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Today the staff held a morning tea to wish all of our pregnant staff well as they start to leave the school to have their babies. Mrs Selina Buckley (1 Green), Ms Erin Engel (Prep Green), Mrs Alicia Mew (4 Blue) and Mrs Simone Griffiths (Playgroup and 1 Red) are all due to have babies over the school holidays and will not be returning to St Patrick's next year. When you are at school, if you see the staff, please wish them well as this exciting time for them draws near.

This week, as part of Book Week, we conducted our annual book week parades. Preps to Year 2 were first, followed by Years 3 to 6. There were many wondering dressed students, inspired by their favourite books. Our staff also participated with great themes such as Alice in Wonderland and Crayola crayones. Congratulations to everyone for the efforts that you have gone to make the school a very bright, colourful and interesting looking school today.

St Patrick's have added a scarf and beanie to the school uniform list to assist with the Kilmore winters. These are available for both staff and students. The scarf and beanie can be purchased through the uniform shop as well as through the tote box and the uniform list can be found on the Uniform page

Last year the school ran a uniform survey and the majority of items were voted to retain as it currently sits. The scarf and beanie were suggested by our families and have now been implemented. The other thing strongly suggested by families was the implementation of an option for girls to wear shorts in the summer. Whilst the school is very supportive of this, it would lead to up to seven (7) different uniform variations in the summer when taking into account the sports uniform as well. We are asking families to complete a simple two-question survey to seek our families’ opinions on implementing the shorts for girls this summer, as well as simplifying the number of uniform combinations by addressing the sports uniform. We welcome your feedback and this survey will close on Friday 3 August at 5:00pm. The link for the survey is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YZDWWYP

Interschool Athletics Trials will be continuing as of next week. Weather permitting, the aim is to have them all completed by the end of Week 3. Due to the large number of trials that need to take place, we are unable to run catch-up trials for any students who are away on the day of their trial/s. High jump will be in the stadium next Tuesday 24th (12yo boys and girls) and Wednesday 25th (11yo boys and girls). The 800 metres for boys and girls (all ages) will be Thursday 26th The shot put, discus, long jump and triple jump (boys and girls of all ages) will be on Tuesday 31st. The 1500m for boys and girls of all ages will be Wednesday 1st August. In the stadium will be high jump for 9 and 10 year olds, boys and girls on Thursday 2nd August..

Our Grade 6 students were lucky enough to have Orazio Fantasia, Kyle Langford and Josh Green from the Essendon Football Club visit them on Monday. The focus of the players talk was to do with leadership and the qualities that leaders need. They also discussed goal setting and how they work towards achieving their personal goals. Question time was then given with our students asking a wide variety of questions about the players personal journeys to playing in the AFL, training and diet choices and their thoughts on various opponents! Many thanks to the Essendon Football Club for fitting St. Pat's into their busy schedules!

During PE classes last week, children were able to sign up to participate in the interschool sports athletics trials. These trials will commence next week as follows (subject to weather): Wednesday 20th - 9/10yo boys/girls - 100 metres Thursday 21st - all groups - hurdles Friday 22nd - Year 6 winter interschool sports day Wednesday 27th - 11/12yo boys/girls - 100 metres Thursday 28th - Girls - 200 metres Friday 29th - Boys - 200 metres We wish everyone luck and hope they enjoy their trials.

Last Thursday Martin Prior, our Wellbeing and Community Coach, led a family forum on Restorative Practices, which is a significant element of the school's overall behaviour management program. This forum has been recorded and we would invite all of our families to view it. https://youtu.be/3-NMjH3Uw6Y?list=PLiHFQ_h0cij0nDMizPFzAw6Wg5W-tbmcE

As a lead up to today's Bullying, No Way day, yesterday we had Constable Jane Marks from Seymour Police talking to families about cyber safety for children. A wide range of online issues were discussed and tips offered to help. Constable Marks will return to St Patrick's next week to speak to the senior students about the cyber safety as well. For those families that were not able to attend either of yesterday's two sessions, a video has been posted here of the first session and we encourage you to watch. https://youtu.be/VrgnqSzj-Ro?list=PLiHFQ_h0cij0nDMizPFzAw6Wg5W-tbmcE The booklet that was handed out to families can be found at https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-the-office/resource-centre/brochure-parents-guide-to-online-safety.

Last Thursday St Patrick's conducted a family forum on bullying. Led by Len Devlin, we presented a forum on bullying to our families. We talked about what bullying is as well as the participants - the bully, the victim and the bystander. We also talked about why bullying happens, what St Patrick's does in response to it and what we are doing in the future. We would ask that all families watch the video of this session, and look at the Positive Relationships/No Bullying Policy Statement which can be found on our policy page. We apologise for the delay in getting it to you but we had a few technical problems getting the lengthy (50 min) video to upload. We hope you find the information useful and as always, we encourage you to contact the school if you have any queries, concerns, feedback or need additional information. https://youtu.be/SKVShRbky2Y?list=PLiHFQ_h0cij0nDMizPFzAw6Wg5W-tbmcE

On Monday our French teacher, Alyce Strachan, along with her mentor Cath, from Catholic Education Melbourne, conducted an information session for our families on how the French language classes will look this year. For those that couldn't get to the session, we have videoed it and you can watch it on the video.

Well, St Pat's have done it again....for the 16th year running our fabulous students have brought home the District Swimming Shield! As our physical education teacher, Wendy McDonald, said to the students before they got off the bus, 'we've been winning this since before any of you were even born!' WOW! Thirty students from Years 3-6 competed at the Whittlesea Pool yesterday (Thursday 15 Feb) and aside from their swimming ability, their sportsmanship and behaviour were both standouts. Our students consistently cheered for students from other schools who were challenged with the distance, in some cases, we were the only ones cheering for students from other schools who were a lap behind the others. As Mrs McDonald said, "It was definitely one of those days were I can openly say how proud I was to be the teacher of such a great group of students." We don't have final numbers, but we'll possibly have 27 students attending the Division Carnival on March 5th. Many thanks to Mrs McDonald for all of her wonderful organising of these events. Many thanks to all of the Years 3-6 teachers who have already accommodated two days of interruptions to their programs. Thanks also to Miss Melville, Mrs Vorster, Mr Devlin and Mrs Roberts who have attended the trials and the carnival. We also had a huge number of parents and grandparents who came along to both the trials and carnival to assist and support our students. Attached is a clip of our students displaying sportsmanship to the highest "Let's go Wandong, let's go!"