Term 4 Week 4 - 4 November 2022

Dear Parent/Carer

‘‘That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out ‘Lord, ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Luke 20: 27-38

I write to you all in the knowledge that our incredible Year 12 students are nearing the end of their Higher School Certificate examinations, with only a few papers remaining. It is incredible to think what our senior students and those across the state had to navigate over the last two years. I admire them all and look forward to seeing the year group at our Graduation Dinner on 12 November.

As we move on in our lives post COVID we need as a community to consider the residual challenges that this experience presents. I look over our attendance records and observe increasing requests for family related leave, often for extended periods of time. While I am conscious of the need for families to connect when they have previously been unable to do so, I am also aware of government regulations around the importance of consistent school attendance. I ask families to plan, where possible, for holidays and related family leave to fall during holiday time and does not cut into student learning. I also ask that notification of leave is given with significant notice to allow for conversations with teachers and the student involved, so a degree of academic continuity can take place.

I continue to engage with peer Principal’s across the region and conversation always includes the challenges around safe and responsible use of social media. At the College, in Pastoral Care classes we often talk about this and present resources to our students that will assist them in navigating appropriate use of mobile technology. It is expected that these conversations also take place at home. What is concerning is that much of what ‘hits’ a student’s device is not filtered and I can only imagine what a student may be thinking when events across the region, across the country and around the world enters their ‘personal space’. It would be essential that families talk with their children about how this should be managed. If this is not addressed we run the risk of young people feeling burdened by the weight of what they see, read and hear without a way of responding. We will continue to support our students at the College in this space and invite you to contact your child’s Pastoral Care teacher or Year/House coordinator if more support is required.

Finally, I note that there has been communication from some families expressing the wish for their children to be withdrawn from a variety of activities that are seen as important learning opportunities. This may include PDHPE – practical activities, English - oral presentations and Catholic studies - retreats and liturgical celebrations. I am aware that young people can carry anxieties that make such experiences challenging but what is requested from them matters and is important. Rather than initially omitting students from activities, it is far more beneficial for families to reach out to the staff concerned to collaboratively highlight the issues and come up with a solution that enables the activity to still take place, ultimately creating evidence of growth and an enriching of academic experience.

Please continue to work with us as we accommodate the needs of all our students within the College.

Kind regards

Mr David JOHNS   B.Ed., Cert. Gifted Ed., Grad. Cert. Adol. Health and Welfare, M.Ed. (Ed Lead), M.Ed. (Theol) 

Principal

kmps@lism.catholic.edu.au

Class Placement 2023
The Year 7-10 Assessment block is undertaken at St Paul’s during Weeks 6 & 7. There are a range of learning initiatives that will invigorate our students across the rest of the year following the assessment block, during this time our staff will be closely looking at the academic and social relationships within each classroom to allow improved class placements in 2023. So how are we placing students in our classes during 2023?

Year 7 
There is great excitement in the air as St Paul’s is looking forward to welcome around 150 students in Year 7 2023. Mr Johns, Mrs Shipton and I have had the great privilege of meeting so many wonderful students and their families. The College is meeting with our feeder schools across the next few weeks to consider the learning strengths of our incoming Year 7 cohort, and there has also been detailed data provided per student to review.

In 2023 in Year 7, there will be 6 classes of around 25 students per class (8 classes in Technology with less than 20 students per class). These classes will be non-streamed, where the identification of the learning and social ability of each student will be identified allowing clusters of students within each class and growth closely monitored. There will be a direct link between the teachers in History and English, CAS, PDHPE and Sport, creating teams of staff meeting each week to discuss growth of students in these common classes.

Year 8 
The College has built a strong bank of data for current Year 7 - NAPLAN, literacy progressions, PAT testing and internal assessment. This data is invaluable in allowing our staff to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each student so class and teacher placement allows an environment of data review and improvement. In 2023 in Year 8, there will be 6 classes around 25 students per class. These classes will be non-streamed, where the identification of the learning and social ability of each student will be identified allowing clusters of students within each class and growth closely monitored.

Years 9 and 10
The College is presently considering the academic ability for students to work in Advanced and Standard pathways in the core subjects in Years 9 and 10, the key learning aspects are work ethic and consistency in engaging with their teacher. Years 9 and 10 are critical in building skills to launch into the Prelim and HSC courses. The College is using data identifying the learning styles and strengths of each student in current Years 8 and 9 to determine the best placement for students in the Advanced and Standard pathways for 2023.

We place students within classes that best allows them to access learning and review their achievement, for Years 9 and 10 we can provide clear advice on Maths and English pathways based on their growth in Year 7 and 8 and begin the planning in Year 9 for the HSC years. The academic growth of each student is paramount at our College, I am always available to speak to students/parents regarding these matters.

Mr Geoffrey Melville - Assistant Principal - Learning and Teaching

geoffrey.melville@lism.catholic.edu.au

All community members are invited to celebrate with our Parish community this Sunday for the Feast Day of All Saints Church at 9:30 am. It would be lovely to see everyone at the service and thereafter for morning tea.

Socktober- what a wonderful day!
This year our school participated in Socktober for Mission Month. We partnered with Catholic Mission to invite our students to connect with young people experiencing challenges in the developing world through education and the world game of soccer. This year, our collective fundraising efforts supported vulnerable children in Ethiopia who are experiencing food insecurity and malnutrition.

Our students raised over $480 for Catholic Mission. Congratulations and thank you!

Assembly with a difference
On Wednesday we held our assembly via ZOOM so we could accommodate two of our steers from Francis Farm. Mr Bramley and the College Ag Team proudly showed off "Sugar" and "Keith", demonstrating and explaining about showing cattle. The College Agricultural Team participated in the Upper Hunter Beef Bonanza in Scone on 20-23 October, returning with an array of ribbons and awards.

Congratulations to Mr Bramley, Ms Frewin and our farm assistant Mr Nigel Flanagan, and all the students for your success at Scone.

Mrs Bronwyn Shipton - Assistant Principal - Mission and Wellbeing

bronwyn.shipton@lism.catholic.edu.au

Christmas Hampers
We are rapidly approaching the end of the school year. As is our custom at St Paul’s, our PC classes will begin the task of collecting Christmas Hamper items for distribution to those in need within the Macleay valley. Please reference the flyer below for a list of suggested items for donation. If each student brings in an item or two it will make a massive difference to the lives of those in our community who would otherwise have a less-cheery Christmas.

As well as our Hamper appeal at St Paul’s, All Saints Catholic Parish will be running a ‘giving tree’ for Christmas too, where people can purchase a gift for a boy or girl this Christmas.

Senior Retreat

Next week our current Senior class will be heading to Bonny Hills to undertake their senior retreat. This important aspect of the student’s time at St Paul’s is well enjoyed by the students. They will have the opportunity to learn a little more about themselves through time to reflect and grow, by participating in various workshops and activities across the three days. I thank Miss Tamblyn for her efforts in organising the groups and rooming, and Lou our Youth Ministry Officer for her efforts in collating and developing the resources for the experience.

Request for Hosting Families

Finally, we are in desperate need of families to host students from St Aloysius in Week 6 and 7. So far we have not had any takers, and it would be unfortunate to have to ‘pull the pin’ on this opportunity. Please contact Mr Pollock at the College if you are able to assist. We will have 6 students (year 9 boys) from Sydney staying with us, and ideally families would be able to host 2 boys each.

Have a great week, and God Bless,

Mr Will Pollock - Leader of Evangelisation

will.pollock@lism.catholic.edu.au

Years 7-10 Exam Block
Year 7 to 10 will be completing their Semester 2 Examination block in Week 6 and the Monday of Week 7 this Term.

Please follow the link HERE for the examination timetable and hyperlinked study guides.

I encourage you to discuss these study guides with your child in preparation for their examinations.

Mrs Amy Tovey - Leader of Curriculum

amy.tovey@lism.catholic.edu.au

As we move towards the end of the 2022 school year, I feel that it is prudent to reflect on some areas where we need student behaviour to improve and I also wish to celebrate our successes and positive behaviours through this time as well.

The Positive Behaviour Reward Scheme (PBRS) has been a resounding success which to date has seen students collect 885,250 points through 52,500 individual awards.

There have been 17 individual winners of the $100 gift vouchers for having the leading number of PBRS points in each year group each Term. Students also receive Let Your Light Shine Awards at most College Assemblies and large numbers of students have or will receive Gold, Silver and Bronze Commendations at our Semester 1 and 2 Commendation Ceremonies.

On the flip side of this, the College has suspended 19 students for a total of 26 days across Terms 1 and 2, and 64 students for a total of 112 days in the 14 weeks of Terms 3 and 4 until present.

This Term we have introduced the Student Level System and have given out 38 Red or Yellow Cards for students who have been placed on Red or Amber Level through suspension or repeated misconduct in the first four weeks of Term 4.

The biggest areas of misconduct are Mobile Phone and Electronic Device misuse, incorrect uniform (including wearing sports uniform when students do not have sport) and defiance and disrespect towards staff.

Discipline accounts for approximately 15% of Chronicle entries on Compass and the vast majority of our pupils are excellent students who contribute in a positive way to College life at St Paul’s.

The College Executive will soon be releasing a survey to students, staff and families at St Paul’s to gauge community interest in banning all Smart phone use between the hours of 9.00am and 3.30pm using Yondr Pouches. This has proved to be highly successful at many schools and will change the students' reliance on using their phones to access social media apps throughout the school day.

House Touch Football Competition
Now that the weather seems to have changed we will be attempting to have a House Touch Football competition on Wednesdays and Fridays. This competition will be a mixed 7 a side competition for Year 7-8, and 9-11 and will have teams representing each house. Houses can have more than one team in each age group.

Shelby Shines

Star Year 11 student, Shelby Mitchell, was the Master of Ceremonies for the official opening of the Kempsey office of Headspace on Monday 31 October. Headspace provides mental health support to young people and will be a fantastic asset to the community of Kempsey.

Headspace Kempsey is a centre that operates on Dunghutti land. Its services are funded by the Federal Government and managed by North Coast Health to provide mental health, physical health, alcohol and other drugs, and vocational/educational supports to young people in the Kempsey and surrounding areas.

If you need support call 02 6539 3450 or visit the website HERE


Mr Leon Robinson - Leader of Pastoral Care

leon.robinson@lism.catholic.edu.au  

0401 166 415
02 65627200

Bishop Greg Homeing visited St Paul's College this week, accompanied by our Parish Priest, Fr James Foster. Bishop Greg was able to hear about the exciting building works at the College and also speak with some of our CSYMA and Studies of Religion Preparatory classes.

Bishop Greg asked our students many questions regarding their studies, spoke to them regarding an array of topics from suffering, to friendship and finding God and also gave them some insights into the Lismore floods.

Last week Char Bar, Lumberjack Grill and Zodiac Coffee Co. visited St Paul's. These food trucks attended the College to present to the Year 10 Food Technology classes and formed part of their Food Service and Catering Assessment Task.

This was a fantastic real life example and provided industry experience for the students.

Two weeks ago, 25 St Paul's students, 25 parents and 3 members of staff made the trip to the Scone for the Annual Upper Hunter Beef Bonanza.

The Agriculture team entered 17 animals in the competition and we would like to thank Clinton & Anna Shields, Michael & Kylie O’Donnell and Kevin & Natalie Weismantel (Kempsey High) for the use of their trucks.

The Ag team have been training relentlessly every Thursday afternoon all year for this competition and their success throughout the competition was proportional to their high level of preparation.

Steer Classes

Dylan Hine (Year 9) - Limousin steer placed 1st in his weight division in the Hoof Competition.

Harriett Shields (Year 8) - Murray Grey cross steer placed 3rd on the Hoof in his weight division (Heavy middle weight).

Jared Clarke (Year 8) - Limousin steer placed 4th in his Heavy weight steer class.

Junior Judging

Two of our students reached the finals of the Junior Judging competition with Brianna O’Donnell placing 3rd outright in the U14 age group and Isla Von Mengersen placing 4th in the U13 age group.

Both students had to address the crowd on the microphone as to the reason they placed their class of animals.

Junior Parading

We had a number of successful students place in their heats:

Lilly-Rae Rosten (Yr 7) - 1st U12/13 heat
Chase Rosten (Yr 8) - 1st U14 heat
Jared Clarke (Yr 8) - 2nd U14 heat
Lincoln McCarthy (Yr 8) - 4th U14 heat
Issy Preston (Yr 10) - 1st U15 heat
Reagan O’Donnell (Yr 10) - 2nd U16 heat
India Dowling (Yr 11) Highly commended, U 17 heat 

We also had many students receive highly commended awards throughout the competition.

The Upper Hunter Beef Bonanza consisted of more than 700 contestants and 320 led animals, so to receive a ribbon is a significant achievement. 

Ms Lisa Frewen, Mr Nigel Flanagan and Mr Graham Bramley would like to thank the students for their diligence and behaviour during training and at the Beef Bonanza - the students have made them proud to be part of St Paul's College Ag team.

We would also like to thank the parents for their support and encouragement as well as their assistance over the 4 days.

This week, Year 8 PDHPE students thoroughly enjoyed their Outdoor Recreation Walk at South West Rocks.
Thank you to Mr Scott Edwards for organising this excursion.

Congratulations to Year 10 student and School Based Trainee, Blake Walker, who recently won a Silver Medal at the World Skills competition held at Kempsey TAFE.

Blake used the Engineering and fabrication skills he has developed as part of his on the job Certificate III training to impress the judges. Well done Blake!

Vaping - Information and Awareness

Vaping is on the rise in Australia and has become popular amongst teenagers and young adults. Alarmingly, a recent study has also shown that there is an increase in the number of primary school-aged children who are experimenting with vapes. There are many misconceptions about vapes being fairly harmless and that vapes in Australia do not contain nicotine.

St Paul's College is committed to the health and wellbeing of our students and will be including a series of informative resources for our parent community over the next 3 editions of our newsletter. We hope parents and carers use these helpful resources to:

• learn the facts about e-cigarettes and vaping,
• recognise what a vape looks like,
• understand why vaping is attractive to young people and
• engage in positive conversations at home.

By working in partnership we hope to support our young people to make healthy choices.

Please watch this informative 2 minute video which provides some key information about vaping and e-cigarettes.

Key Information:

• Vaping is the act of smoking e-cigarettes or ‘vapes’ that can look like metallic pens, USBs and other hand-held systems.
• Vapes use cartridges filled with liquids, which typically contain nicotine, artificial flavouring, and various chemicals. These can be harmful to the developing body.
• Research shows that 1 in 5 young people have vaped and nearly 80% of young people say it is easy to get a vape illegally at a shop or online.
• Nicotine is especially addictive for young brains. It can cause long-lasting negative effects on brain development and can include impaired attention, learning, memory and changes in mood.

You can find out more about vaping from NSW Health.

Conversation Starters at Home

Start conversations about vaping with your child early. You could consider the following questions or conversation starters:

• Are a lot of kids vaping at your school? Are your friends vaping?
  Be sure you don’t react, just listen.
• What do you think about vaping?
  You may hear your child say that vaping is harmless. It’s important to share some good information with your child about the impacts of vaping.
• Do you know what is in vapes?
  Share with them that they’ve tested vapes and they do not contain only water vapor and flavouring. Vapes can contain very high levels of nicotine and other toxic chemicals that damage lungs.

St Paul's College is proud to partner with Team Spirit Schools as our uniform provider. Parents/carers may access uniform requirements via their Compass portal - please navigate to Community, School Documentation, Resources, Uniform.

We have been advised that Compass will be undertaking important maintenance to all Compass portals on Saturday 5th November between 10am and 2pm.

During this time, there will be NO ACCESS available to any Compass portals.

Compass has alerted us that some parents/carers are currently unable to make payments/give consent in Compass.

This only applies to:

• Parents who are not listed as fee payers with the school, AND
• are using the Compass App (IOS or Android).

Compass is working on a solution and hopes to have the issue resolved by the end of 2022. In the meantime, parents/carers are still able to give consent/make payments using the desktop access to Compass. If parents/carers do not have a desktop computer available for this please open the App, select ‘More’, then select ‘Open in Browser’.

If you require any assistance with consenting to events/making payments in Compass please contact the College Office on 6566 7200.

Macksville's Summer Futsal registration is now open.

Competition starts on the 8 November, every Tuesday and Thursday for 6 weeks, and continues in February and March in the following divisions: 8-10yrs, 11-14yrs, 15-17yrs, Senior Men's, Senior Women's and Senior Mixed.

Cost:

8 to 14 yrs - $125 per player

15 yrs & older - $145 per player

Active Kids Vouchers will be accepted.

For players who want to start a team and invite friends, please click HERE and follow the instructions.

For individual players please follow this LINK

For more information email: macksvillesoccer@gmail.com or phone: 0402 377 733
to register.