2024 Term 1 - End Term Newsletter

Principal’s Report

Dear Families,

The fun never stops at St Dominic’s! Term 1 has witnessed us marking highlights of community and collaboration.

We have enjoyed welcoming more guests into the school recently along with our families. Fr John and Fr Anil also joined our Easter liturgy. They gave their best at trying to keep up with our staff and students with the 'Lighthouse’ words and actions.

We celebrated the formal launch of our new crest and name. Thank you again to our families, students and staff for attending this special event and rejoicing with us. Particular thanks to Vicar General, Father Greg Barker for presiding over the very personable and moving liturgy and homily. Fr Greg is a regular visitor to our school and spoke from his heart about his friends and experiences at St Dominic’s. We also thank our guests Sean Scanlon, Chief Executive Officer, Lisa Tierney, Chief Operations Officer, Jacqueline Wilkinson and Duilio Rufo, Assistant Heads of School, Linda McNeil, Regional Service Advisor, and Liz McQuade-Jones, Assistant Head, Learning and Wellbeing. We were truly honoured to share this day with our families on the grounds of San Clemente, where we give thanks to their campus principal, Bernard Burgess.

Most recently you may have noticed the temporary fencing also change to our new branding. Works will continue to take place over the school holidays with some exciting additions which we hope the students will appreciate next term, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled at drop off!

Most recently, our executive team presented at the ‘Catholic Schools Office- School Visit’. Diocesan staff also visited our classrooms and partook in lessons across the school. We are looking forward to further growth and opportunities with collaboration across all services. Steven Lemos, responded with the below regarding the visit with us:

“The visit was a wonderful collaboration of our school, CSO Staff and Shared Services visiting the community at St Dominic’s Catholic College. The recent expansion to Stage 6, name and logo refresh and improved facilities were just some of the achievements acknowledged.

I would like to thank Rachel Jones for leading the discussions and expressing their hopes for their school community in the future. The visiting team expressed a deep sense of admiration and appreciation for the work all staff do each day with the students in their care.”

It is with great delight, I wish to announce the appointment of Mrs Angela Morris, to Assistant Principal, Wellbeing and Engagement, at St Dominic's Catholic College. Mrs Morris is a familiar face at St Dominic's, having held several positions across the school including Primary Coordinator, Aboriginal Education teacher, Executive release, and classroom teacher. Mrs Morris continues to bring almost 20 years experience in working in schools for specific purposes and the disability sector. We look forward to Mrs Morris working within the areas of engagement, behaviour and wellbeing across the school in supporting students, their families, and staff. Congratulations Angela.

Wishing you all a relaxing holidays period. Hoping you can take some time to relax and participate in all the activities which bring you joy.

Blessings,
Rachel

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Assistant Principal Report

All staff and students need to be congratulated on a wonderful term.

In the curriculum space, this year we have seen a real embedding of our PLD Program across our morning literacy block.

Promoting Literacy Develop is an evidence-based structure synthetic phonics program. It is an effective whole school approach that maximizes student literacy, oral language and movement and motor skills.

It has a three-tiered approach to the implementation that is evidence based.

We had been searching for a program that met the individual needs of our students around literacy K-12. We were looking for an evidence-based model that could be highly adjusted and modified in its delivery within a small group, was multi-sensory and had up to date resources.

PLD can be very closely linked to Students personal goals, inclusive of communication, organization, independence in learning.

Each class structures the delivery of PLD to meet the needs of the class cohort. We use flip books, hands on materials, technology, and student-led folders.

One of the areas we have focused on to start 2024 was displaying our DATA. Each Class has a DATA Wall in their room, and we have put the students' faces on the data.

To make this meaningful data and to show how adjustments are made, we place the students not only at the PLD Stage they are currently working on but also looked at the level of prompting and support that the students are receiving. 

The 3 support levels on the data wall are

• Full support this is where we do hand-over-hand work, use concrete materials, lots of extra visuals, modelling and teacher-led learning.
• Partial support is where we pulled back the above support using more verbal and visual supports, suggestions and guidance, and different materials to support.
• Independent

This is important as a way of showing growth – as some of our students may not move up the stages each term or each year, but the level of prompting they need will reduce and they may start to achieve with independence.

We look forward to continuing to build our knowledge and skills in this program when we attend a full staff professional development training day early Term 2.

Coordinators Report

Year 3, 5, and 7 participated really well in the NAPLAN activities this year. Staff were proud of student attitude when completing the computer activities and we will receive the results later next term.

Harmony Day was a lovely celebration across the school, celebrating our diverse and unique backgrounds. Next time you are at the school, please have a look at the display on Blue Class’s window.

Have a restful and/or adventurous school holidays and look forward to seeing refreshed faces on Monday 29^th April for an awesome Term 2.

Angela Morris and Andrew Drinkwater.

REC Report

This term has been full of some very special celebrations at St Dominic’s Catholic College.

On the 15^th of March we gathered with special guests and members of our community to celebrate our name launch. Fr Greg provided us with a very special homily and blessing and we enjoyed celebrating our faith and Dominican identity through liturgy, prayer and music.

On the 27^th of March we celebrated the Risen Christ in our Easter liturgy. Each class created a station of the cross using art materials and these were presented to our guests via PowerPoint and later shared to our school Facebook.

We look forward to gathering together to celebrate a number of special occasions next term including Mother’s Day and parent engagement opportunities.

Have a safe first term holiday to our St Dominic’s community. God bless.

Lil Maher

Pink

Pink Class has made significant strides since the commencement of the term, demonstrating a smooth transition into our newly allocated classroom and wonderful achievements. In Pink Class, emphasis has been placed on fostering an environment characterised by respect, kind words, and the promotion of safety among peers. Additionally, efforts have been directed towards encouraging independence within the classroom setting.

Within Promoting Literacy Development (PLD), a diverse array of hands-on instructional materials, such as playdough, stamps, and puzzles, has been employed to effectively engage students in their learning. Pink Class has also exhibited lots of progress in sentence construction, often drawing inspiration from illustrations within our curated storybooks.

In Mathematics, Pink Class has delved into various topics, including the development of number sense, mass, and of 2D shapes. Notably, their favourite part of Maths is the counting songs by Scratch Garden, where students practice choosing and turn-taking.

Across other Key Learning Areas (KLAs), our curriculum has encompassed an exploration of materials and their properties in Science, changes in their community and the world in History, people in the community who can help us and being healthy in PDH and Jesus and the good news in Religion.

Additionally, Pink Class enjoys our weekly cooking on Thursdays. Did you know that they all love cooking sweet foods? Other activities that we thoroughly enjoy including Library and Sport with Aaron.

We have been having loads of fun in our class and are looking forwards to more adventures next term.

Red

Red Class have had an amazing term! We returned to school settled and ready to learn! A highlight was definitely our excursion.  Red students enjoyed going on the school bus, exploring the museum and searching for all of the different parts of the mural.

Our English lessons have been great! Everyone is working well with their PLD sounds and activities. Making words out of playdoh is lots of fun! We are in the routine of reading to Mrs Biddle everyday and seeing progress with our reading. Students are developing oral language skills through weekly news opportunities and we are working hard on sentence structure and adding extra details to our writing.

Red Class are the most amazing mathematicians! This term we have been counting using concrete materials, looking at place value and number bonds to 10 and 20. We have perfected our pattern knowledge, measured different items in our classroom and revised the properties of 2D shapes.

For Art this term we have focused on different ways to create our own self portraits. We have made cartoons, Picasso inspired self portraits, puzzle pieces with students photo and water colours. Red Class have enjoyed expressing ourselves with different art forms. After the excursion we also made a collective art work of our interpretation of the Mural.

Our Religion lessons have focussed on learning about Jesus as a servant and Lent. We have been enjoying the action songs we are learning for the liturgys. Red Class researched the Sixth station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus and created our own adaptation of the story using loose parts play which we then photographed. We also made pancakes for Shrove Tuesday and learnt more about Lent and why it is an important part of the religious calendar.

For HSIE History studies we have learnt about artefacts from the past and the lessons they teach us, as well as our own personal history and how all families are different. Our excursion helped us learn more about our local Newcastle history.

In Science we have investigated different natural and man made materials and searched around the school for examples of items made out of glass, metal, wood, paper and plastic. We explored why different items are made out of these materials and their properties.

PDHPE lessons have included the opportunity to participate in inclusive sports sessions run by the Special Olympics. For our health lessons we have learnt how to keep safe in the home, at school, around water and who we need to call if there is an emergency.

Congratulations Red Class! What a wonderful term we have had! I can’t wait to see all that we achieve as the year progresses!

Green

Students have had an amazing start to 2024 in Green Class. We have united harmoniously in a new space with different friends and teachers.

In English, we have been working hard on utilising adjectives in our writing. We have been learning about adjectives and how we can use these to make our writing interesting and enjoyable to read. We have enjoyed describing some of our favourite animals, food and friends. Students have been practising their typing skills and writing some great responses to texts read in class.

In Maths, we have been learning about place value, number patterns and fractions. We have enjoyed doing exploratory activities that increase our knowledge in these topic areas and relate it in a meaningful way to our everyday lives. These include hands-on resources like hundreds charts, craft activities and interactive games like Fraction Fiddle where we needed to make a fraction of cake based on an order.

In Religion, Green has been loving creating different parable scenes with resources found around the classroom. They have created a beautiful sacred space where we display artworks of our deep understanding and knowledge of the love of Jesus Christ. Students have particularly enjoyed creating the Stations of the Cross.

Finally, in PDHPE we have been learning about how we can deal with safe and unsafe conflicts with our peers. We have brainstormed a range of strategies that we can use to help resolve the conflict in a safe and respectful way.

We look forward to seeing you all next term.

Mrs Lil Maher and Miss Teagan Ross 😊

Secondary – Teal, Silver & Gold Class

Class Teachers          

What a terrific start to 2024 for our Secondary team. We have had a jam-packed term and were lucky enough to embark on a range of outings and hands-on tasks, in and out of the classroom.

Secondary has been working super hard this term in all KLA’s. We have been working on measurement during Maths. Focusing on estimating, recording, and using measurement in real-life experiences. We have been loving this, especially when we get to measure ingredients during our cooking lessons.

Secondary students have been studying Sacred Spaces, the Sacraments, and diverse religious practices across a variety of faiths during their Religious Studies classes. As we worked on our Stations of the Cross displays, we got imaginative and used polymer clay and a range of other resources to accurately represent these. Teal, Silver, and Gold constructed stations 11, 12, 13, and 14. 

As a cohort, Secondary have enjoyed spending time together each week. We are lucky enough to combine for Sport and participate in social skills of an afternoon, where we play basketball, join in for trivia, and play board games.

Secondary has also loved participating in Special Olympics on Thursday, where we have been playing dodgeball, doing obstacle courses, and learning a range of skills in a positive environment.

It has been so great to see all students develop new friendships and build confidence by trying new things since we have been back at school this term. We have had a tremendous start to the year, and we can’t wait to share what else we have planned for our Secondary team!

Administration / Finance

Uniforms

Our students are wearing their uniforms with pride and all look fabulous! Moving forward, all uniforms can be ordered and payments made directly through the supplier, BJ Workwear.

Contact details for BJ’s Workwear are:

3/8 Channel Road, Mayfield West NSW 2304

Ph: 4967 1432

Email: Kevin@bjsworkwear.com.au 

Finance

2024 School Fee Statements have recently been emailed to you. If your intentions are to make regular weekly, fortnightly or monthly payments, these should have already started.

Parents are welcome to continue weekly fortnightly and monthly payments throughout the December school holidays.

Fee statements are emailed regularly, and live balances are available via Compass. Please contact the office if you have any questions about your School Fee Statement.