August 31st 2023

Acknowledgement of Country

Prayer

Father's Day Prayer

God our Father,

We thank You for the gift of fathers and those who love us like fathers. Bless all these people with strength, wisdom and love. Surround them with peace and joy. 

Amen

A Note from our Principal

Ngata Families and Friends,

We are looking forward to having some of our fathers and special people at school tomorrow night to celebrate Father's Day. If you're able to help with umpiring or running a game please let me know.  Best wishes to all our families for Fathers Day in whatever way you mark this occasion. 

Congratulations to the senior students who represented the school at Volleyball on Monday. A special congratulations to the Grade 5 girls who brought home the trophy after extra time in the final. A great effort. 

A reminder to all families that our pastoral care worker, Brooke, is available if your child requires some extra support at school. Teachers can be contacted for more information. 

Kind Regards,

Stacey

Supporting children

A reminder that there are a number of tools that we use at St Pius X to support children. These might be things that you can talk to your child about as well. 

1) Safety Plans

These are about being emotionally safe. If you feel that your emotions are getting into the red zone (angry, mad worried), blue zone (sad, sick, bored) or yellow zone (worried, anxious or silly) you can use your safety plan to get back into the green zone. None of these emotions are bad. We all have them from time to time. However, there are things that we can do to get back into the green zone, where we are happy, content and feeling good. 

Every child and adult in the school has a safety plan which includes a number of things to help get back into the green zone. 

2) Circle of Safety

Every child has developed an individual or class circle of safety. These are people that your child has recognised that can help them if they need support. You can remind them about these people.

ReLATE Daily Community Meetings at St Pius X

At St. Pius X, we actively build a safe and supportive community in our school. The Community Meeting is an important way we do this …every day.

Meeting in a circle to start the day helps to have a process for moving people from being “me” to “we” (Sandra Bloom, 2013). Gathering in a circle is an ancient practice. We are able to meet one another eye to eye and recognise how others are feeling too. The community meeting is a deliberate form of nonviolence or demonstration of care for one another. The group ensures that everyone is heard and treated as equal and part of the community. (MacKillop Education).

We ask each other the following questions in each area of the school.

Sports Night 1st September.

We're looking forward to seeing all available dads, grandfathers, uncles and other special men at school for our annual sports night. The students of our school are looking forward to some hotly contested games of footy, soccer, basketball and other fun games. Families are able to join in an organised game or create one for themselves. If the weather is too wet, a revised schedule will be published.

Please  come dressed appropriately for your chosen sport.

There will be a sausage sizzle, softdrinks and water available (Pay on the night)

Sausages  $2.50 ea

Cans of Soft Drink  $2.50 ea

Water $2.00 ea

Please RSVP via the link for catering purposes.    

If you are able to assist with umpiring an activity please let Stacey know. principal@spwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au

Fathers Day in the Park!

Congratulations Arlie!

Last weekend Arlie competed in the Thunder Point Winter Series mountain biking competition.  Arlie finished second overall out of 20 riders.  Well done Arlie!

Volleyball Schools Cup

On Monday of this week, 40 students from St Pius X Primary School competed in the Warrnambool Volleyball Schools Cup. It was a very long, yet fantastic day and all of the students competed amazingly. Special thanks to all our teachers and parent helpers who made the day run very smoothly. A huge congratulations to our Year 5 girls team who were successful in bringing back the 2023 Warrnambool Schools Volleyball Cup. Andin, Cheyne, Chelsea, Grace, Maggie, Charlotte, Zari and Mia were skillful enough to take out Warrnambool East Primary School in the grand final! Well done girls! 

Annual School Raffle. ATTENTION........ ATTENTION ………... A SHOUT OUT TO ALL!

We are well underway in organising our School Raffle that will be drawn at the Annual Fair, which is to be held on Friday 27th October.

In previous years the raffle has been the main contributor to the gross profits of the Fair.

We are seeking donations for prizes.  This can be in the form of cash, vouchers or gift hampers.  We are more than happy to accept other suggestions.

As we will be having  our raffle tickets printed, it is vital that all prizes are at the office no later than the end of term.  This will ensure that your company/business is listed on the tickets.

Student Raffle

It is planned that we hold a student raffle again this year.  WOW do you remember those lovely, yummy baskets of sweets?  Yes and tickets were just $1 each.  TICKETS SOLD LIKE HOT CAKES. Well let’s do this again this year!!!.  A chance for our students to be involved.  We might even have this raffle up and running before the end of term.  What do you think?  Do you want to help with this?   Maybe assist with putting the raffle books together (school will supply tickets, staples etc) …Maybe donate some sweets for the baskets… Maybe help sell some extra tickets… There are lots of ways you can assist.   Many hands make light work.    

Remember all funds raised contribute to the resources for your children.

Twilight Fair: We need your help!

Dear Parents and kids of St Pius X,

The Parents & Friends endeavour to hold a Twilight Fair each year and this year we plan to do so on Friday 27th October 4pm - 7pm. This year we aim to raise money to put towards our playground at school.  It is a really great way to showcase our community spirit and is something we as the P&F, the kids and I'm sure you look forward too.
This year we would like to continue the success of our community fair, albeit a little bit different.
Due to school staff work commitments and the new enterprise bargaining agreement for teachers, we will require the help of our wonderful students and parents for this event to succeed and to go ahead. We plan to have our Senior pod students run most of these stalls in shifts. The stalls will be set up prior to the event starting, so the assistance of parents is needed to help guide these kids through the night. All you will need is a Working With Childrens Card, a bit of energy, a big smile and the desire to help out our school. There will be shifts of an hour or one and a half hours.

To keep our Community Fair going this year we need this assistance. Without this we will have to rethink the fair going ahead.

We look forward to any assistance or feedback. You can contact the P&F before Monday 28th August on kimberleybakker46@gmail.com.

Thank you for your time,
Parents & Friends Committee

Kimberley Bakker, Merryn Payne, Richard Verspay

Crossing Safety

A reminder that parking within 20 metres before a designated school crossing or 10 metres after is
illegal. 

Parking too close impacts on the vision of the Crossing Guards which then impacts on the safety of our children crossing the road. 

Please do not park too close to the crossing. 

Sausage Sizzle Friday 8th September

Dear St Pius community,
My name is Jack and myself and 3 other boys, Nathan, Fraser and Xavier. We are currently undertaking VCE VM (formally VCAL) at Emmanuel College. We will be coming to St Pius to host a Sausage Sizzle and Water Balloon throwing activity. We are planning for this to occur on the Friday the 8th of September on the Basketball courts at lunchtime. The prices for the sausages are $2 dollars each and the price for 5 water Balloon throws are also $2 dollars. All of the money we make will be donated to the Lets Talk Foundation. The Water Balloon throwing activity will be set out so the primary school students will pay their money and will then be given 5 Water Balloons to throw at 2 of the secondary school students.
This form is being sent out so we can get an idea of how many Sausages and Water Balloons we need to purchase.
We have also catered for Gluten free dietary requirements.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,  VCE VM Students

Hot off the Prep Press!

WONDERS OF WARRNAMBOOL

On Tuesday we went out and about exploring our wonderful town and it all it has to offer. First stop was Logan’s Beach where we had our fingers and toes crossed in the hope that we would see a whale. Ask some of the students and they will tell you that’s exactly what they saw, the teachers may have seen something that resembled a boat. However, we did enjoy the beautiful ocean and view of the coastline, marvelling in one of God’s creations. After that we went to Hopkin’s Falls and were amazed by how free flowing the Falls were. We walked down to the bottom and listened to the loud crashy noise of the water hitting the bottom. Next stop was the Botanical Gardens. The sheer size of the Gardens allowed us to explore different areas in detail and search for things that belong to the nature world. Last but not least we stopped by Lake Pertobe where we saw many pelicans frolicking in the water as well as ducks and swans. We even had time to use some of our energy to enjoy the playground and have fun together. We had a wonderful time exploring the beauty and wonder of our town. 

FAREWELL MR A!

Over the past 4 weeks Mr Daniel Antonoff has been spending time in the Prep room completing his final 4th year teaching round. The students have welcomed Mr A with open arms and have enjoyed getting to know him and spending time with him learning and playing. We wish him all the best with his future endeavours as a teacher and thank him for his contributions to our classroom. Goodbye Mr A!

SHHH!!! DON’T TELL DAD!

This week we have been busy little bees creating and making gifts and goodies for the special men in our lives. Dads, Pas, Grandads and Uncles are going to be spoilt rotten come Sunday morning and we can’t wait to hear about it all. It’s going to be hard to keep all of these things a secret until then but we know we have to. So…… SHHHHH!!!! Don’t let them see this and don’t say a word!! 

We wish all the Fathers, Stepfathers, Grandfathers, Uncles and male role models a very Happy Father’s Day on Sunday. We hope all the kids are kind and behave!!

Meet the SAC!

Jun Meredith is another one of our dedicated SAC members. Jun and Paul are parents to Flynn and Zeeva. Jun is well known for her amazing cooking and can be found out and about at lots of different places with her tasty food. 

End of Year Dates

Please find following a letter from the principals of the Warrnambool and District Catholic Schools Network.

Footy Tipping 2023

What a finish! The Seurens have pipped Letty at the post.

Congratulations to our top 3 tippers! 

Seurens (181), Letty Parkinson (180) and Brad Everall (177).

The Seurens win $100 for their efforts. Letty wins $50 and Brad $20. 

We split the money raised ($340), with half the money going to the prize pool and half to the PnF. Hopefully next year we can get more people involved.

Thanks to everyone for your participation. Good luck to everyone in the finals- if your team was lucky enough to make it! 

Arts News.

This term in the Arts we are excited to be raising money for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation by taking part in the Busking For Change fundraising event.

Here is a link to a video about Busking For Change.

The idea is that all our St Pius X students (led by our school Choir) will learn the song ‘Words Make the World Go Around’ and perform it for you on….......

 September the 6th at 3pm in the Function Room.  

Everyone is invited, we just ask that you pay a gold coin at the door.

On this day we also ask that all students bring a gold coin to school. 

Alternatively you can log into our busking for change site here and make a small donation.  

Our goal is to raise $250.

Many thanks for your support and we look forward to busking for you.

School Fees and Levies.

As we are well into the third term, it is timely that you please review your school fees and levies.

The week before last, statements were emailed to all families and I thank those who had a query for their contact.

At this stage the total owing on Fees and Levies is $248,727.49.  This amount places the school budget in an awkward position.

Children have obtained their Chromebooks in Yr. 5 and 6, others have been on camp and excursions and all stationery supplies have been provided to your child. IT equipment has also been provided to all classes along with sporting equipment and cleaning and maintenance of all facilities.

Just like your accounts our gas and electricity costs have increased significantly.

The school has covered all these costs and we would greatly appreciate payment of your fees as soon as possible.

If you are on a Payment Plan please continue as agreed, ensuring that your account will be finalized by the end of the year.  For families who have finalized their fees already we are very grateful of your support.

Again, I wish to advise you that if you have any concerns or require further clarification contact me.

Anne Kerr

Business Manager

5562 2506

Grade 6 Hoodie for Sale.

We have one size Adult XS hoodie left to sell for $15.00.  Please contact the office if interested.

A special message........

The following students will be celebrating their birthdays over the coming week, we hope they have a wonderful day!

Lilly Santamaria, Caitlin Hunt, Chase Nicol, Arlo Le Cerf, William Chambers.

Breakfast Club.

Breakfast Club continues to be a hit during these cold Wednesday mornings! If you arrive at school before 8:50am, head down to the function room for some yummy toast, cereal, fruit, milo and lots more! 

Helpers are always welcome, even if it is for a morning, every little bit helps! If you’d like to volunteer please contact the office! 

Canteen Roster for next week.

Tuesday, 5th September:  Lauren Johnson

Wednesday, 6th September: Sue Coulson & Amrit Kaur

Thursday, 7th September: Sarah Searle

Friday, 8th September: Hayley Keane

Important Dates.

September 1st- Sports Night with Dads 

September 8th- Junior School Art Expo

September 8th- BBQ for Let's Talk

September 13th-15th: 5/6 Camp

September 15th- Last Day of Term- 2.30pm finish

Friday October 27th Twilight Fair

Advance notice:

Term 4 school closure date/ pupil free day Friday November 3rd 

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/ 

Could you make a difference to a young life?

Could this be what you are looking for? 

Foster carers come from all walks of life. They can be working, not working or retired; married or single; in same-sex relationships; and can own or rent their home. The most essential criteria are that they care, can provide a safe and nurturing home, and have room in their home to support a vulnerable child or sibling group.

If you would like to know more call MacKillop Family Services on 1300 791 677, visit www.mackillop.org.au/fostercare or ring Alana in our Warrnambool office on 5500 2000.

COVID 19 Arrangements

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