June 20th, 2024

Acknowledgement of Country

A Note from our Principal

Ngata Families & Friends,

Last Friday, we had the pleasure of celebrating a successful school movie night. The event saw an impressive turnout with over 150 students and 15 parents, carers, and friends of St Pius X coming together to support this wonderful occasion. The students enjoyed a noisy yet fun-filled experience, and it was heartwarming to witness our school community, which truly feels like family, come together and celebrate. A big thank you to our P&F and school administration for their unwavering support in making this event a grand success.

In other exciting news, we were thrilled to welcome back Indi Pulham to school this week. Indi visited her class for a few hours and received a rock star reception from her classmates and teachers. It is fantastic to see her back in Warrnambool, and we are incredibly proud of her progress and success in her Guillain-Barré recovery. Indi's resilience and determination is truly inspiring, and we continue to support her on her journey to full recovery.

Nick Murrell

Principal

Kinder Visit Today

Today, we had the pleasure of hosting the Goodstart Dennington kinder group for an enriching school program experience. The kinder students enjoyed a wonderful excursion that provided them with a taste of school life. They engaged in fun learning activities, explored our facilities, and interacted with our enthusiastic senior school students and our staff. This visit not only gave the kinder children a preview of their future school environment but also strengthened our bond with the local community. We look forward to more such collaborative events that foster learning and community spirit!

First Eucharist 2024

The preparation time for First Eucharist will begin in the opening week of Term 3. To begin the preparation, parents/carers will be invited to attend an information meeting on Tuesday July 16th at 6pm.  This meeting will be at the Parish Centre at the St Joseph’s Church.

The preparation of this Sacrament will have a new format this year.  Candidates from all of the Network Catholic schools will participate in a Formation Day to be held here at St Pius - in the Hall and the function room.  This is to occur on Friday July 19th.  Further information and permission forms will follow and more information will be explained at the parent meeting.

The Sacrament of First Eucharist will be celebrated on Sunday August 11th, at 10am Mass at St Pius X Church.

Enrolment

Participating families are required to use the link below to enrol their children as candidates for Eucharist. 

The link to register for First Eucharist is: 

Enrolment Link

Please contact me via email if you have any questions.

Kind Regards, 

Sara Graham

The Foundation Files

Counting Collections

Let’s Count!! This week we have been counting forwards and backwards from 0 to 20. We have learnt that we need to make an order with our collections to be able to count them all and not miss any. We got into small groups and we asked each other to count a collection using blocks and number cards. We also played ‘Sit Down 20’ which is a new game that we love.

Letter Writing

We have kept working hard on all of our letter writing. We know that letters can be uppercase or lowercase. An uppercase letter can have the job of being at the start of a sentence or it can be at the beginning of our names. Uppercase and lowercase letters can look the same or they can be different shapes and sizes. We have also set ourselves a new learning goal for next term - to write our names on our worksheets using our best letters and making sure that we use our uppercase and lowercase letters in the right spots.

Heroes and Villains!

We have had a great week exploring heroes. We have watched some great film clips during our reading time - Spidey, Lion King Guard and Small Fry (Toy Story). We have written a story about our favourite hero. We did a find-a-word and drew a Spider-Man mask. We also pretended to fly on the floor - like a real superhero. We played Celebrity Heads - it was tricky to try and guess the Hero. Check out our cool photos!! 

Next week we are going to keep exploring our learning with some fun adventures exploring the heroes and villains we know from movies, books and TV shows. We would love the children to bring along any of their favourite books, toys or games to share throughout the day with their friends and especially for tomorrow’s Show and Tell. 

Learning Journals

Just a little reminder for everyone to please return your child’s learning journals from our Learning Conversations. Those scrapbooks will be used to record the next 6 months of learning for your child and will be sent home then at the end of the year.

Thanks!!

Ready, Set, School! program

Click below to register for our Ready, Set, School! program

Click here to Register

Not getting SZapp push notifications?

Here is some information from Schoolzine to help troubleshoot if you are having this issue.

Does the app notification show for the user in their feed but they did not receive the push notification? – if so, they may have notifications turned off for their Operating System or the App.

Have you got Push notifications turned on WITHIN SZAPP?

When using the app, select the manage tab from the top ribbon and ensure that there is push notifications turned on for the SZapp.

Have you got Push notifications turned on for your OPERATING SYSTEM?

Certain devices will have push notifications turned off by default when installing software. In order to receive notifications for your device you will need to ensure that both the Operating System notifications as well as the App notifications are enabled.

Was SZapp open when the notification was sent?

Sometimes applications will lie dormant or in ‘sleep’ status on your device in order to cache information and decrease load time when you are wishing to use the application again. Once you have finished using SZapp we recommend that you fully close the app in order to avoid push notifications not being received on some devices in this ‘sleep’ state.

Breakfast Club

Breakfast Club is open each Wednesday morning at 8:20am.   Again, a big thankyou to Foodshare for providing us with breakfast items and Woolies for providing the fruit! Of course, this wouldn't take place without our amazing parent helpers so a big thank you to Sarah & Virginia as well!

Mobile Phones

Our school understands that some families require their child to have a mobile phone for communication and safety needs before and after school. If your child is bringing a mobile phone to school it must be checked in with Karen or Bec at the office as soon as they arrive at school and it can be collected as they exit school in the afternoon. Families in this situation, can you please remind your child of this important school procedure. 

School fee payment plans

St Pius X is a low fee-paying school. Our global operating budget comprises funding from the Federal and State Governments, School fee collection, and fundraising.

School fees are a vital part of providing many aspects of your child's tuition at St Pius X. The 3 main options for paying your school fees are: Direct Debit, Credit Card (at the school office) and Direct Credit Payments.

Please take some time to consider which of these options is best for your family. If you would like to set up a direct debit payment plan please contact Bec Lawlor at the school office or email Bec at rlawlor@spwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au

Your support with this, early in the school year, would be greatly appreciated.

A special message just to say.............

The following students will be celebrating their birthday over the coming week....................

Esme Bowman, Aria Nicol, Liam Coles, Saxon Emeny, Annabella McInnes, Grace White & Lincoln Steffensen.

Canteen Roster for next week.

Important Dates.

Tomorrow, Friday 21st June - Assembly at 3.00pm in the Church

Tuesday, 25th June - Gr 1/2 Excursion

Friday, 28th June - Last day of Term 2 - 2.30pm finish 

2024 School Closure Days - Updated

Term 1 

Monday 12th Feb - Staff First aid training (COMPLETED)

Wednesday 21st Feb - Structured Literacy Staff Professional Development (DOBCEL determined date) (COMPLETED)

Term 2

Friday 31st May - Wellbeing focus (COMPLETED)

Term 3

Tuesday 20th August- Structured Literacy Staff Professional Development (DOBCEL determined date)

Term 4

Friday 18th October - Religious Education Staff Professional Development

Uniform Price List

Before & After School Care.

Parish Contact.

Sunday Mass 10.00 @ St Pius X Church. School families are always welcome.

The Parish office can be contacted on 5562 2231

Other information and contact details can be found on the Star of the Sea South West Coast website: https://www.ballarat.catholic.org.au/parish/southwestcoast/