Dear Parents & Friends,

I am very mindful that we are only just over a week away from our Listening Assembly.  This will be a significant event in the life of our school where I seek to receive input from the parent community about those things  you regard as very important and we already do, and those new ideas that you would like us to consider.

We will begin with drinks and finger food to socially connect with each other before we move into the hall for the process, which I am hoping will take about an hour for us to work through.  The information we collect from this experience identifies well for our community those aspects that are really important, both what we currently have in place and potentially what we could also add to make our great school an even better one.

The process is not about creating a public forum that gives individuals the opportunity to publicly articulate what isn’t right. It is an opportunity to celebrate who we are as a parish school community and to make our great school even better.  This is an opportunity for you, the parents, to be actively involved in creating our story and journeying with the staff and students together. That is what makes me excited!

In the future it would also be my wish that as we look back on our journey together, we will be able to see aspects of our work tangibly linked directly back to this event.  An event that helped shape the future direction of the school over the next three years where the collective good of all was at the centre of the Listening Assembly.

Go gently,

Michael Reardon
Principal

KINDERGARTEN 2020 
Applications for Kindergarten 2020 are now available for collection from the school office. 

Pre-schoolers on the playground
St Paul’s welcomes parents and preschoolers each day before and after school. It is important for the safety of all, that preschoolers are supervised by parents on the playground. Please be mindful of where your preschooler is, what he or she might be climbing on and the area where he or she might be playing as it may be a very active (running) zone for the St Paul’s students.

2019 SCHOOL FEES
Payments can be made in full or part using the following methods : Bpay, Eftpos, cash, cheques or credit card.  If you are having difficulty paying your school fees, we ask that you do not ignore your fee statement and make contact with Mr Reardon by email info@dow.catholic.edu.au

Excursion Levy
Kindergarten will go on their excursion to Mount Annan Botanical Gardens on Friday, 29 March 2019. Please ensure that your child’s $50.00 Excursion Levy has been paid in full before this day to avoid disappointment.  Reminder letters are being sent home today to all Kindergarten families still owing this levy. Please note that any levy paid via Bpay takes 2 working days to appear on the school accounts.

YEAR 6 T-SHIRTS
Parents, the Year 6 T-Shirts have arrived and the school commenced handing these out last Friday to all students who had paid the $20.00 Year 6 t-shirt levy in full. Reminder letters were sent home last Monday, 11 March 2019  to students who are yet to pay this levy and again on Friday. Once your child’s Year 6 T’shirt Levy is paid they will be handed their T-shirt.  Please note that any levy paid via Bpay takes 2 working days to appear on the school accounts.

This evening at 6:30pm, St Paul’s will be hosting a presentation by Mr David Emery – Operations Manager, ICLT Diocese of Wollongong, in the school hall. At this event Mr David Emery will speak and share practical skills about how to best manage your child’s device at home.

We encourage at least one parent from each family attends the evening. You will be required to bring your child’s iPad and know their password to unlock their device.

When: Tuesday, 19 March 2019

Time: 6:30 – 7:30pm

Location: School hall

Bring: Your child’s iPad and their password to unlock the device

We live in a competitive society and sometimes we get carried away with wanting to win. In life we always want to achieve and succeed - we want to be better than what we are, to beat the other person in a race, or to get the position that someone else does. Our children feel these emotions too, however they feel them at a heightened rate.

Parents need to understand that coming first is always a sign of succes. The effort and practice to get there is often unrecognised.

It is also important for us to keep in mind that, from the point of view of child development, the philosophy of Vince Lombardi (“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”) is profoundly wrong and teaches exactly the wrong lesson.

It is much more than winning that makes competition an important socialising experience. Children should learn the importance of teamwork and cooperation, of commitment to others and respect for our opponents, and especially, learning to play by the rules. Although they may sometimes seem arbitrary to children, rules are there for a reason. We need to demonstrate these reasons to our children.

Children don’t have the emotional intelligence to deal with losing and not winning. It is up to us as adults to teach them how to be a good loser.

At St Paul’s we have created a poster which children will be educated in how to be a good winner and how to be a good loser.

We want to work in partnership with the parents in educating the students about how to work with their emotions and to teach them skills about how to be a better sport.

We need to praise children on their efforts, to model good sportsmanship and behaviours, to help them understand their feelings and how to deal with their anger, to let them know that it’s ok to lose a game and not always win, to ignore their behaviours and to practice being a graceful winner.

This will take time. The neural pathways will be formed for children through practice. The knowledge of this will come from understanding and this understanding will only occur if we work together and model positivity towards procedures.

Through SPB4L, we model, practice and explicitly teach and revisit what we expect of the children. Therefore, over the next two weeks we are asking parents to work in partnership with the teachers and to work together in making our students good winners and good losers - therefore gracious in defeat.

Thank you for joining our Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong (CEDoW) schools across the Illawarra, Macarthur, Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands, and Catholic school communities across NSW, in celebrating Catholic Schools Week for 2019. It's been a wonderful week of open days, activities, masses, liturgies and other special events - including the Diocesan Education Mass, which was a significant highlight of CSW. Read more about the Mass and listen to Director of Schools, Peter Turner's speech here.

Catholic Schools Week has showcased some of the fantastic things happening in our schools every day, and has very much highlighted our local Catholic schools - including yours! - as vibrant places of learning, faith, hope and opportunity. Thank you for your involvement.

We'd like to share with you our small Catholic Schools Week video that has been promoted throughout last week. Can you spot the students from your school in this video?