2024 Term 3 - Mid Term Newsletter

Principal’s Report

Dear Families and friends,

Recently I have been introduced to a series called ‘The Chosen’. I am unsure how many of our family’s may be familiar with the series, however it is a multi-season series based on the life of Jesus. It shows the viewer how to see Him through the eyes of those who knew Him. One episode that truly struck me was when Jesus awakens Matthew to be with him. He states he has a ‘map’ with directions of where people should look to find him. Jesus and Matthew stand atop a mountain and Matthew states he is ready. Jesus begins to verbalise the Beatitudes. Whilst he recites each beatitude, the viewer is treated with images of the disciples who display these traits. It is an eye welling tearjerker scene!! Believe me! As I watched this, I thought of all of the beatitudes, or the gifts of people around me. I thought of how they are reflected in every person we meet, although sometimes harder to find- depending on their day, your day- but they are there. The humble, gentle, kind, patient, forgiving, peaceful and pure….the list goes on. I was reminded of how this shows itself in different ways too and the gifts the students and staff bring with them. Our wonderful celebrations each day at St Dominic’s and the effort by students, families and staff alike to make these a success - Olympics day, St Dominic’s day, Community access and excursion days, liturgies, book week parade, Henny Penny Chickens, McDonald’s Fundraiser, Barbeques….. Thank you to each of you for bringing your gifts and making each occasion so shared and special across our community.

With that, we also have a beautiful gift to announce. Our Pink Class teacher Sam and her husband Kris, on the safe arrival of their bouncing baby boy, Julian James Eames. Sam and Kris have a perfect trio now. We are all very excited to meet Julian as soon as possible! Enjoy the pictures Sam has shared with us *cluck cluck*.

Blessings, Rachel

Assistant Principal Report

Term 3 signifies a pivotal period for the review of Personalised Planning Goals for all students. We extend our gratitude to the parents and caregivers who adeptly navigated Compass to schedule their PPs and shared the Updated External Support Lists. These meetings offer a collaborative platform with your child's class teacher and any external therapists to ensure that the goals remain student-focused and well-supported across school, home, and therapy contexts. The scheduled meetings will be conducted via Teams on Wednesday, 28th August. After the PP meetings, your child's classroom teacher will update the PP Tool and provide it for your review and signature. Should modifications be necessary, please closely collaborate with your child's teacher or Case Manager. A signed copy of the PP is required to be returned to the school by the term's conclusion.

In our professional learning gatherings this term, staff members have received an updated Maths Resource Tub. This resource encompasses an array of new instructional materials, including headphones, which can aid in teaching new mathematical concepts in alignment with the updated system. These tangible resources are particularly valuable during the initial phase of instruction. All teaching staff had an enjoyable time exploring these resources last week and sharing innovative ideas on their utilisation with students. A special acknowledgment goes to Michelle Rosewell (CSO Education Officer: Curriculum & Pedagogy) for her collaboration with our school on Term 3 Curriculum development.

The Olympic Day celebration was a resounding success, fostering a sense of unity among students, staff, and families through a remarkable showcase of athleticism and teamwork. The event showcased students' exceptional abilities and talents as they engaged in an array of activities representing various countries. Congratulations to all our students on their outstanding performances, with medals serving as a well-deserved recognition of their efforts.

Coordinators Report

Welcome to the halfway point of another busy term. Our students have been fortunate to have enjoyed a range of incursions this term such as bowling, hockey, gymnastics Book Week and the amazing Olympics! These activities foster positive relationships whilst building resilience and teamwork. It is also a way for our community to gather and share some fun as we watch the smiles and joy on our students' faces. The Avenue work placement initiative is proving to be highly popular and beneficial to our secondary students as they branch out into the community and learn skills for life in real work situations. The Cafe Club is popular with staff each week and it is amazing to see how the professionality and confidence of secondary students has grown over the year to speak clearly, take orders and handle money.

Thank you to everyone who has supported our liturgies, open days, fundraisers, FACE meetings and Olympics- without family support our jobs would be much harder.

Staff have been focusing on developing interesting and innovative ways to teach math in our classrooms. We have had some recent professional learning and have created resources and lessons that will cater for the diverse needs of our students. PLD (Promoting literacy development) continues to assist our students in reaching reading and writing goals. Staff are constantly reviewing and using new resources to provide high quality lessons for individuals. We look forward to introducing the iPad apps next term as another tool to assist with student engagement.

The staff look forward to the next few weeks and a successful term.

Andrew Drinkwater and Cate Chapman

Religious Education

Welcome to Term 3, 2024 at St Dominic’s Catholic College.

We have already had some beautiful faith celebrations this Term within the school and with the school community. To start the Term, we celebrated Grandparents Day and all the wonderful and supportive members of our families. Students loved sharing in prayer, music and classroom activities with their special people.

On the 8^th of August St Dominic’s celebrated St Dominic’s Day. This is an important day to recognise our Dominican heritage. Students rotated around three activities including: making milkshakes, faith music disco and a very special collaborative artwork.

At the front of our school, we have a sacred space that has some murals that were painted many years ago. This year we decided to update one of the murals. Our very talented secondary teacher,
Mr D facilitated the activity and designed the new mural for us to all contribute to. The new mural consists of our new crest and the ship the ‘Martha Birnie’. The Martha Birnie was the ship that the first Dominican nuns came to the Hunter on from Ireland. This mural holds a special place in our hearts as Dominicans and we look forward to seeing the finished product towards the end of the term.

At the end of Term 2 we celebrated St Vincent De Paul day where we gathered as a community to donate and share in a hot meal together to support those less fortunate during winter.

St Dominic’s, you continue to make your community proud with your kindness and discipleship.

We look forward to what the rest of the term has to offer.

God bless.
Lil Maher

Blue

Blue Class has had a busy start to the term, and I am excited to be back teaching them full time until the end of 2024. We have been focusing on displaying patience and kindness to each other, often referring to ourselves as Team Blue! Mrs D and I are both very impressed with how all the boys have settled into Term 3.

Religion- Belonging to the Christain Family

During this module the students become aware of what it means to belong to a Christian community. They are also introduced to Baptism as the sacrament of initiation into the People of God. We are continuing to learn some traditional prayers and making the sign of the cross. Prayer is an important part of our daily routine.

Literacy-Students are progressing with PLD. We are continuing to use spelling lists, dictation passages and fluency reading as part of our morning session. Students continue to practice correct letter formation and putting letter-sounds together to make whole words. Every fortnight we will be focusing on a rich text and exploring the content in creative ways. All the students are loving these books and activities.

Maths -Students continue to order, read, represent and count numbers forwards and backwards. They are learning to iidentify and describe patterns when skip counting forwards or backwards by twos, fives and tens. Students are working with concrete materials, visuals and numbers to add and subtract. They will model sharing division by distributing a collection of objects equally into a given number of groups to determine how many are in each group. Blue Class will participate in a variety of hands-on activities to measure, record, compare and estimate lengths and the volume of containers.

Science- Energy Comes in Different Forms.

The focus of this unit is the identification of light, sound and heat energy, and how they are sensed and produced. The students use their 5 senses to explore the properties of familiar objects.

Our Geography unit, People Live in Places is divided into three units; Weather and Seasons, Features of Places and How Places are Organised.

Drama

Students will participate in drama games whilst developing their confidence, use of imagination and role play. We have a wonderful collection of dress up costumes in our classroom so they will be perfect to use!

Mrs D and I both feel very blessed to be working with Caleb, Mateo and Sonny and thank you all for your support.

Red

What an exciting start to the term we have had in Red Class! Red students have enjoyed the opportunity to participate in a bowling incursion, hockey incursion and gymnastics lessons.

We love having our family and special friends visit. This term we have already had visitors for Grandparent’s Day liturgy and open classroom. It was amazing to have our families support us for the Olympics Day celebrations. Red Class were representing Jamaica and loved participating in soccer goal shootouts, javelin throwing, running races, long jump and shot put. I’m super proud of all your efforts and teamwork.

Religion this term has seen Red Class learn about the importance of liturgy and what happens during special church services. We were very fortunate to have Father John come and visit the classroom and gave students the opportunity to learn about the clothing priests wear including robes, stole and chasuble. We also learnt about the different sacred items used during a liturgy including the chalice and ciborium.

Red students have enjoyed Geography lessons where we have been learning about places including our school, homes and bedrooms. In Maths lessons we have been learning about giving directions for the position of places and items. We will also be learning about fractions and time.

Red Class is continuing to work hard with their PLD sounds and activities. I am thrilled with students' efforts with handwriting and the improvement that has occurred with correct letter formation and size of letters.

For science this term we have been learning all about the ways in which items move. We have conducted science experiments with push and pull forces and are going to be making our own games using forces by the end of the term.

Congratulations Red Students, you continue to amaze and inspire me every day with your care for each other and all your brilliant learning.

Secondary

Class Teachers          

Welcome to Term 3, and what a start to a great term it has been in Secondary. A huge congratulations to our Teal, Silver, and Gold class students on their efforts so far this term and for bringing a sense of unity, engagement and resilience each day.

For Mathematics this term, we are unpacking all things money! We have been looking at Australian coins and notes but also transferring our knowledge to recognise the different currencies that are used around the world and experimenting with the exchange rate of various currencies.

Our Secondary students have been absolutely loving this, posting some quality work on Seesaw and thoroughly enjoyed looking at Mr D’s collection of historical and foreign currency that he kindly brought in and shared with us.

We are thrilled to announce that our Term 3 English novel study is another gripping book from author, Tristan Bancks. Following the success of our previous novel studies during Semester 1, this term promises to be just as engaging and immersive, with Scar Town. This novel is set to captivate our students’ imaginations and dive into their creativity. Well done, Secondary!

As always, our Secondary students are embarking on successful outings during our beloved Community Access again this term. With activities ranging from visits to Nobby’s Breakwall, McDonald’s, Glenrock Conservation Area, Stockton Park and Vinnies. We look forward to representing our school with pride in the Newcastle community.

Finally, we want to extend our Congratulations and thanks to both students and families for being part of our Olympics Day which was held in Week 3. We are so proud of everyone’s efforts and participation in such an amazing day!

May this term be filled with exciting opportunities, meaningful learning experiences, and continued growth.

Here’s to a productive and inspiring Term 3!

Pastoral Care

Pastoral Care Worker

Hello, all.

I often get asked ‘what does the pastoral care worker do”.

This is different at each school however at our school, pastoral care revolves around promoting
well-being. This includes the well-being of students, families, staff, the entire school community, and spiritual aspects.

To assist the school, I engage in various activities such as fundraising, securing grants, managing lunch and breakfast clubs, organising playground sports, and social programs. Feel free to reach out via email if you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas.

I provide support to families by utilising my knowledge of NDIS, external supports, and therapy. I am expanding my network and happy to share these connections with families. If you require information in these areas, please don't hesitate to contact me.

You can reach me at Jenna.haddow@mn.catholic.edu.au.

Our recent fundraiser featuring Thompson's pies raised $252, which will be allocated towards student resources. Thank you to all that were able to support us.

By the time you read this we will have had our McDonalds fundraiser and our cookie dough fundraiser will begin in October.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Jenna Haddow

Administration / Finance

Protect yourself and your loved ones this winter.

The 2024 flu vaccine is available now. Influenza (flu) is serious, but your yearly flu vaccine offers the best protection against getting really sick -so you can keep doing the things you love.

Getting a flu vaccine is quick, easy and recommended for everyone aged 6 months, and is free for:

• Children aged 6 months to under 5 years
• Pregnant women, at any stage of pregnancy
• Aboriginal people aged 6 months and over
• Anyone aged 65+
• People with serious health conditions, including heart disease, chronic lung conditions (including severe asthma), kidney, liver disease and diabetes.

Book your flu vaccine at your doctor, local pharmacy or Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) today using the healthdirect.gov.au/nswfluvaccine.

For more information, visit health.nsw.gov.au/respiratory.

Important Dates and Reminders

TERM 3

Week 6
Wednesday, 28 August -  Pupil Free Day (PP Meetings)
Friday, 30th September - Sacramental Program
                                            Father's Day Liturgy

Week 7
Friday, 6th September -   Sacramental Program

Week 8
Thursday, 12th September - Primary & Secondary Camp
Friday, 13th September -      Sacramental Program
                                                Water Safety & Life Saver Visit

Week 9
Monday, 16th September -  Pupil Free Day ( Staff PD Day)
Tuesday, 17th September -  Soctober 

Week 10
Friday, 27th September - last day of Term 3 

Safeguarding

Parent and Carer events;

The Federation of P&F Associations has several events coming up for the benefit of parents and carers to continnue to support your young people, please check out the flyers.

ESafety Parent webinar – wellbeing and Digital technologies

Every child should be supported with appropriate knowledge to know how to make positive choices around consent and boundaries, including when online.

Accordingly, the eSafety Commissioner will be hosting a FREE, 30-minute webinar on Tuesday 20 August, aimed at parents and carers of primary school aged-children.

The webinar will outline useful strategies for you to guide your children, including ideas on how to have those hard-to-have conversations.

Bullying No Way – National week of Action

The theme for this year’s National week of action is ‘Everyone Belongs’ and provides an opportunity to promote inclusion, respect, safety and belonging in schools. From 12 to 16 August 2024, schools will have more flexibility in planning whole school activities to implement evidence-informed, positive and proactive solutions to prevent and address bullying. This may be through spreading awareness throughout the week or focussing on a single impactful day. The new hero colour purple symbolises peace, strength and standing up against bullying.

Kids Helpline’s Largest Anti-Bullying Lesson

For the first time ever, Kids Helpline’s is launching the largest anti-bullying lesson online for secondary students. This Bullying No Way Week (12 – 16 August) school staff can sign up for a free, exclusive live-stream run by Kids Helpline. The recording will also be available to those who register. Kids Helpline is putting out the call to high school teachers across Australia to register their class, grade or school, and help them reach as many teens as possible.

Run by a Kids Helpline counsellor, the lesson will empower students with practical tips and advice on how to deal with bullying, while ensuring they know support services like Kids