December 15th 2022

Acknowledgement of Country

Prayer

Fourth Sunday of Advent

As we approach the great feast of Christmas, we ask for the blessing of God’s love to fill our hearts. 

May we reflect this love towards others, especially those we find hard to love.

AMEN

A Note from our Principal

Ngata Families & Friends,

The end of the year brings much anticipation for the holidays and the Christmas season, but this year brings me a little sadness as I pen our final newsletter for the year, and my last as Principal of St Pius X Parish School.

Tonight we will gather as a school community for our Carols and Presentation Evening at 7.00pm and I am looking forward to seeing everyone gathered together. This school has meant so much to me and my family for an extended period of time and taking part in this special event for a final time means so much to us - I will say more later!

I would like to thank everyone in our school community for a wonderful year of learning and I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, enriched by faith, family and feasting! I pray that 2023 is another great year for the St Pius X Parish Community.

Tomorrow is the final day of the school year for our students and parents need to be aware that school finishes at 3:30pm, not an earlier time (as at the end of other terms).

Joe Ewing

Principal

Yr 6 Graduation

Last Thursday our Yr 6 students graduated in a ceremony held at our parish church and followed by a celebratory gathering at Brother Fox. We thank all family members who were able to attend these two events, remembering that a few family members were absent due to illness. We especially thank Janine Lyons for her coordination, as well as Brad and Jodie Everall (and staff and family) for their hospitality. We farewell and thank the following students:

Farewell to Families

As well as saying goodbye to our Yr 6 students, we also bid a fond farewell to 18 families who this week finish their time at St Pius X. We will formally pay tribute to these families this evening but thank them for their service and belonging to our community.

Allen Family

Baillie Family

Blain Family

Dawson Family

Holcombe / Turner Family

Hope / Ward Family

                                                                                        Johnson Family

Kent / Wilkinson Family

Lyons Family

Maher / Russell Family

Martin Family

Pantino Family

Rogers / Radford Family

Russell Family

Smith Family (Cailyn)

Smith / Jewell Family (Roman)

Thompson / Hill Family

White Family

Williams / Baillie Family

Sympathies

This week we extend our condolences to the Mills and Parkinson families on the death of Barbara Mills, grandmother of staff members Rebecca Parkinson and Xavier Mills, and great grandmother to Alfie and Letty Parkinson. She will be sadly missed, but always held dear in the hearts of her family. 

Transition to 2023

Tuesday was our final whole school transition experience and we had a great day with everyone moving into new classes, including our Yr 6s, most of whom spent the day at their new secondary schools. We invite parents to introduce themselves to teachers either tomorrow or early in the 2023 school year. The success of our students is assisted by a close relationship between teachers and parents.

Below our 2023 class teachers and learning support officers are listed:

2023 Class Teachers

Prep: Jenna Osborne & Lucy Lane

Yr 1/2: Nicole Moulden (JP3), Kate Harzmeyer(JP4) & Samantha O’Keefe (JP5)

Yr 3/4 : Kate Sewell (MP1), Jane O’Donnell / David White (MP2) & Jake Bacon (MP3)

Yr 5/6 : Gerard Blythe (SP1), Rebecca Parkinson / Lisa Gardner (SP3) & Sara Graham (SP4)

2023 LSOs

Prep: Louise Brown & Cloe Pulling 

Yr 1/2 : Ava Matheson, Rebecca Stebbins, Paddy Bermingham, 

Yr 3/4 : Liz Niddrie, Paula Fleming, Shay Halouvas, Katie O’Kane

Yr 5/6 : Xavier Mills, Jan Nolan, Louise Crispe

2023 Intervention

Yr 1/2 : Rachel Brown

Yr 3/4 : Michael Sully

Yr 5/6 : Clare Green

Farewell Mr Alexander

As of this week Mr Matt Alexander will finish up at St Pius X. We have been extremely fortunate to have had Matt’s extensive sporting knowledge and expertise in our school since 2018, and we are deeply grateful for the enthusiasm and energy he brought to teaching and coaching the children of our  school. 

Matt worked hard to offer a variety of sporting experiences for our students and often tailored learning experiences for those children who needed an individual approach, or more time in skill development. He regularly offered alternate recess activities for children in the yard and this generosity was always appreciated by our community.

Matt wanted to share his best wishes with the school and forwarded this message:

I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching PE at St Pius X PS. Our students are passionate learners in PE. I’m proud of you all for the consistent effort, preparation and sportsmanship you have shown. Keep up the great effort and finding joy in sport.

I wish the St Pius X community all the best into the future. 

Carols & Presentation Evening - Tonight!

All families are invited to our annual Carols and Presentation Evening will be held in our parish church tonight at 7.00pm. This will be the first time since 2019 that this event will have been run in person, so we look forward to the opportunity to be together for this important event. Our students will share some Christmas music with us, and we will say farewell and thank community members who will be leaving St Pius X.

Students are asked to wear neat casual clothes and are welcome to include some Christmas decoration and colour. Classes are asked to assemble on the lawn between the church and the hall.

With COVID cases again on the rise, we encourage mask wearing if you believe you may have had contact with positive cases.

Well Done Tommy!

Congratulations to Tommy Stebbins who won the pre teens division of the ongoing ninja competition at Hit Nation.

Christmas Masses

Families who will be in Warrnambool for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day are warmly invited to join in one of the parish Masses that will be celebrated across Warrnambool over the two days.

December 24th

5.00pm St Joseph’s

6.00pm Our Lady Help of Christians

6.00pm St Pius X

December 25th

9.00am Our Lady Help of Christians

9.30am St Joseph’s

Learning Conversations

Thanks to all families who joined with class teachers for Learning Conversations this week and last week. Our staff found these conversations important as they communicated important assessment information to accompany the reports that had already been received by families.

Attention: Gr 4s - Chromebook Payments

Could families of current grade four students please ensure that the $252 invoice for their chromebooks is paid before the end of the year.  Students will not receive their chromebooks until payment is made.  Thank You.

School Fees and Levies

There is currently about $100,000 owing in outstanding fees and levies.  This is the final week of the 2022 school year and it would be greatly appreciated if fees could be finalised now.  For families who have committed to regular instalments, please continue with your payment plan as per your arrangements.

Ringing families as a reminder to pay fees is not only embarrassing and uncomfortable to you but also to the admin staff. Please contact the school office to organise a payment plan should you wish to set up a payment plan.  Thank you.

PAM update of email addresses.

Next year PAM (Parent Access Module) will move to each parent having a seperate PAM account rather than one account per family. All existing Parent PAM logins will be turned off on 16th January 2023. Between then and the new accounts being issued, parents will not be able to access PAM for students reports, etc.

https://spwarrnambool.schoolzineplus.com/survey/10 

St. Pius X Recipe Book

Haven’t purchased your copy of the school recipe book? Don’t worry they will be on sale in the foyer of the church this evening. 

$10 each.  Cash Only.

Hot of the Prep Press!

Smokey’s Last Weekend Holiday

Smokey had one last adventure at the Moore household. Zahra was so excited to take him home for the weekend and we know he was very well looked after. Some things to note from the Moore family:

Smokey loves snuggles with Zahra

Smokey spent the weekend in Zahra’s room and slept beside her bed in his hutch

Smokey loved sitting in Zahra’s lap snuggling while watching ipad

Smokey loved treats of blueberries, grapes, carrot, home grown spinach and his favourite was home grown cos lettuce.

Smokey did not like mandarin.

Smokey has very sharp teeth and chewed a hole in one of Zahra’s bag.

Smokey loved exploring Zahra’s room and found her doll house very interesting.

Check out some cute photos of Zahra and Smokey!!

And the winner is….

This week we raffled Smokey to find his forever home. We are super excited to announce that Smokey has officially become a member of the Dowling Family. Congratulations to Addison! She was very very excited when her name was drawn out. She was a wonderful house host at the beginning of the term and now she can look after Smokey every day!

A BIG thank you to all the families who volunteered to look after Smokey on the weekends. We know it can be a big task but we really appreciate all of your support.

Welcome to the 2023 Preps

On Tuesday we welcomed the 2023 Preps for their transition day. We had big smiles, cheery goodbyes to Mums and Dads and only a few little tears. One of the highlights was spending time with their Grade 6 Buddies and doing some work like big school kids! We know they are ready for school - the photo below proves it with their school crowns on!

 We look forward to what 2023 has in store for us, the children and their families. 

Hands on Learning

The final week of school has been a time to reflect on the year. What a busy year it has been.

The ten students who have attended the Men’s Shed this year have developed some great building skills, including the importance  of being able to measure accurately. The students have greatly appreciated the time and effort that the people from the Men’s Shed have put  into providing some awesome projects to build. The students have developed a good working relationship with the Men’s Shed and appreciate the general chat and banter each week as well.

The Alternate Afternoon group have enjoyed phys ed, cooking, including entering every cooking section of the Warrnambool Agriculture Show where they won many first and second prizes for their efforts, working in the shed, art , board games, coding, and science. Many grade six students on a weekly basis were fantastic mentors for this program, supported by wonderful LSOs (Learning Support Officers). Five of these students went out into the community this term on a Wednesday to visit Fletcher Jones, Warrnambool Community Garden, Warrnambool Botanic Garden, Archie Graham Centre, Honey Pot, South Warrnambool Kinder, the new Warrnambool Library, TAFE, helping set up for the Warrnambool Agricultural Show, and Vinnies. We were fortunate to have a guest speaker at each of these organisations and we learnt how volunteers are a vital part of helping in the community. We are grateful of each one of these organisations taking the time to speak to the students  and  show them around.

Twenty two students participated in Hands on Learning at School, building in the shed and running four cafes each term providing classes with a choice of three hot meals and a milkshake. We have also had some lovely elderly people come to St Pius X from Archie Graham Centre on three occasions and we have managed to form a connection and put a smile on their faces. One lady mentioned that she has no grandchildren and she never gets to be with any children. We have cooked them morning tea, taken them on a tour of the school, taught them technology and they have helped us put our Christmas chocolate houses together. We look forward to working with them more next year. In Hands on Learning we have seen not just only a great development in building and cooking skills, but improved persistence and resilience when tackling a task, development in leadership, collaboration and communication skills.

We are very grateful for Hammonds Paints throughout the year giving us donations of paint and for Food Share proving donations of food to be able to provide the Men’s shed students and the Hands on Learning students a hot cooked lunch once a week. The students enjoyed taking in turns to cook for the group and receiving feed back about their cooking expertise. The students enjoyed being able to sit and chat together while eating delicious food.

A big thank you to the wonderful LSOs who have helped to support all these 38 students in being able to access such great programs and our principal Joe Ewing who recognises that not all learning necessarily takes place within the four walls of a  classroom.

Mini Vinnies

Mr Chris Nolan from St. Vincent De Paul and our Mini Vinnies gathered today in celebration of another wonderful year of community service and fundraising.   The Mini Vinnies have been involved in raising money for Project Compassion, donating cereal to Food Share through the cereal challenge, organising a wacky clothes dress up day and making origami cards for the residents of Mercy Place.  These are just a few of their special projects this year.   Well done everyone!

Updating Medical Details - PAM

If there have been any changes to students' medical information/conditions, it would be appreciated if these details could be updated in PAM as soon as possible.

Thank You.

Lost and Found

We have a large number of jumpers in lost property without names or with names that are unreadable.  If your child is missing a jumper, could enquiries please be made at the office.   Unclaimed jumpers will be donated.

Before & After School Care

Re-Writing the Christmas Story

Can you imagine if Jesus was born today? In West Warrnambool? Read on...

Mary and Joseph came to Australia the hard way. They fled their home with nothing and arrived in Warrnambool with only courage, resilience and strength to offer their new country.

These aren't the skills that Australia wants in its asylum seekers, but the immigration officials took one look at Mary, glorious in her last month of pregnancy, and realised it would be a public relations disaster to send them home. They smirked as they listened to the story of miraculous pregnancy, wrote "religious persecution" across their files, and stamped the couple's temporary protection visas. Mary and Joseph were handed keys to a flat, some vouchers for food and bus tickets.

Which is how the pair — too young to be married, and with no other family to call their own — ended up in a small flat in Morriss Road, preparing for the birth of the child they believed would be God in a human form.

The story really began months earlier in a country far away. For a long time, Mary hadn't realised she was pregnant — she had no reason to suspect she was. She'd lived an ordinary life until now — she'd not been perfect, but she'd not been bad, either. She and Joseph had known forever that they would marry each other. They followed the religion of their family, living faithfully and praying for a day that justice and peace would come.

Her awareness of the pregnancy grew slowly. She knew something was different in her body. It no longer seemed her own. It was late one night, when Mary found her hand rubbing low on her stomach again, that she counted back the days. She realised, in one terrible moment, that she was pregnant.

The weeks that followed were filled with fear and despair too private and painful to speak of. Then one morning Mary woke up and discovered she was no longer sick and — more surprisingly — no longer terrified. She had woken to find herself basking in unlikely, unbidden joy. The angels were singing their song to her.

From that day on, Mary spoke of being blessed.

It caused such heartache between her and Joseph, and an irreconcilable split between her and her family. Nothing Mary said could convince Joseph that she hadn't been unfaithful to him until the night he, too, had the dream where the angels sang their song. Joseph's family tried to separate them so that Joseph wouldn't be tainted by Mary's reputation, but they refused. The families despaired at their wilfulness. 

Then Mary told them the news that had filled her mind since the morning of her awakening — that the angels had told her this baby was a divine gift, a miracle, the son of God. In a moment of anger, Mary's family threatened to have nothing more to do with her.

Mary and Joseph fled. Which was how they ended up in Warrnambool, in a flat, relying on the goodwill of others to survive. In their desperation to leave home they hadn't thought about what it would be like to arrive in a country knowing no one. Those first few weeks in Warrnambool — the last of Mary's pregnancy — were lonely and precarious. Everything was a mystery. Life felt fragile.

Jesus was born one night to the sounds of the neighbours shouting at each other and dance music echoing from the party at St Pius X Hall. Mary heard only the songs of angels. Joseph held Jesus for the first time, arms aching with exhaustion and the heavy weight of love. He had always imagined that his babies would be born to a soft landing into the arms of family, with ancient blessings from grandfathers and whispers of love from grandmothers. 

He felt their absence keenly.

It was the neighbours who brought the blessings. The sounds of a crying baby pierced the cardboard-thin walls of the flat, and they started to arrive within hours. 

One by one they entered with tiny gifts of love and welcome — an old blanket, a toy from St Vinnies, food, and from each a whispered blessing.

"He is the child of the divine," said Mary, but they already knew. It seemed they, too, had heard the songs of the angels. Together they looked in awe at this fragile baby, holder of love enough for the world. Mary, Joseph and Jesus found themselves wrapped in the heart of this unlikely community.

The midwife who attended them was curiously touched. She dismissed their words as the ravings of the mad, but she knew there was something beautiful unfolding in this flat. She learnt the names of the people who came to visit — people who had not had conversations with others for years, people who had always lived in the shadows of town. Here they were coming into the light. She listened in on their conversations with Mary, and she pieced together the strange story of how Jesus' birth had come about.

In spite of herself, she came to believe it. It was certainly a story that defied all rational sense, but she realised that she'd come to think that any story of hope and love defied belief. In the days to come, she and her colleagues would compete to be the ones who would go to visit the little family, and gradually word of it began to leak out.

A representative of the Department of Human Services was the first official visitor. He knew the situation had all the hallmarks of potential disaster. It was a case that had to be handled with absolute sensitivity and decisiveness. After any number of disasters with children of refugees, they had learnt their lesson about hesitation. This was the kind of story that could blow up, ruining reputations and destroying career prospects.

He came with forms to fill out. "We need to know who the father is," he said. Which was not an easy question to answer. Joseph — bewildered already by sleepless nights and this new world he'd found himself thrust into — could find few words in his limited English to explain the miracle. In truth, neither Mary nor Joseph felt they could claim this baby as their own. Who could ever own a gift this precious?

The representative tried to make Joseph's answers fit the form, but in the end the categories he ticked only hinted at the story: single mother, living with partner, unknown father.

Mary and Joseph had no desire for any public profile. They just wanted to learn how to be parents. Stories like this are hard to keep quiet though. It didn't take long for the media to catch wind that something unusual was happening.

The current affairs show that ran with the story was in its element. In the initial production meetings every possible angle was dissected, ready to be teased out depending on how the public responded to the story.

The first day's story led with the lines "Miracle baby? You decide." The viewer poll at the end of the show would decide which angle they would use to develop the story.

Various religious leaders were interviewed. All were hesitant to make public statements, each of them remembered that their own stories of faith were filled with the implausible. But they all spoke gravely of how this would be out of character for God, who acted in ways more powerful and obvious than this.

The viewer poll at the end of the show indicated that only 13 per cent did indeed think this could be a miracle, so the next night the story began to take a darker edge. It was peppered with words like "queue-jumpers", "illegals", "potential terrorists" and "un-Australian". Although Joseph didn't understand all of the language, he knew the intent.

Joseph wondered, not for the first time, how this tiny baby, who had brought such love into his life and for whom he would indeed give his life, could be a threat. Mary knew this was exactly why Jesus was a threat. The world is only convinced of love when faced with a tiny baby. This is the love that rewrites all definitions of power.

It was when another current affairs show promoted its evening story with the headline "Religious freaks let loose in the community by government", that the government found itself in the unusual situation of having to defend its stamping of a temporary protection visa.

They decided, behind closed doors, that the time had come to separate the child from his parents.

It was the very next day that the last of the visitors came to Jesus. The three High Court judges had watched how the story was unfolding, and they knew what would happen next. 

The judges had spent their lives working for the day when justice might rule in the world, and they had the faith to believe that one day someone would come who would show how love and justice look when they take on human form. They'd come to believe that this baby was the one. They knew that the politics of the day would be too threatened by all he represented to let him survive. They brought gifts for him, and they brought a plan of escape for him and his parents.

So it was that not long after his birth, Jesus became homeless. As they left their tiny flat in Morriss Road, Mary heard the angels singing blessings for a love that had finally taken on human form, blessings of peace and justice for a broken world. And together the refugees left to search for a place where divine love could find its human home.

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/ 

Our Diocesan Community

The link below opens the quarterly diocesan magazine that features news from across the Ballarat Diocese.

Upcoming Dates

Tonight Carols and Presentation Evening 7.00pm

 Tomorow Dec 16 Final day of school classes for 2022. (Final bell at 3.30pm)

COVID 19 Arrangements

All famililes are asked to familiarise thesmselves with the updated COVID 19 regulations.