TERM 2

WEEK 5

TERM 1

WEEK 3

WEEK 2

TERM 3 - 2024

WEEK 4

WEEK 6

WEEK 8

WEEK 10

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

What a fantastic start St Paul’s has had to the 2025 school year! I have the fortunate opportunity to share with you my perspective of our amazing school and its community as someone who has recently joined, as Interim Principal for Semester One.

I am blown away by the COMMUNITY spirit of our staff, students, parents and friends. Our staff go above and beyond – they happily came together on the weekend to prepare our school display for the Henty Show. Our students showed caring friendship towards each other on their return to school, sharing holiday stories with each other and staff. Our parents gathered together for our P&F BBQ at the Henty Pool where volunteers happily worked hard to serve others and strengthen relationships. Our St Paul’s Church community warmly welcomed our staff at our Installation Service a week ago, where I enjoyed reconnecting with people from my days as a teenager living at Walla Walla! Our School Board members provide valuable links between school, church and our community.

St Paul’s is unique in the level of involvement and commitment of our school community and I say THANK YOU! I see God’s love in action at our school and I hope it blesses you and your family this year.

“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Matthew 18:20

Anna-Marie Bothe

Interim Principal

Blessings to everyone as you try to stay cool!

Christine Biar

Welcome back to St Paul’s for 2025! It has been fantastic to see how seamlessly all the students have slipped back into school life in the last few weeks. Thank you to all parents and carers who have helped to make this transition back to school so easy.

On the weekend, the Henty Show was held and despite the rain and thunder, it turned into a lovely (albeit humid) afternoon. Congratulations to all those who entered various competitions and events over the day. Well done to all of our school students, who won the Best Primary School award again for the second year in a row! We received this award for having the most winners in the colouring in and handwriting competitions. Awesome effort, everyone!

This week we began swimming lessons again. It is so important that all children are able to keep themselves safe in the water. Thank you to Katie Ridley for organising this, and Bek Lubke for helping teach the lessons.

On Tuesday our Year 6 leaders were installed. Thank you, Year 6 students, for stepping up into these leadership positions and serving our school in this way. It has been wonderful to already see them showing maturity and responsibility in many ways around the school.

Congratulations to our SRC reps for term 1- Jonathan, Sora, Az, Wyatt, Connor, Sasha, Mahliq and Simeon – as you help to make our school a better place for all students.

We welcome two new students to our school – Billie and Axel. We hope you make plenty of new friends as you begin your schooling journey at St Paul’s!

CHRISTINE'S

CORNER

Just a friendly reminder that students need a HAT everyday!

Thank you.

SWIMMING CARNIVAL 2025

We are looking forward to a great day on Thursday, 20th February, for our Swimming Carnival.

Students are to arrive at school by 9.15am to allow for time to walk to the pool. The carnival will begin at 9.30am with races to start by 9.45am.

We will have two breaks throughout the day – a short break at approx. 11am and a BBQ lunch at approx. 1.00pm, provided by the P & F (tea & coffee available for adults). Students are encouraged to snack between races to keep up their energy levels.

There will be NO CANTEEN on the day.

Students are encouraged to wear their house colours –

GREEN for Buckargingah and RED for Mundawadra,

otherwise their sports uniform.

Please remember to bring: your school hat, swimmers, a rashie/t-shirt to wear between races, towel, sunscreen, snacks, and a drink bottle.

Please keep in mind:·

YR6 vs PARENTS/FRIENDS RACE

(Yr6 students to find a parent/friend to race against)

PARENTS/FRIENDS RELAY (Buckargingah vs Mundawadra)

Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday.

SWIMMING LESSONS

Monday 17 @ 1:15pm

mainly music

Monday 17 @ 9:30am

mainly music

Monday 3 @ 9:30am

YEAR 6 LEADERSHIP DAY

Friday 28

PARENT - STUDENT - TEACHER CONFERENCES

M 24 & T 25 from 3:30pm

SWIMMING CARNIVAL

Thursday 20 @ 9:15am

TUCKSHOP

Monday 24

TUCKSHOP

Monday 10

RAS SWIMMING

Wednesday 5

FRIDAY NIGHT GATHERING

Friday 7 @ 6:00pm

IMPORTANT DATES

FEBRUARY

MARCH

MRS BIAR'S CLASS

It has been so lovely to see everyone’s smiling faces back in the K/1/2 classroom! The new Kinders have eased into school life so easily and have had fun with lots of pre-writing activities including threading, play dough and shaving cream!

The Year 1 and 2 students have been back into the routine of InitiaLit lessons, and have been revising many letters, digraphs and spelling rules from last year.

Together with the Year 3 students, we have enjoyed a mini Maths investigation called Plenty of Popsticks, where we calculated how many popsticks we would need to make fish, frogs, spiders and dragonflies. Then we made our own animal using posticks. Some of them even made it onto our school display at Henty Show! Did you know that a group of sharks is called a shiver of sharks? And a group of frogs is called an army of frogs?

We have loved heading to the pool each afternoon for our swimming lessons. Although it has been hot walking down, it has been so refreshing to jump in and enjoy the cool water!

MISS RIDLEY'S CLASS

We have been looking at the importance of healthy and safe lifestyles in PDH this term and there was no better way to start than with an experiment!

We were investigating the importance of washing our hands in preventing the spread of germs. We did this by having a piece of bread that had been touched with unwashed hands and one with clean hands.

After a week, this was the result! Fair to say, we were all completely grossed out!

It has been great to welcome back students in the 5/6 class!

Our theme for English this term is ‘It’s a Mystery’, and we have started to read the book ‘The Detective's Guide to Ocean Travel’. While reading, students are taking notes on who they suspect of stealing the Saffron Diamond and gathering their evidence. We have also begun to research the real RMS Aquitania that sailed between 1914 and 1950.

4/5/6 are exploring famous artists and different styles of art in Creative Arts this term. Our first artist was Pablo Picasso and his cubist style of art. Students used the roll of the dice to indicate the style of each facial feature to be included in their artwork, with a focus on using bold, block colours, experimenting with proportion and expressing an emotion.

We have loved being at the pool for our swimming lessons in preparation for the carnival next week.

The Paul Kelly Cup is coming up at the end of March for students in 5/6. Please let me know if you are willing and able to help coach on the day.

MISS H'S CLASS

GRANDPARENT'S DAY

We had such a lovely morning spending time with our Grandparents!

The 2/3 class lead our special Grandparents Day Chapel on Tuesday which was followed by a picnic morning tea. We enjoyed playing games, reading to our grandparents and showing them around the school.

Thank you to all our grandparents and family for joining us!

AWARDS & CHAPEL

Awards - Week 3

Year 6 Leaders

School Captain - Simeon

Vice Captain - Neve

Buckargingah Captain - Mahliq

Mundawadra Captain - Eli

P&F UPDATE

Well the Year of the Big Shed came, we saw it and we conquered it! The 2024 HMFD was a huge success. We had 150 shift spaces to fill and we did it! Thank you to all our families & friends who pitched in over the event. We needed your support and you didn't let us down.

Thanks to our combined effort we raised over $50,000!!

The P&F have decided to contribute $50,000 to be put towards a new playground and outdoor learning space at school, a place current and future students will be able to enjoy for many years to come.

Our first event in 2025 will be our annual Welcome BBQ to be held on Sunday 2nd February. This is always a great day to catch up after the summer break. More details to come in the New Year.

BERNIE O'CONNOR CARNIVAL

On Friday 1st of September, Years 3 to 6 went to Yerong Creek for the Bernie O’Connor Carnival. We played with St Joseph’s, Culcairn and St Patrick’s, Holbrook. It was a great day! The sun was shining, and everyone had lot’s of fun.

The 5/6 boys played footy and came 1st for the whole day. We played against The Rock and the score was 12 to 32. The 3-4 boys came 3rd in the whole day. Well done to the 5/6 and 3/4 girls playing netball who got runners up.

Well done to Ivan and Neve for playing with students they didn’t know.

Congratulations to Blake for winning the furthest kicking competition.

Thank you for the coaches and families who helped on the day.

By Micah Klemke,

Mud House Captain