students about their learning. The purpose of a walk is to determine if the Learning Intentions and Success Criteria are visible and clearly understood by students. Teachers and leaders will usually conduct a walk in pairs and visit a number of randomly selected classes at a randomly selected time. Once in the classroom, the visiting “walkers” will quietly ask individual students the five questions outlined below:

• What are you learning? Why?
• How are you doing?
• How do you know?
• How do you improve?
• Where do you go for help?

After the walk, the “walkers” will reflect on the student responses and then use this information to determine what areas the Learning Collaborative Team (and therefore the school) should continue to work on and what areas our students are doing well in. If, for example, our students only refer to the teacher in the final question this might indicate that we need to continue to work on using Success Criteria or Bump-it-Up Walls in our lessons. The purpose of the Learning Walk is to focus on growth for our learners and teachers.

Ms Catriona Martin - Learning Collaborative Team

St Paul's staff and students wish Year 12 2024 all the best in their HSC examinations. We are proud of your achievements and wish you a future filled with success!

Pastoral Care partnerships supporting parents at St Paul’s
One of the great joys of my career in Educational Leadership has been working with the Parents & Friends group, in both Bathurst and Kempsey. At St Paul’s there is a wonderful committee who meets at the school two or three times a Term with the primary function of being the organisation of potential fund raising for specific school resourcing. The meetings are very positive and informative and allows the College senior executive the opportunity to liaison with parents regarding current events and future planning.

The Diocese of Lismore Catholic Schools (DLCS) has asked all schools in the diocese to determine whether they follow the pathway of either a School Community Forum or a School Community Group. The two models presented have very different processes, and the St Paul’s P&F Association continue to speak of the group raising funds to support specific school initiatives. The constitution supporting this model requires a regeneration of community executive members, this means we need to have more parents actively involved to equitably share responsibilities. The next P&F meeting is on Monday 14 October beginning at 5.30pm in the Staff lunchroom and all parents are very welcome.

Since 2019 the Diocese of Lismore Catholic Schools has engaged the Family Connect and Support (FCS) service. St Paul’s is very fortunate to engage the support of FCS and Ashleigh Howe, the FCS facilitator in the College. Ashleigh has a deep knowledge of the Macleay Valley and support services that may be able to help families in need. Ashleigh is an outstanding educator who provides empathetic advice and support for families leading to improved outcomes.

The recent Federal Government’s Independent Expert Panel report ‘Improving Outcomes for All’, revealed that “the impact of these out-of-school factors could account for up to 60 per cent of the variability in student test scores” and highlights the significance of mental health and wellbeing on student learning and education outcomes including “evidence showing that by Year Nine, students experiencing poor mental health are on average 1.5 years to 2.8 years behind their peers in literacy and numeracy outcomes. There is also a growing body of evidence which shows students with reading difficulties are more likely to report mental health and wellbeing problems.” The DLCS Family Connect and Support (FCS) is one form of the application of an Extended Services School approach. Supporting a range of Extended Services School Models is also a priority for Catholic Schools NSW (CSNSW) through their Connected Catholic Communities Strategy.


Mr Geoffrey Melville - Assistant Principal - Mission and Wellbeing

geoffrey.melville@lism.catholic.edu.au

Faith Q&A for St Paul’s Staff, Students and Parents
St Paul’s has created an email address for members of our College community to send in any questions they may have regarding faith, church, religion, spirituality, etc.

Questions will be addressed by someone from a team of staff from the College and Parish. At this stage, questions won’t be anonymous but they will be handled discreetly and sensitively - the author of the question won’t be shared beyond the person who is delegated the question.

If you would like to submit a question of this nature, please send them through to kmps-faithquestions@lism.catholic.edu.au

If you have any questions or concerns about the process, please email me.

Thank you and God bless.


Mr Brendan Goswell - Leader of Catechesis

brendan.goswell@lism.catholic.edu.au

Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying, or online bullying, is bullying that’s done by means of technology - for example, using the internet or a mobile phone to hurt, harass or embarrass someone. If you’re experiencing cyberbullying in Australia, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, up to one in five young Australians have reported being cyberbullied.

Cyberbullying strategies:

• Strategy 1: Don’t respond immediately to cyberbullying
  The aim of a lot of cyberbullying is to annoy, upset or confuse the person who is being targeted, so that they react emotionally. If you’re being cyberbullied, keep in mind that the person who’s targeting you wants you to respond.
  A good strategy for dealing with this is not to give them what they’re looking for. If someone says something to you online, tags you in a photo you don’t like, or just generally does something unkind, put down your phone for an hour or more. Take that time to give yourself some emotional distance, and think carefully before you respond.
• Strategy 2: Follow up when you’re calmer
  After an hour, you’ll hopefully feel a little calmer. Now you can go back online, if you feel up to it, maybe even with a friend or family member in the room with you. The idea at this stage is to get a proper feel for the situation before contacting the person who is cyberbullying you.
  Using calm, neutral language, try to work out the situation with the person without letting them get to you. They might not even realise that you interpreted their actions as cyberbullying, so a calm conversation is a good place to start.
• Strategy 3: Take screenshots
  Screenshots are the best way for you to report an instance of cyberbullying. After all, the person who’s cyberbullying you may delete their comment or photo when they realise that it might get them in trouble. Screenshots will ensure you always have a copy of what was said. Note: if you take a screenshot on Snapchat, the other person will be notified that you did so.
• Strategy 4: Try to stop frequently checking posts
  When you’re in the thick of a cyberbullying attack, it can feel like the person who is cyberbullying you is literally in the room with you, shouting things in your ear and demanding your attention.
  But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can always limit your social media time to a few hours a day, or whatever feels right for you. That way, the bullying doesn’t feel constant, and you can take a break from the online world to look after yourself.
  
  

Four things everyone needs to stop doing
From pretending to be someone else online to posting from someone else's profile, here are four things everyone needs to stop doing online:

1. Posting from someone else's profile or changing it. If you don't have consent, it's not right. You may think it's a harmless joke, but it's not a joke unless everyone is in on it.
   
2. Pretending to be someone else online. It's an invasion of their privacy. Plus, being yourself just feels right.
3. Sending photos of someone without their permission. Everyone has the right to choose who sees photos of them, and which photos of theirs are posted online.
4. Intentionally excluding someone, like leaving someone out of group chats. It's never nice to feel left out, and just because it's happening behind a screen, doesn't mean it still doesn't feel awful.

These things happen online all the time. You might think they're harmless, because it's 'just the internet', but there are real people with feelings behind (most of) the accounts you see online. 'Treat people how you want to be treated' applies to social media, too.

Ms Fiona Stuart - Leader of Pastoral Care

fiona.stuart@lism.catholic.edu.au

Congratulations to St Paul's Year 12 students who celebrated their Graduation Mass and Major Awards Ceremony this week. The College is proud of the many achievements of the year group across 2024.

St Paul's College extends grateful appreciation and thanks to the sponsors of the Major Awards Ceremony - thank you for your continued support in acknowledging the achievements of our students!

Year 12 Major Awards Ceremony
Thank you to all the parents/carers, family and friends who attended the Graduation Mass and Major Awards Ceremony to celebrate this special day with the Year 12 students.

• Ellia Baywood
• Ava Ryan
• Olivia Opdam
• Alexander Turley-Collins
• Archer Northey
• Evangeline Barton
• Isabelle Koivu
• Lynete Bridgwater
• Lochlan Irving
• Amelia Perry

Academic Achievement Awards

• Ryley Smith
• Harrison Lee
• Chelsea Hackenberg
• Jorja Barnett
• Caitlin Williams
• Abby Westerman
• Teliyah Kennedy
• Jack Bool
• Luke Blayden
• Cody Brown
• Lachlan Johnson
• Dakotah Harris
• Lily Farrell
• Lucas Riedel
• Alannah Koivu
• Evangelina Gately

Year 12 Special Awards

• Crescent Head Surf Co. Award for Application in Physical Education & Sport - Taylah Moffitt
• St Paul's College Sporting Blue Awards
  - Blake Gill - Rugby Union
  - Ava Ryan - Cricket
  - Blake Bullen - Football (Soccer)
• Excellence In English Extension Award - Ava Ryan
• Excellence in English Advanced Award - Olivia Opdam
• Success in English Standard Award - Ryley Smith
• English Studies Award for Attitude and Commitment - Holly Edwards
• Fibonacci Award for Excellence in Mathematics Extension 2 - Archer Northey
• Isaac Newton Award for Excellence in Mathematics Extension 1 - Archer Northey
• Gotfried Leibnitz Award for Excellence in Mathematics Advanced - Alexander Turley-Collins
• Pythagoras Award for Excellence in Mathematics Standard - Abby Westerman
• HSIE Award for Academic Excellence - Ava Ryan
• Jim Hovenden Award for Passion and Dedication to HSIE - Paige Pritchard
• Coastline Credit Union Award for Excellence in Business Studies - Alexander Turley-Collins
• Greg Hollier Award for Excellence in Science - Evangeline Barton
• Nestle Award for Achievement in Senior Food Technology - Georgie Barbour
• Norco Award for Success in Agriculture - Harrison Lee
• Excellence in Computer Technology Award - Alexander Turley-Collins
• Peter Sales (CPG) Memorial Award for Excellence in Industrial Technology - Harrison Lee
• Excellence in Textiles and Design Award - Teliyah Kennedy
• Laurie Edmonds Memorial Award for Excellence in Construction - Aiden Smith
• Mid Coast Connect Award for Excellence in Work Placement (Year 12) - Joshua Stuart
• Paula Tamblyn Memorial Award for Excellence in Visual Arts - Lynete Bridgwater
• Sr Patricia Barrie Memorial Award for Achievement in Music - Evangeline Barton
• Sr Patricia Barrie Award for Service to Music - Ashley Wilson
• The 'Mr G' Award for Dedication to Drama - Ellia Baywood
• The Aunty Doreen Flanders Reconciliation Award - Caitlin Williams
• The Resilience and Commitment Award - Isabella Stone
• The Macleay Valley Catholic Parish Award for Christian Living in the College - Evangeline Barton
• St Paul's Commitment to Studies Award
  - Lochlan Irving
  - Lynete Bridgwater
  - Jade Oliver
• Chris Mavin Memorial Award for Best All Rounder - Taylah Moffitt
• The Australian Defence Force Long Tan Leadership and Teamwork Award - Evangeline Barton
• The Australian Defence Force Future Innovators Award - Alexander Turley-Collins
• The University of New England Vice Chancellor's High Achievement Prize - Ella Mainey
• PBRS Points Award for Positive Behaviour and Interaction within St Paul's Community - Kurt Nemme
• Sandy Davis Memorial Award - Malachi Lewthwaite Clarke
• Edna Davis Memorial Award - Phoebe Laws
• Edmund Rice Award for Male Student of the Year - Blake Gill
• Catherine McAuley Award for Female Student of the Year - Evangeline Barton
• Award to Year 12 Ministry Leaders
  Evangeline Barton
  Phoebe Laws
  Sophie Osborne
  Amelia Perry
  Sasha Shipp
  Ashley Slapp
  Ashley Wilson
• Award to House Spirit Leaders
  (Farrelly) Makeely Patterson & Ava Ryan
  (Edmund) Lily Farrell & Darcy Swaine
  (MacKillop) Ella Mainey, Harrison Gill & Kurt Nemme
  (McAuley) Phoebe Laws & Imogen Ward
• Award to College Leaders
  Ryley Smith
  Taylah Moffitt
  Ashley Slapp
  Blake Gill
• Award to College Captains
  Evangeline Barton
  Jorja Barnett

Congratulations to the St Paul's Year 12 students who were honoured at the Macleay Valley All Schools 'Koori/Goori Graduates Dinner'. We are very proud of your achievements!

Congratulations to St Paul's Year 12 students, Phoebe Laws, Amelia Perry and Logan Hill, whose Individual HSC Drama Performances have been nominated for possible inclusion in OnSTAGE.

OnSTAGE presents a selection of outstanding major works by HSC Drama students in NSW and will be held from 8-14 February 2025 at the Seymour Centre in Sydney.

This nomination to be considered for OnSTAGE is a massive achievement and testament to the students' hard work and determination. Thank you to St Paul's Drama teachers, Mrs Amanda Jordan and Mrs Elizabeth Smith, for their guidance and support of the students.

On Wednesday 11 September Mr Leon Robinson, Ms Catriona Martin and Ms Leeanne Grant took a group of 27 Year 12 Standard English Students to Sydney for a performance of one of their HSC texts, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". The novel set for study was written by Mark Haddon and the play performed by the Belvoir Street Theatre Company, directed by Hannah Goodwin. The play was very faithful to the original text which enabled students to gain deeper insights into the main characters and their various motivations and emotions. The production quite literally brought the novel to life. Most students enjoyed the performance and also the various food options available to them for dinner on Wednesday night. Thursday was a big day with lots of walking around the city, viewing the performance and then the long trip home.

A special thank you to Mrs Melissa Preston for her organisation of this trip and for giving students the opportunity to see two out of their three HSC texts.

Newcastle Rural Health Visit
Year 10 students recently explored careers in Medicine and Allied Health through hands-on workshops, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, radiography, speech pathology, maternity, and nutrition. Current Newcastle University students offered practical advice on securing employment in these fields and shared insights into the requirements for university entry.

Financial Literacy Workshops
Year 10 students participated in financial workshops presented by Mid North Coast Financial Counselling. The sessions covered essential topics such as tax file numbers, types of employment, superannuation, and buy now, pay later schemes. This valuable information aligns with our goal of equipping students with the knowledge and skills needed to prepare them for future pathways.

Last week the Year 9 & 10 Commerce students turned the College grounds into a bustling marketplace for the highly anticipated Market Day. With an initial $20 investment from the school, each student group launched their own business after extensive planning and development, aiming to make a profit while honing their entrepreneurial skills.

The event was a fantastic success, with a wide variety of creative stalls including sweet treats, baked goods, specialty drinks, Jibbitz for Crocs, timber homewares, and even treats for our furry friends. The students showed remarkable innovation and teamwork, making the day both educational and fun. Congratulations to all involved for making Market Day such a memorable experience!

St Paul's Year 10 students participated in the Love Bites program recently which is a respectful relationships education program for young people aged 15-17 years. Students engaged in two interactive sessions which explored healthy relationships, domestic violence and relationships and consent and created artworks that can be used as part of a community campaign to raise awareness around these issues.

A special thanks to the facilitators from Family Connect in Schools, Pathfinders Family Connect and Support, Women’s Health & Family Planning, Aboriginal Health and Domestic Violence Prevention and Ms Beth Rennes.

Earlier in the year the Principal, Mr Johns, approached the English and HSIE faculties about offering a public speaking opportunity for our junior students in order to promote public speaking and to give our students the opportunity to engage with issues in the world around them. From this initial prompt, Ms Leeanne Grant, then developed the Voices for Change program.

All students in Years 7-10 were given the opportunity to participate in this program with the aim of writing and presenting a speech to an invited audience. The following students nominated themselves: William Perry, Rilien Smith, James Browning, Shayla Fox, Tahlia Wall, Orla Kennedy, Amelya Sutherland, Annika Williams and Levi Williams and throughout Terms 2 and 3 met with Ms Grant each week to explore the question “If you could change one thing about the world what would it be?”. Students looked at a number of famous speeches and learnt about the language and purpose of speeches before writing their own speech on a topic that they felt strongly about.

In Week 7 of Term 3, after many hours of writing, drafting, editing and practising their speeches, the students were ready to present their speeches to an audience of family members, friends and teachers. Each student spoke with confidence and passion about their chosen topic which ranged from bullying, the need for STEM, men’s mental health, healthy eating, women in the workplace, domestic violence, climate change and reducing our waste.

Every student should be extremely proud of their efforts and the thought, care and bravery they demonstrated in speaking in public about such important issues. It fills me with optimism to think that the future will be held in such capable and talented hands.

Congratulations and thanks to Ms Grant for all her hard work and encouragement. Thanks also to Mr Johns for providing this opportunity and thanks to the families and teachers who joined us to witness these wonderful speeches.

Ms Catriona Martin - Leader of English

Typically, spring can be a tough time on the farm as it usually coincides with a period of dry weather and poor pasture growth. This season, however, has been very kind with lots of soil moisture and fairly mild conditions.

Beef
We have been busy keeping track of the newborn calves, with 19 in total having been born so far this year. We still have two or three to arrive. Each calf is tagged with a unique ID tag, which contains its date of birth, ID number, and its mother's number.

We have sold six of our own cattle direct from the farm to our network of buyers from the College community. The animals have been processed at Frederickton Abattoir and sent directly to Milly Hill Butchery in Kempsey. The butchers cut and pack our orders for pickup by the customer. We have been selling these packs in 10kg mixed boxes and so far these have been receiving favourable feedback. Some packs are even being purchased by Diocesan staff who live and work in the Port Macquarie region.

Recently we were able to provide the majority of our staff a taste of Francis Farm Beef with lunchtime steak sandwiches. This was quite popular and we cooked 100 steak sandwiches.

Pigs
Our pasture raised pig facility is back up and running this year. To date we have raised 20 pigs in 2024, with six of these being sold to Kempsey High School Agriculture Farm. The remainder of the pigs we have produced have been processed and sold directly to our own network of customers. Our butcher “Grazed and Grown Farm” at Comboyne packs the products and our customers can purchase a full or half pig.

We have also been utilising the deep litter from the pig igloo, this is removed at the end of the grow out phase and composted on site to provide nutrients for our vegetable production. This makes the whole process cyclic.

Bees
Our European and native bees have made it through the winter period and it is hoped that with a decent spring season the honey flow will start to speed up. We did lose one native bee colony and one European colony over winter. We were fortunate not to have the entire European colonies euthanized due to the varroa mite control orders in place earlier in the year.

Vegetables
Vegetable production is coming along well, we have our winter vegetable crops coming to the end of the season and Year 9 are planting down their summer crop of corn, although the recent burst of cold weather may have delayed their crop germination.

Pasture
Our Rye and Clover pasture have been magnificent this year and are providing feed for the cow herd and their growing calves. We have around 18 calves born in the last month and the pasture is helping to increase milk production in the calves. Year 10 Agriculture has been measuring pasture dry matter and making calculations as to how much dry matter we need to supply the needs of the cow herd.

We have added some canola to the pasture this year as well and while it is not very palatable to the cows, it does provide food for our native and European bees. We have noticed an increase in insect activity in the pastures since the canola has started flowering. The other benefit of the canola is that it is a deep rooted tap root plant and when it eventually dies and decays, the roots will become soil nutrients and the holes left behind will allow great water infiltration to the soil.

Tow N Fert Liquid Fertiliser spreader
Last year the farm purchased a Tow N Fert liquid fertiliser spreader. This enables us to spread a wide range of products including Prilled Lime, Gypsum, as well as other fertilisers. The fertilisers are dissolved in water and sprayed out accurately on the pasture, this reduces losses due to wind and volatilisation. It also means that the fertiliser is absorbed through the leaf of the plant and does not have to dissolve into the soil where it can be bound up by soil chemistry.

Production statistics for the farm
The Francis Farm has been in existence since 2016 and our focus has been to sell our produce to our own network of customers where we can. In that time we have sold 186 pigs from the farm, around 300 steer and heifers and countless amounts of eggs, honey and vegetables.

While some of our cattle are sold locally through our own network, we have also supplied cattle to buyers such as JBS who are the world's biggest supplier of meat protein as well as Coles and Alexander Downs Group. This means that a small portion of our farm produce could in fact be transported to various destinations around the globe.

World Skills Regional Competition - Primary Industries

On Wednesday 18 September, Brianna O’Donnell represented the College at the VET in Schools (VETis) World Skills Regional Competition in Casino. Brianna has been training for the competition for a number of weeks and at the time of writing we are unsure of the place in the competition that she achieved.

The Primary Industries competition involves students participating in three tasks: Fencing, Tractor operation and Livestock handling. Students rotate through the various sections on the day under the watchful eye of the judges.

The competition saw students from Lismore, Casino and Kempsey competing against each other. I was a judge for the fencing component and I would say that the standard of the top students in the fencing was very high. Hopefully the World skills organisation will release the results to us early in the coming week. We are hopeful that Brianna has achieved success in the competition. The overall winner of the competition will travel to the National competition in Brisbane next year.

Please note that, from the beginning of Term 4, the College canteen will no longer be offering a heating service for foods brought from home or elsewhere.
Thank you for your understanding.

As we approach summer and warmer weather, parents/carers are asked to please check their child's hair for nits/lice as a precaution and to commence treatment as recommended if any are found.

Further information on head lice is available on the NSW Health website

NSW Health will be conducting the NSW Schools Vaccination Program catch up clinic on Thursday 24 October for Year 7 and Year 10 students.

Online consent for school vaccinations
If your child is in Year 7 or Year 10 this year and have not received their routine school vaccinations, you can provide online consent for them to receive their vaccinations at the catch up clinic.

⦁ Year 7 students are offered free vaccines for diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (dTpa) and human papillomavirus (HPV).
⦁ Year 10 students are offered a free vaccine for meningococcal ACWY.

Please note - Year 8 and Year 11 students who have an online consent/signed consent form from 2023, will be offered catch up vaccinations in 2024.

If parents/guardians consent online they will receive a reminder text 3 days prior to the clinic date.

Vaccination will only be provided at school if consent has been received.

Catch Up Clinic for 2024 Vaccination Program:

• Term 4 - Thursday 24 October

To provide consent for vaccination online, parents/carers will need to:

• Visit the online consent portal here.
• Follow the steps to log in to your existing Service NSW account. This is the same account you may already use to renew your driver's licence. If you don't have a Service NSW account, refer to Service NSW to create one.
• Enter Medicare details for yourself and your child and provide consent.
• If you consent online, you will receive a reminder text 3 days prior to the clinic date.
• Read a step-by-step guide on how to provide consent online. Translated guides are available online.
• If you or your child do not have a Medicare card or you cannot provide consent online, please email the College Office kmps@lism.catholic.edu.au to request a paper consent form to be sent home.

The benefits of providing consent online:

⦁ easily update your child's details.
⦁ receive SMS and/or email notifications when vaccinations are given.
⦁ faster upload of vaccination records to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).

For more information on routine school vaccinations, please visit www.health.nsw.gov.au/schoolvaccination. If you have any questions regarding your child's school vaccinations, please contact the NSW Public Health Unit on 1300 066 055.