TERM 2

WEEK 5

2026 TERM 1

WEEK 3

WEEK 2

TERM 3 - 2024

WEEK 4
WEEK 6
WEEK 8
WEEK 10

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Anna-Marie Bothe

Principal

What a terrific start St Paul’s has had to the start of the 2026 school year! Our Kinder are settling in so well with the help of their classmates, other students and nurturing staff. A big welcome to our new school families who have children in Kinder: the Mullers and Percys. We love having you in our St Paul’s family (and extra points to you for going in our parents v students race at the Swimming Carnival)!

Our school value focus for Term 1 is We are Compassionate. In the first few weeks of term, we have already seen powerful examples of Ephesians 4:22 embedded in school life; staff working together supportively, older students helping and encouraging younger students in their Swimming Carnival races, raising money through ALWS’s Pancakes for Purpose to help those less fortunate around the world, welcoming our new families and reconnecting with each other, our P&F providing our welcome BBQ for families at the Henty pool. The list could go on and on, which makes St Paul’s so much more than a school – we are a connected community that cares for each other.

New Playground

We are so excited that work on installing our new playground, created by Moduplay, will begin mid-Term 1. In the meantime, our soft-fall play area is taped off for the safety of students, while we use our wealth of other play spaces – the oval, nature play garden, sandpit, multipurpose court, cubby house, handball court and COLA.

I look forward to seeing you at our Parent Information Night on Tuesday 24 February 6:30-7:30pm in the mainly music room, followed by our P&F AGM. All parents/carers are welcome!

wedge

CHRISTINE'S

CORNER

Well done to all our students on winning the Schools’ Competition at Henty Show.  It was truly a whole school effort once again. The entries in the handwriting and colouring competition, combined with the “Love and Friendship” display board, gave St Paul's the first-place win for the third year in a row.

Congratulations to those students who were winners in their sections:

Colouring in competition:

First – Roswitha, Louisa, Meg

Second – Noah, Tiger, Ty, Evie

Third – Liam, Gabe

Handwriting

First – Noah, Roswitha, Jonathan, Lacie, Adele

Second – Tilly

Third – Tiger, Samson, Archie, Louisa, Meg

Last year, we put our prize money towards new sports equipment. We will have to decide what to spend the money on this year.

On Tuesday we celebrated Pancake Tuesday by enjoying delicious pancakes. Thanks to Bec and Jason Brailey for cooking them for us. This year, we raised money for ALWS (Australian Lutheran World Service) through their Pancakes for Purpose fundraiser. This money goes towards helping families in Ethiopia and we raised $42. All money raised is matched with a 5:1 government grant, so that is $210 for families in Ethiopia!

Recently, the NSW Government announced that there will be an extra public holiday this year and next year for Anzac Day, due to April 25 falling on the weekend. This year, we will have an extra holiday on Monday 27th April (Term 2, Week 2). Please mark this on your calendar.

Just a friendly reminder that students need a HAT everyday!

Thank you.

GRANDPARENTS' DAY

CHAPEL - PASTOR JOHN BORCHERT

Tuesday 24 @ 9:20am

FRIDAY NIGHT GATHERING

Friday 27 @ 5:30pm

STAFF INSTALLATION SERVICE

Sunday 22 @ 10:30am

FEBRUARY

MARCH

IMPORTANT DATES

mainly music

Monday 2 @ 9:30am

MRS BIAR'S CLASS

It has been wonderful to see our new Kinders at school and see them settle into school life so well! They are already hard at work with their school work!

Max the Monkey has loved visiting the homes of the K-2 students over the last 2 years, but he has a new friend who wanted to come and visit, so we welcome Bob the Bull to the K-2 class! I hope he doesn’t get up to as much mischief as Max did! Max is still in our classroom, but he won’t go visiting on weekends.

This week the Year 1-3 students enjoyed their STEM challenge – to build a bridge, only using paper and tape, that could carry a car. They had to consider different ways to make their paper stronger without using more materials.

Blessings,

Mrs Biar

MRS BASSETT'S CLASS

The first few weeks back have been full of excitement and settling into routines. It has been wonderful to see a strong start to learning and students reconnecting with friends after the holidays.

I look forward to a great year ahead!

Blessings,

Mrs Bassett

MISS H'S CLASS

Welcome to 2026! It has been a busy start to the year with swimming lessons and our Swimming Carnival last week. Congratulations to all students on their improving their skills and confidence in the water, and their efforts at the carnival.

The 5/6 class have begun the term reading the novel ‘Rivet Boy’ by Barbara Henderson. The book is about a boy, John Nicol, who at the age of twelve, reluctantly becomes the breadwinner for his family because his father passed away before his birth. Taking a job on the Forth Bridge construction site to support his ailing grandfather, mother, and baby sister, John, torn away from school life, must navigate the challenges of adulthood. Despite his longing for learning and playing with friends, he faces the daunting task of overcoming his fear of heights. The newly established Carnegie library near his home becomes both a sanctuary and an escape.

Blessings,

Felicity

SRC SPOTLIGHT

Donations 2025

At the end of 2025 we donated $118.75 to Hands at Work in Africa Australia through GiveNow. These funds will help provide the 3 Essential Services of Food, Education and Basic Health Care.  This makes a huge difference in the lives of the orphaned and most vulnerable children.

We also donated $163.00 to ALWS (Australia Lutheran World Service) through Gifts of Grace. We gifted ‘Check out Chickens' which provides chickens to bring food, income and hope to families, ‘Choose Chillies’ which helps families eat well and earn income., ‘School Start Sets’ which help girls have the resources they need to learn, ‘Study Buddy’ which gives refugee children the tools to study and succeed and ‘Tanks a Lot’ which provides a water tank to help young farmers change futures.

Term 1 SRC members

Our SRC representatives are Evie, Tilly, Meg, Harriet, Bella, Abel, Daniel and Wylie. Congratulations to them all and we look forward to the ideas that they come up with for school activities and fundraisers.

Zooper Doopers THIS FRIDAY

This Friday (20th Feb) Year 6 will be selling Zooper Doopers for 50c.

Meg, Tilly & Miss H

SWIMMING CARNIVAL

This year in the swimming carnival we had a lot of participants from both teams, with more races than the past couple of years. We had one record broken by Tahnee in the senior girls 25 metre freestyle. Our age champions for 2026 were Azariah for the junior boys, Bella for junior girls, Wyatt for senior boys and Meg for senior girls.

A pat on the back for Buckargingah, but bad luck to Mundawadra -  you’ve always been hard to beat!

Thanks P&F for cooking the food for us and thanks Kerri for the ice cream.

Thanks Miss H for organising the swimming carnival, we could not have done it without you.

Harriet & Ryan - Sport Captains

What an amazing day we had last week for our Swimming Carnival! While it may have been a little chilly for students between races (before they dried off), the weather was appreciated by spectators and helpers. Congratulations to all students on a wonderful day of competition, best efforts and a lot of encouragement for one another. A BIG thankyou to our senior students who did an amazing job assisting our younger students on the day and Bek for working with them during swimming lessons so that they were able to feel safe and confident to ‘get in and have a go’ in a number of events.

Congratulations to Buckargingah on being the Champion House for 2026 and reclaiming the title from Mundawadra after quite a number of years!

Thank you to our extraordinary school community for coming along and supporting our students and helping throughout the day.

To Kerri and the P&F – thank you for providing us with lunch and a treat at the end of the day.

Thank you to all staff for doing their part to keep our day running smoothly. You are all greatly appreciated.

Miss H

AWARDS & CHAPEL

Merit & Values Awards

K - 2 - Inge & Tiger

3 & 4 - Samson & Archie

5 & 6 - Adele & James

Week 2

K - 2 - Wylie & Alice

3 & 4 - Skylar & Matilda

5 & 6 - Ty & Harriet

Week 3

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.

TUCKSHOP TERM 1 2026

February 9 + 23

March 9 + 23 + 30

COMMUNITY NOTICE BOARD