St Bernard’s Primary School - Batemans Bay eNewsletter

Dear Parents and Friends,

As we approach the end of Term 4, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the wonderful journey we’ve had together this academic year. Our students have shown remarkable commitment and passion for learning, which continues to inspire us all. I would like to commend each student, teacher, and parent for their contributions to making this term such a success.

Annual Improvement Plan
Our data continues to show positive growth in English and Mathematics across various year levels. At St Bernard’s, our students remain at the heart of every decision we make, and our ongoing focus is on Explicit Teaching and improving student outcomes.

Our Annual Improvement Plan for this year includes three key goals:

Goal 1: To improve student achievement in Reading.
Goal 2: To improve student achievement in Numeracy.
Goal 3: To improve student achievement through the implementation of a new Scope and Sequence for Religious Education.

The information we gather from parent, staff, and student surveys, along with assessment data, helps to shape our direction and informs our goals for future growth. We will continue to update you on our progress throughout next year.

CONGRATULATIONS!
Senior and emerging leaders from across the Archdiocese have been invited to take part in a Pilgrimage to Rome next year for the Jubilee Year. I am excited to announce that Ms Jeni McCarthy has been selected to be a part of this incredible experience.

Student Leadership 2025
As you may be aware, our Year 5 students are beginning preparations for their speeches for the Student Representative Council (2 School Captains and 4 leadership team members) and House Captain (2 leaders per House) roles. These speeches are scheduled for Monday, 9 December.

SRC Speeches will take place at 9:00am in the Hall.
House Captain Speeches will occur at 11:15am in classrooms.

This year, we are adjusting the process for announcing our 2025 leadership team. On Thursday, 12 December, students who have nominated for a position on the Student Representative Council or as a House Captain, will meet with Mrs Hadley, Mrs Coggan, and myself to discuss their speeches. During this meeting, students will be informed if they have been successful in securing a leadership role. However, the specific positions each student will hold will not be disclosed at that time. Instead, these will be revealed at the Candle Ceremony on Friday, 13 December, at 1:45pm.

If a Year 5 student is selected for a 2025 leadership role, parents will receive a phone call by Wednesday, 11 December. We recognise that this can be an emotional process for our students, and we are committed to supporting them every step of the way.

Talent Quest
Next week our Student Representative Council (SRC), with the help of Mrs Smith, have organised auditions for our St Bernard’s End of Year Talent Quest. Students from all year levels are invited to audition and showcase their talents. Auditions will be held in Week 8 during Lunchtime from 12.45 for any students who would like to participate.

Kindergarten - Yr 2: Tuesday 3 December
Years 3-6: Thursday 5 December

The Talent Quest will be held on Tuesday 17 December at 9:00am in the Hall. Parents are warmly invited to attend and enjoy the performance!

Book Fair
A huge thank you to all the children, parents, and staff for your support of this year’s Book Fair. It has been a fantastic success, with many books purchased for the children to enjoy. A special thank you to Theresa Hopman for her exceptional organisation and the many extra hours of preparation she put in to make this event possible. All funds raised will go towards purchasing new resources for our iCentre.

Whole School Mass and Year 6 Graduation Awards Presentation: Thursday 12 December, 9:15am – St Bernard’s Church
All students will attend our end-of-year Mass to celebrate the 2024 school year. After Mass, Year 5 and 6 students will remain in the church for the Awards Presentation. Families and friends are warmly invited to join us for the Mass and presentation. Morning tea will be served afterwards. Younger siblings who would like to stay for the awards ceremony are welcome to sit with their families.

Year 5 & 6 Candle Ceremony / Announcement of 2025 School Leaders: Friday 13 December, 1:45pm – St Bernard’s Church
All students from Kindergarten to Year 6 will gather in the church for this significant event, where our Year 6 students pass on their leadership to the new leaders of St Bernard’s for 2025. The ceremony includes the Candle Ceremony, and the announcement of School Captains, SRC, and House Captains. Families are welcome to join us for this meaningful occasion.

Student Attendance Term Dates 2025

Term 1: 4 February to 10 April
Term 2: 29 April to 3 July
Term 3: 22 July to 25 September
Term 4: 14 October to 18 December

We are currently in a busy period as we plan end-of-year functions, begin staffing processes for our 2025 team, and work on numerous projects to ensure the best possible outcomes for next year.

I pray blessings upon your family this week as we approach the end of a wonderful year together.

Kind regards

Johanna Wain
Principal

LET US SPEND SOME TIME

WITH TWO EXPECTANT MOTHERS

We humans can’t help ourselves. We like to break our lives, indeed our daily lives, into periods of time. Even the author of Genesis broke God’s work of Creation into seven days! Not very scientific but certainly very dramatic.

So it is not surprising that the Catholic Church in its Liturgy of the Word has broken the books of the Bible into a cycle of three years A, B & C. The Sunday Gospel readings for Year A are drawn mainly from Matthew; Year B, Mark; and Year C, Luke. John is used to fill in any gaps or to highlight some theological point. This means that over the three year cycle we have heard and/or read at Sunday Mass most of the Christian scriptures.

The Church has another practice to keep the story of God’s interaction with humanity an integral part of our lives – Festive Seasons like Easter and Christmas.

The Church encourages us to prepare for those two Feasts with 4-6 weeks set aside for prayer, penance and helping the poor (Almsgiving), namely Advent and Lent.

With regard to the Advent preparation I like to go back in time to an event that rivals Creation in its cosmic influence. I refer to the Annunciation or, as I prefer to call it, Mary conceives Jesus (through the power of the Holy Spirit).

On that day, the Church commemorates the most mysterious and solemn event in the history of humanity and the universe. God the Son, whom neither Time nor Space can encompass, enters into the world He, as the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, created. He becomes man in the virginal womb of a teenage girl, Mary by name, betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter, in the obscure city of Nazareth in Galilee. Not the sort of beginning for a future Messiah the people of Israel for centuries had hoped for!!

At the same time Mary learns that her aged cousin Elizabeth in Judea is miraculously pregnant. Right after this Mary makes a 140 kilometre journey to visit Elizabeth. The evangelist Luke (1. 43) tells us that when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby lept in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaims that Mary and her unborn child are blessed and that Elizabeth herself is favoured by the visit of the mother of her Lord. Mary stays with her cousin for three months until Elizabeth’s baby is born. Later he is to be named John the Baptist, the precursor of his second cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, True God and True Man.

I love the spontaneity of the two female characters linked by divine power in the first three months of Mary’s pregnancy. It reminds me of my young Aunt Barbara, pregnant with her first child, coming to visit my mother, also pregnant, on a regular basis to discuss mother-to-be issues over a cup of tea and scones. Definitely sacred women’s business!

Let us resolve over this Advent to share with Mary and Joseph through prayer and meditation, the last month of Mary’s pregnancy. Let us admire their obedience to the Will of God and their humility in carrying out their civic duty under Roman rule.

May they be an example to us all as we pray on daily basis for knowledge of God’s Will for us and the power to carry that out.

Amen

Joe Quigley

Dear Parents and Carers,

The children have had such a lovely time at the pool this week. It has been wonderful seeing them make such progress in their water confidence and skills leading up to the summer season. My thanks to Mrs Holmes for her excellent organisation of this event and the teachers who have supported from the pool deck or jumped into the pool to support individual swimmers. The instructors at the pool have been amazing in their dedication to the program. Thank you so much everyone.

A special season of the church begins on the weekend. It is called Advent. Advent provides us with the opportunity to slow down, to reflect, to take the time to prepare our hearts for Jesus once again. It is time to think about how we may truly receive Jesus, God-with-us (Emmanuel) this Christmas. Advent is a wonderful time for us all to live the gifts of waiting, patience, anticipation, and hope.

The liturgical colour for Advent is purple. The colour purple is the colour of kings and queens and reminds us of the importance of Jesus’ birth.

We will use The Advent Wreath during our preparation time at school. The Advent Wreath is a circle of greenery that symbolises God’s never-ending love for us. Each week as we light a candle the light grows stronger; we grow stronger too in our reverence for and commitment to Christ. The growing light helps us recognise Christ not only in the historical event we celebrate at Christmas, but in our daily lives and in the hope, we carry as we prepare to welcome Jesus into our hearts.

The First Purple Candle is called the ‘Hope Candle’ or ‘The Prophet's Candle’. It reminds us of the prophets, especially Isaiah who reminded the people to always live in hope for the coming of Jesus. I have attached a link to an Andrew Chinn song that you might play as you light your Hope Candle at home. https:/wwwwyoutubeecomm/watch?v=A43QdNMBK14

St Bernard's students in Years 2,3 and 4 participated in the Meals on Wheels Christmas Card Giving Project. Each child designed a Christmas Card and wrote a special Christmas message. Each card will be passed on to a Meals on Wheels recipient so they experience and receive the love and joy of giving at Christmas time. Thank you to the teachers and students for spreading the Christmas joy and supporting those in need in our community.

Maranatha Christmas Fair

Maranatha are hosting a fundraising Christmas Fair on the grounds on Saturday 7th December from 10 am to 3 pm.

There will be fun activities including face painting, various gift, plant, clothing and bake stalls, sausage sizzle, Devonshire teas, ice creams, lots of raffle prizes

There will be a competition where the children can enter a colouring competition where they could win a Jet Flight Simulator experience in Canberra (for the older children) and other prizes for the younger ones.

Warm regards

Jenny Smith

Dear Parents and Carers

I hope that the past fortnight has gone well for you. School life is certainly busy at the moment with staff and students finalising the year together and preparing for 2025. We are about to enter the Church Season of Advent, a time of waiting and preparation for the birth of Jesus at Christmas time. Many of us are putting up our Christmas Trees and embracing this time which is traditionally a very joyful time of year.

Next Friday will be an opportunity to celebrate and farewell Jo Wain as well as Rebecca Brady at an Assembly led by the students of Year 3 at 8.45am. We hope that our parent community can be there for this event and the morning tea to follow. Please RSVP your attendance to assist with our catering.

Otitis Media Checks

This Friday and next Thursday, 5 December, Katungul Aboriginal Corporation Regional Health and Community Service will visit our school providing a hearing check service for Aboriginal students. They will be screening for Otitis Media which is an ear infection that affects the middle ear and can impact hearing. Aboriginal students are more likely to develop this condition. A consent form has been sent home for families. Please also note further in this newsletter information about free Health Checks as well as an offer of vouchers.

Kinder Orientation

Our second Kindergarten Orientation morning was held last Friday. The children had a lovely morning with their new friends at big school. The students have now met their teachers, Mrs Sarah Davis, Mrs Therese Armstrong and Mrs Bree Rosenbaum, as well as the support staff who will work with the children next year in Kindergarten.

First Aid in Schools

Bob Colville from St John's Ambulance will be in the school next Monday 2 and Tuesday 3 December to deliver the First Aid in Schools program for students in Years 3-6. The First Aid in Schools Program is a free program that teaches primary school children lifesaving skills to give them the confidence to act in an emergency. The program is delivered via a 60 minute face-to-face session run by St John Ambulance Educators. We are very grateful to Bob for making himself available to offer this important training.

da Vinci Decathlon- Enrichment 2025

Our school is committed to enriching the learning of all students. As an addition to our current extra-curricular programs, the school will again be entering the da Vinci Decathlon competition, supported by Mrs Rebecca Keough.

The da Vinci Decathlon is an academic competition designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. It is a program that caters for highly able and gifted students across different disciplines. During the competition students will use their skills with others and present their new ideas within a set time. The topic for 2025 is Sustainability.

Teams consist of eight students who compete across 10 disciplines: engineering, mathematics and chess, code breaking, art and poetry, science, english, ideation, creative producers, cartography and legacy (knowledge about da Vinci and all his legacies).

This is very much a team challenge and not an individual pursuit. Our school’s aim will be to select students who are able to complement each other in the various disciplines, and work as part of a team. Students from Years 4 and Year 5 will be invited to try out for the 2025 school team in Week 10 of this term. Mrs Keough will speak to the students next week to explain this opportunity.

The competition will be held in Canberra Wednesday 30 April 2025. Expressions of interest

Further information about the competition can be found here: https://www.davincidecathlon.com/davinci/about/

If you feel that your child may be suitable for this competition, please encourage them to attend the information session. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via email: rebecca.keough@cg.catholic.edu.au

Year 6 Orientation

Tomorrow, Friday 29 November, Carroll College are holding their Orientation for Year 6 students. We know that the students attending are very much looking forward to the day. It is sure to be a fun introduction to life at Carroll and a great opportunity to meet new friends.

I hope that you have a lovely weekend. Looking forward to seeing you at the Year 3 Assembly next Friday for the farewell morning tea if you are able to be there.

Warm regards

Karen

Katungal Health Checks.pdf

Katungal Health Checks _pdf 128.65 KB

St Bernard’s has had a very busy Term 4 with the amazing preparation and performance of the Moana Musical. A huge congratulations to all students, staff and parents. It was a big team effort, by all of the St Bernard’s community.

It was an incredible display of dedication, talent and school spirit. For those of you that attended, I'm sure you would agree the students were brilliant!

Since the musical, the students have been diving into the world of Music. All grades have begun learning about music notation and learning various songs on the xylophone. The students have had a lot of fun with this and will have a chance to create their own tunes in coming weeks.

National Athletics Championships

For the next four days, Beatrix F will compete at the Australian Athletics Championships in Sydney. She will compete in the Combined Event, which is similar to the Decathlon at the Olympics. Beatrix will compete in 100m, 800m, long jump and shot put and placings will be awarded from a combination of all the events. Congratulations on such a wonderful achievement, we hope you have fun and know St Bernard’s is very proud.

MacKillop Cricket Championships

On Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 November, Quinn S and Georgina W attended the MacKillop Cricket Championships in Wagga. They played for the Canberra Goulburn team against the best cricketers in all of our NSW Catholic schools. Quinn and Georgina both said it was an amazing experience.

Quinn narrowly missed selection in the team to play at the State championships and has been asked to play again next year as he was only in Year 4- a wonderful commendation. Georgina was selected to play in the MacKillop Girls Cricket team at the NSWPSSA Championships over a week next February. The coaches and selectors were very impressed with her skills with bat, ball and in the field. Congratulations Georgina, we wish you well.

Representative Sport 2025

There are lots of opportunities for students to compete at Representative level in a variety of sports including soccer, rugby league, netball, tennis, cricket, AFL, hockey, and golf to name a few. If your child would like to compete in any of these teams, further details can be found at https://www.sport.cg.catholic.edu.au/nominations

Dates for these competitions have been added to our St Bernard’s School calendar, which can be found online at https://stbernardsbb.schoolzineplus.com/calendar

Swimming Program

Our Whole School Swimming program has been a wonderful success. Thank you to all our families for your commitment to helping the students achieve such success, it is a lot of extra organisation but we are seeing the benefits each day. Students have progressed so much that all groups are now completing skills above the level where they started the week. We are so proud of their enthusiasm and willingness to improve.

Angela Holmes

St Bernard’s Breakfast Club

Week 9 of Term 4

Wednesday 11 December 2024

will be the last gathering for Breakfast Club this year.

Please bring a gold coin donation.