AGGIES ARTICLES - Term 3 Week 4 - Friday 6 August 2021

Sacrament of Confirmation

Over the past four nights, we have had the lovely opportunity to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation with candidates from across the St Agnes Parish. It has been so nice to see families gathered together for this special celebration in their child’s sacramental journey. We would like to thank all staff involved in the planning, preparation and facilitation of the events. We look forward to continuing the Parish Sacramental Programs later in the term.

Our St Agnes' Candidates:

3O - Josh Abraham, Lorcan Byrne, Evie Carney, William Everson, Mahli Forster, Hayley Grogan, Grace Jessen, Joseph O'Brien and Tessa Taylor
3P - Bonnie Croft, Lachlan Dunn, Tyson Elkins, Arthur Hough, Grace Judge, Jessyka Porteous and Braxton Stewart
3TM - Bailey Ackroyd, Harley Cadden, Lucas Constantine, Isiah Dickson, Willow Newall, Benjamin O'Brien, Archie Stafford and Rosie Woolnough
4A - Isabelle Familar and Jenson Henderson
4T - Kaiden Ovington
5C - Abigail Byrne, Tyler Dickson and Ruby Magnus
5M - Jamie Lombardo
6B - Benjamin Evans

Parent Assembly Regional Parent Gatherings

The Parent Assembly Connect and Reflect Gatherings are still scheduled to be held as they adhere to current NSW COVID Restriction Guidelines. Parents have been made aware that should these change, the events may need to be postponed. Currently, we have 90 parents registered and places are still available at all three regional gatherings.

Parent Education

Headspace National is hosting free mental health education sessions for parents on ways to support the mental health of young people and develop the understanding and skills needed to find the support and services required. 

Respectful Relationships Parent/Carer Survey

Thank you to the 168 parents/carers who completed the Respectful Relationships Survey in Term 2 of this year. Parents/carers were asked two questions:

1. Respectful relationships and consent education are being taught in school. How can our Catholic schools better support our children and young people in this area?
2. Our children and young people need both their families and schools to help support them in their understanding of consent and respectful relationships. How can our families and Catholic schools work together to better develop their understanding in this area?

The key themes to emerge from survey responses included:

• The need for explicit teaching across the curriculum and a whole school approach that focused on developing a culture of respect within the school community.
• Improved communication with parents about consent and relationship education curriculum content to allow parents to effectively support children's learning and development at home.
• The use of high quality external providers for students and parents.

Key actions that the Lismore Catholic Schools Office will undertake include:

• Developing a set of guiding principles that will provide an effective and consistent framework for consent and respectful relationships education in the Diocese of Lismore. This will include the importance of student and parent voice.
• To improve communication to parents and carers and explore parent and community respectful relationship and consent education opportunities.
• To investigate priority areas for curriculum resource development and teacher education

Year One Phonics Test

This year we have access to a Year One Phonics Screener which has been developed by the NSW Department of Education. Please see information from the Department regarding the assessment.

“Phonics knowledge and skills are essential for learning to read and write. To be effective readers, students need to learn how to blend sounds together in words quickly so that they can read and understand the meaning. The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is a quick assessment that tells teachers how your child is progressing in phonics.

Phonics is important for students who are learning to read. This screening check observes how your child can read words with different letter combinations.

The main purpose of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is to provide your child's teacher with information which will allow them to plan for your child’s learning.

Each child is individually assessed by a teacher and all Year 1 students will be assessed.”

Our Year One teachers are looking forward to using this data to support the individual learning needs of their students.

Collector Cards - Please Do Not Bring To School

We have had many issues and lots of tears in the last few weeks due to collector cards. We have had cards stolen and traded due to the great excitement and it is causing a large number of friendship issues. Unfortunately, we have had to make the decision to ban all collector cards at school to assist the children to make positive choices. We thank you for your support and assistance with this and we ask that you please talk to your children about this so that they are prepared on Monday.

Welcome

This week we send a warm welcome the following students who have joined the Aggies Community:

Angus (3TM) and Hamish (1TB) Downie
Sophia (4NS) and Amelie (KE) Ward

Farewell

We are sad to be farewelling Cooper McDowell who is leaving St Agnes’ and Port Macquarie this week. Cooper is in 6E. We wish him happiness and warmer weather in Queensland.

It's A Boy

Congratulations to Narz from KW on the safe arrival of his little brother Sully on 29 July 2021.

HEM Real Estate - Design a SOLD Sticker Competition

Assembly Awards