Term 1 – Week 8 – 2023

Principle Reports

Dear Parents,
Thank you to those of you who joined us last week for some of our Catholic Schools Week celebrations. The breakfast held on Monday March 6th was well attended and was a terrific community event. It was also pleasing to see many family members come into the classrooms on our open morning. Everyone at St Brendan?s and the wider Ganmain community have known for a long time what an extraordinary educator Julie Guthrie is. On Thursday evening this was recognised by Catholic Education, Diocese of Wagga Wagga at a dinner to celebrate Catholic Schools Week when Julie was one of only 4 recipients of an award for Outstanding Service as an Employee within Catholic Education. So many students have benefited from Julie?s care, dedication and commitment to their education and wellbeing. Julie was also recognised for 40 years of service within Catholic education. This award is thoroughly well deserved. Today our Year 3 and 5 students sat their Writing Naplan test. Next week, Monday through to Wednesday, they will sit Reading, Conventions of Language (Grammar and Spelling) and Numeracy. Students have been well
prepared for the tests sitting demonstration exams so they will know what to expect with the format. NAPLAN, usually held in May, is being held in March this year. One of the major reasons for this is so schools have access to students’ results sooner so as to further assist their learning.
Our NAPLAN results do not define us as a school. They are an additional source of data that we use to measure the progress of our students. What occurs in our classrooms each and every day prepares our students for these tests. We do not place any additional stress on the students in preparation for these tests.

On Friday March 24th we will be holding our inaugural playgroup for non-school aged children. These children and their parents are invited to come to school between 9:30 and 11:00am where our Stage 3 students will lead the youngsters in art and craft, games and play based learning. Our aim is to run a playgroup on a monthly basis. One of the reasons for establishing this program is to further promote our school. Can I please encourage you to bring your children along who don’t yet attend school and encourage others outside the St Brendan’s community to attend as well. All are welcome!
This Friday will be another busy day at St Brendan’s. We will be having Mass to celebrate St Patrick’s day at 9:15am. Dave Enever will be coming to perform a concert at 10:15am. Dave performed at our school Easter assembly last year and this was thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended. At 2:50 pm we will be holding an awards assembly. All members of our community are welcome
to join us for any of these celebrations. A few dates to add to your calendar. On Tuesday April 4th we will be holding the school cross country. This year we will be holding the event at the Ganmain Golf Club commencing at 9:30am. Parent assistance would be
greatly appreciated for this event particularly as it is being held at a bigger venue. On Thursday April 6th we will be holding our Easter para-liturgy and drawing the Easter raffle. All students will be involved with the para-liturgy and it will commence at 9:30 am. Parents are welcome to attend both of these events. As always please do not hesitate to get in touch should the need arise. My door is always open.
Kind Regards
Paul Spain
Principal

Story  time 2023

Our next Storytime will be held Friday 17th March @10.30am theme ?Under the Sea?. Come along and join in the fun.

Lego Club

Lego Club has commenced again at the Library ? it is held on Wednesday afternoons from 4.00pm ? 5.00pm. Then Saturday mornings from 10.30am ? 11.30am, all ages welcome. The aim of the Lego Club program is for children to have fun, learn to
communicate with others and to develop problem-solving skills.

Baby Bounce

Baby Bounce session will be held on Wednesday, 29thMarch @ 10.30am. Baby Bounce is a 30 minute? early literacy program designed to help very young children to explore language. This is done by everyone joining in and learning an array of simple stories, rhymes and songs. We welcome new mums and their
bubs to join us.

Re-Visit the Library

The Library is continuously receiving new books, DVD?s, and magazines, come and re-visit the Library – Join the Library today – membership is FREE. Also the Library has plenty of services and facilities to offer to the community. It provides free Public Internet Access & Wifi, photocopying, Service NSW kiosk, Community Recycling Station and laminating services. Also a community noticeboard, children and youth services, council school holiday programs and Local History services. It also provides housebound services to our members ? further enquiries phone the Library- 69272492.

Library Opening Hours
– Monday ? Friday 8.30am ? 5.00pm.
– Saturday morning ? 9.00am ? 12.00pm

What our stage 3 student s think of 2023 so far..

The transition into Year 5 has been amazing, I ?m getting to know my awesome teacher Mr B and discovered the independence we are given to prepare us for high school. This is giving us the opportunit y to make us more mature and responsible and I love it! I t has taken some time to get used to the routine but now it’s just natural to get straight into my work and that’s how I like it to be. I n the mornings we have HOP which stands for Hour Of Power. For twent y minutes we have spelling and then for fort y minutes we have reading and we get to do the activities in whatever order we like. Every Friday we have a conference with Mr B where we
discuss how our learning is going and if there are any issues or challenges we are experiencing and Mr B helps us by giving us strategies to jump over the speed bumps so we can become the best we possibly can. I am really looking forward to continuing the amazing work we are doing.

Going into year 6 is giving me the opportunity to be more independent. Neve and I are given the responsibility  to do the toast y Tuesdays and run the assemblies on Friday afternoon. I n English we have our Hour of Power activities, they help me and they improve my punctuation, reading and it helps my spelling every week. On a Friday we discuss the work for the week. Maths is more understandable than last year because I am more confident with a lot of the strategies. Overall I ‘m sure I ‘m going to have a very good year at St Brendan’s. Veronika

The start of year 6 has been chaotic. There are so many opportunities I have in year 6 that I love. It was a step up from last year in year 5 with all the new leadership roles I have to take on this year. On Tuesday either me or Veronika toast toasties with a year 5 student and on a Friday we have assemblies that Veronika and I lead. I have been given opportunities to go to Year 6 foot y and
netball trials where about 30-60 girls tryout for a spot. I made it to the second level in netball but it was very challenging. Around 6 weeks ago we had our swimming carnival. There are two teams, Nagel and Carroll and I ?m on Nagel. Nagel ended up winning and I was so happy! Everyday from 12:30-1:30 we have math’s. Last year I was so challenged in math’s and I found it hard. This year I have found math’s still challenging but less hard and complicated because I had already been in the senior classroom for a year. I love math’s and it is my favorite subject. I love problem solving and being challenged. I am so excited for the upcoming weeks ahead. Neve