May 22nd 2025
- Acknowledgement of Country
- A Prayer for Confirmation Candidates
- A Note from our Principal
- Catholic Education Week Liturgy
- Sacrament of Confirmation- This Tuesday
- Mini Vinnies News
- Pickleball Canteen ~ Volunteer Helpers + Food Donations: Can you Help?
- The Foundation Files
- School Closure Days 2025
- Seaside Community Kitchen
- Breakfast Club - Wednesday
- Class Awards Week 4
- Important Dates.
- Canteen Roster for next week.
- Before & After School Care.
- Free Uniforms!
- School Uniform
- Parish Contact.
- West Warrnambool Neighbourhood House - Calendar of Events
Acknowledgement of Country
The St Pius X Parish School Community acknowledges the Gunditjmara / Marr Nation people who have educated children on these lands for thousands of years.
A Prayer for Confirmation Candidates
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of our children.
Strengthen them with wisdom, courage, and joy.
Guide their steps as they grow in faith and love.
May they always feel Your presence beside them.
Bless their journey now and forever.
Amen.
A Note from our Principal
Ngata families,
One of the most valuable lessons we can offer our students goes beyond the classroom walls - it's the importance of community, connection and real-world experiences. Over the past few weeks, our school has been fortunate to be involved in two fantastic initiatives that have given our students just that.
Firstly, our partnership with the West Warrnambool Neighbourhood House and South West Healthcare for the Chop and Chat program has been a wonderful success. Students worked alongside community members, preparing food while sharing stories and skills. The program not only encouraged healthy habits and cooking skills, but also created meaningful intergenerational connections, showing the power of food in bringing people together. Thanks to Jill Bourke from the West Warrnambool Neighbourhood House for making this happen.
In another terrific example of community collaboration, our Hands On Learning team joined forces with Merri River School for a joint donut drive. Students from both schools worked side by side to plan, prepare, and deliver a delicious initiative that delighted many and taught plenty along the way. Utilising teamwork and communication the learning was practical, engaging and fun.
These initiatives are more than just events, they’re opportunities for our students to grow in confidence, develop new skills and understand their place in the wider community. A heartfelt thank you to our partners and to everyone involved in making these experiences so meaningful. We look forward to more moments like these that connect learning with life.
Kind regards,
Nick Murrell
Principal
Catholic Education Week Liturgy
Next week we celebrate Catholic Education Week. To mark this occasion, there will be a liturgy in the church. All are welcome to attend.
Date: Thursday 29th May.
Time: 3pm
Where: St Pius X Church
Sacrament of Confirmation- This Tuesday
Congratulations to the following Confirmation Candidates who will be confirmed next week. We wish them all the best as they take this important step in their faith journey.
- Stephanie Murphy
- Maddison McKenzie
- Chloe Harzmeyer
- Letty Parkinson
- Olivia Dwyer
- Elizabeth Norton
- Reg Parkinson
- Brooklynn McArthur
- Jensen Blythe
When: Tuesday May 27th, 6pm
Where: Infant Jesus Church, Koroit (18 Queen St)
Mini Vinnies News
FRIENDSHIP GARDEN OPENING
The 2024 and 2025 Mini Vinnies groups are thrilled to announce the opening of the Friendship Garden. The Friendship Garden was an idea proposed by last year's Mini Vinnies group and brought to life by this year's group. It has been kindly sponsored by our local Vinnies Group.
It's a place where students can go at lunch time to make new friends. There are lots of fun activities and games to play such as giant Connect 4, Jenga, colouring in and reading.
It will take place every Wednesday at second lunch on the landing in front of the 3/4 area. Each grade will have an opportunity to participate.
To start us off we invited Foundation students to come along. We were blessed with sunshine. There were lots of smiles and conversation being shared.
PECTEN AVE PLAYGROUND EXCURSION
Today the Mini Vinnies Crew visited Pecten Ave playground with MP2 to celebrate the incredible contributions they made during Project Compassion. Students enjoyed an icy pole and a play on the equipment and then we returned to school. Congratulations everyone. Someone, somewhere will benefit from your generous donations. You are a wonderful example for our school.
Pickleball Canteen ~ Volunteer Helpers + Food Donations: Can you Help?
The St Pius X Parents and Friends Group are hosting the canteen at the Warrnambool City Pickleball Open on the Kings Birthday long weekend in June which is the Friday the 6th until the 8th.
We are looking for both volunteers to help man the canteen over the course of the weekend and also help to provide slices and or soups to sell.
If you are unable to help out on the weekend but are willing to make a contribution, donations of goods or cash are more than welcomed.
The monetary donations can be made easily using the CDFPay App. All food donations can be brought to the school office on Thursday the 5th of June from 9am until 4pm.
All proceeds made over this event go directly towards supporting our students at our wonderful school!
Please click on the link to let us know what you can do to help! https://forms.gle/
The Foundation Files
Writing, Editing, Drawing - It’s a process!
Writing time in the Foundation is so much fun and since the beginning of the year we have learnt so many things. We know that when we are writing a sentence there are many parts that we have to remember. A sentence must:
- Have a who (noun) and a do (verb)
- Make sense
- Start with a capital letter and end with a full stop
- Have spaces between words
For the last two weeks we have been learning a new step in our writing process… editing. This means that we have been checking our sentences carefully to see if there are any mistakes and how we can fix them. Mistakes are great ways for us to learn. After we have edited we can then draw our picture to match our story. Samuel, Charlotte and Ollie are very proud of their writing and so are we!
R is for Respond.
Our RE unit for this term is called Respond. We know that to respond to something is to say something in reply or react to something. To help us understand we participated in a number of movement songs and games that had us responding to what was being asked. We played ‘Simon Says’, did the ‘Cha Cha Slide’ and the ‘Hokey Pokey’. We had to listen carefully and respond by saying words or moving our bodies in a certain way. As we learn more in this space we will be asked to respond in different ways to a special story from the Bible. Stay tuned to see what that looks like in next week’s newsletter.
Tokens, tokens, tokens!
The Foundation Room has been buzzing with the anticipation of being awarded a token and getting to place it in the token box. The coloured tokens are being given to students who are showing their Respect, Responsibility and Safety behaviors inside and outside of the classroom. This week we have had a big focus on collecting materials and being tuned in when working at our tables. Our jobs have included getting our whiteboards, markers and dusters and using our routine of parking, writing, chining and parking them. Well done to Irine for her work this week. She is working hard to learn our routines.
School Closure Days 2025
Fri 30th May – School Review
Mon 2nd June – School Review
Fri 29th August – School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)
Mon 6th October – Structured Literacy
Fri 7th November – Religious Education
Seaside Community Kitchen
Breakfast Club - Wednesday
Students, please join us for some yummy toast, fruit and cereal each Wednesday morning at Breakfast Club.
Breakfast club is open from 8:20am - 8:55am in the Function Room.
With thanks to our sponsors Western District Foodshare and Woolworths and to our fantastic parent helpers.
Class Awards Week 4
Important Dates.
Friday, 23rd May: Ready, Set, School! - 9.30am to 10.30am
Monday, 26th May: Ready, Set, School! - 9.30am to 10.30am
Parents & Friends Meeting - 7.30pm
Tuesday, 27th May: Sacrament of Confirmation, Infant Jesus Koroit - 6pm to 7pm
Friday, 30th May: School Closure for School Review.
Monday, 2nd June: School Closure for School Review.
Thursday, 5th June: SAC Meeting 7.30pm
Friday, 6th June: Ready, Set, School! - 9.30am to 10.30am
Monday, 9th June: Kings Birthday Public Holiday
Canteen Roster for next week.
| Tuesday, 27th May | Helper Required Please |
| Wednesday, 28th May | Amanda Leishman-Newell |
| Thursday, 29th May | Samantha Hunt |
| Friday, 30th May | NO SCHOOL |
Before & After School Care.
Please see below for the end of term newsletter.
We remind everyone about TheirCare, our outside school hours care provider. Bookings can be made at https://theircare.com.au/
Please select St Pius X Warrnambool as the booking location.
Free Uniforms!
If you are looking for some good quality second hand uniforms, we currently have a display set up in the foyer area near the office. You are welcome to come in anytime and have a look through what we have. Items include summer dresses, shorts, pants, shirts etc. in various sizes. All items are FREE to take.
School Uniform
Parish Contact.
Sunday Mass 9.00am @ 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/
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West Warrnambool Neighbourhood House - Calendar of Events
