ST PAUL'S PRIMARY SCHOOL

Eternal Father,

Your Son has promised that you would grant all the graces we ask of you in his name.

Trusting in this promise and in the name of Jesus Christ,

we ask for wisdom to know ourselves more deeply, follow you more closely

and love you more truly.

Amen

It’s hard to believe it’s Week 5 already! The year is well and truly underway with lots of rich learning happening across the school.

Life seems to get busier and busier and it’s too easy to let time pass and not take time for the important things. I know for my family, by the time we’ve got through the busyness of work, other commitments and various out of school hours activities with my daughter, there’s not a lot of time left! This year at St Paul’s, one of our areas of focus is wellbeing. Last week, our staff had our second session with our CEWA wellbeing consultant and did some work around character strengths and spotting these in others. In the area of wellbeing, the clear message is that we need to start with our own wellbeing so we can then work with our students in this area. More information will come out about our work in this space as the year goes on.

On Tuesday evening last week, we had the first meeting about Sacraments for the year and on the weekend, we had the commitment Masses. Father Tim gave an important challenge about what it truly means to be Catholic and to not let this be a 'watered down' version. Being a good Catholic takes discipline. We are always called to change, grow and convert to be the best we can be. Let's take on the challenge and teach our children through our example.

As previously communicated, it is very important that students are not dropped off at school prior to 8:15am as this is when supervision starts. I understand this can be difficult for some families, however, student safety has to be our priority. As our build gets underway, builders will be accessing the site with trucks before school at various points so we cannot have students onsite while this is happening. I have informed the builders about days when before school soccer happens and they will avoid this time. I appreciate your support and vigilance with this.

On Sunday 12 March at 9:00am, we have our first School Parish Mass for the year. Our Year 5 and 6 classes are involved in preparing the Mass and will be putting on morning tea in the Barbier Hall after Mass. The whole school is encouraged to come along. I challenge everyone to make the time to come along and be part of our parish and Catholic community in this way.

The Season of Lent began last week and our Pre-Primary to Year 6 classes all attended Ash Wednesday Mass and received the ashes. I encourage you to continue the conversation about Lent and our call to prayer, fasting and almsgiving throughout this important season in the church’s calendar.

Our build has begun! It was very exciting for our community this morning to have our builders onsite to install the fence around the first portion of the build. I sent an update out last week about what was happening, so please take the time to read it. The next couple of days will mainly be electricians and plumbers and they expect to start removing the roof on Wednesday. I am confident any disruption because of the build will be worth the benefit in the end!

I spoke to the school community at our assembly last week about the grass area as I have had further conversations with the City of Stirling. They are monitoring the progress of the grass and addressing a small section that doesn’t seem to be growing as well. They will keep an eye on it and have informed me it is likely to be another 2-3 weeks before the grass will be ready for the barrier to be removed. I am very grateful to our groundsman, Steve, for his work with mowing and keeping an eye on the grass, as well as our staff who have volunteered to do extra duties to be able to take our Year 3-6 students down the park each week.

I also spoke to the students about our uniform at the assembly last week. Please make sure your child is in the correct uniform each day. Mondays and Fridays are sport uniform days. Our staff have also had to talk with several students about jewellery, nails and hair recently. We would appreciate your support in making sure students are familiar with and following the school requirements in this area.

Don’t forget Friday this week is a student free day and Monday is a public holiday. Please also note that Tuesday 28 March has been allocated for parent teacher interviews and, as usual, school will finish at 12:30pm on this day so that we can commence interviews at 1:00pm.

This week on Friday, our staff will be involved in a professional learning event on problem solving in Mathematics, which is a focus for St Paul’s this year.

Our Year 4 to 6 students have been involved in the process of selecting our 2023 Sports Captains, House Prefects and Deputy House Prefects over the last few weeks. Sports Captains and House Prefects come from Year 6 and Deputy House Prefects from Year 5. Students who wished to go for these positions wrote a speech and delivered it to our Year 4-6 students who then voted for their preferred candidate. The successful candidates were presented with their badges at our assembly on Friday.

I also met with our Year 6 students last week to discuss what they want for the school this year and things that they would like to see happening. We also generated some ideas to define the various leadership roles that they will be involved in this year. There was some great discussion and energy amongst the group and we look forward to what we can achieve this year!

We are currently in the process of collating enrolments for 2024 and will be interviewing next term. If you have a child (or know someone with a child) who is wanting to be enrolled at St Paul's next year, applications need to be in as soon as possible.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Regards,

Pete Merry

Principal

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Email: admin@stpaulsmtl.wa.edu.au
Website: https://stpaulsmtl.wa.edu.au/
Location: 7 Learoyd Street, Mount Lawley WA, Australia
Phone: (08) 9462 6000
Facebook: facebook.com/stpaulsmtl