Newsletter Thursday 31st October

We the staff of St Patrick’s acknowledge the traditional owners, the Kulin nations, of the land on which we learn and play.

We pay respects to the Aboriginal Elders, past and present, who are our teachers.

We thank them for taking care of children and country for countless generations.

Dear Parents, Carers and Guardians,

The Gospel of the Week tells us Jesus teaches an important lesson here. It's not how much you give that matters. It's how much you keep that matters; how much you have left over after you give, that you keep for yourself. The widow gave more because she gave sacrificially. From the words of our Lord spoken in praise of the poor widow, we learn that in our good works everything depends upon the intention. The widow had given more than all the rich; for she parted with her whole fortune. She intended to give all she had to God. This was an act of perfect love and sacrifice.

This week, St Patrick’s participated in their Athletics carnival. Students in years F-2 was held yesterday on our school grounds and today the Year 3-6s was held at the Pakenham Athletics Track in Henry Rd. There will be photos and other information about these 2 amazing events in next week’s newsletter.

A HUGE THANK YOU to Louise Breeden, our incredible Physical Education teacher, in getting both of these events organised! We were blessed with the weather both days and even though it was warm yesterday, the breeze and our new marquees meant that the students and staff were given some relief from the heat.

Thank you also to all my staff for their amazing efforts in keeping the students and settled and ensured they knew which activity they were going to.

The warm weather, combined with the wind and all the other joys that the season of Spring brings us, has meant a big increase in the rise of hay fever. In the last few weeks, we have had to send many students’ home that are suffering from watering eyes and runny noses. Please ensure that if your child suffers from hay fever, that you administer them with some hay fever tablet before coming to school to hopefully reduce the symptoms.

Next week, our Foundation and Year 1 students will begin their swimming lessons at Splashes. The students will have 10 lessons over the period of 2 weeks. We look forward to hearing about the fun times ahead.

God Bless

Meg

Year Level Camp/ Fun Day Dates:

TERM DATES 2024

2024 PUPIL FREE DAYS AND SCHOOL CLOSURE DAYS:

The 4 Pupil Free days ensure that we can manage our commitment for all staff to continue to provide activities such as school camps for our students.
Please note, these dates are separate from our 8 Staff Professional Development days. Those 8 days are for our staff professional learning which will focus on Religious Education, Learning and Teaching and Student Wellbeing.

Yesterday our Junior school had thier Athletics Carnival. A proper write up is coming next week but here are a few photos from the day !

Congratulations to ALL the St Patrick’s students who represented our school and the Southern Metro Regional Athletics Carnival. What a thrill to compete in such a high standard event!

All students competed well, coming away with the following results:

• Owen 6JP - 1500m - 11th out of 16 competitors

• Thon 5RM - High Jump - 11th out of 16 competitors

• 11 year old girls relay team - Isabella 6BC, Healey 6BC, Grace 6RS & Alek 6JP - 6th out of 16 teams

Students all improved on past individual personal bests or team times. 

Thank you to parents/guardians who took time out of their schedules to come and support the whole team throughout the day. All students were an excellent representation of our school values of Respect, Safety, Cooperation, Resilience and Courage. 

Stay Active!

Louise Breeden

Have you logged into your PAM account yet! 

We use PAM as our main form of communication.  All emails, Student Attendance, Sick Bay notes, School Reports, commonly used forms, excursion/camp permission notes and Family Learning conversations, will all be communicated via PAM.  

Access PAM via this link   Link to PAM 

PAM - Parent Access Module

PAM (Parent Access Module) is our Parent to School communication platform.   PAM will provide real time access to keep parents updated with their children’s progress, important dates and messages. Relevant resources – calendar events, student reports, parent notified absences, absence data and sick bay notes will all be accessed via PAM.

Parents will be able to easily book Parent Teacher interviews through PAM, and access teacher email addresses. 

PAM accounts are linked via your email address that we have in our systems. 

If you have recently changed your email,  please call or email us on office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

Click on the 'forget password' link to set your password and then verify your email address.  (Email addresses must be verified for PAM to work properly).  Once your email is verified, your email can be used as the username for your account.

Once you have successfully logged in, you can save PAM to your homescreen on your device.

If you have any issues or need help with PAM please contact the school via email, office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

PAM Instructions

Parent Notified Absences via PAM

Once you have PAM set up and saved to your home screen you can easily send in Parent Notified absences.   Please use this platform going forward as this automatically syncs with the class roll.   This will fix the issues of receiving SMS notifications even though you had already notified the school. 

Please remember to update your contact details and any relevant medical details for your child.  

Most medical profiles have now been updated. Please remember to keep them up to date and upload any asthma/allergy plans that may be relevant.

To update any contact details please contact the school office. 

SiMON Everywhere is an app our school uses to acces PAM and CDF Pay. We will be sending reminders through this app, as such please download and sign in. There is a guide below for your reference. If you are having any issues please contact Alex Taylor in the school office ataylor@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

I am asking please that all students, in particular our Senior school, to be wearing our proper School Uniform this final term. It is important that we still maintain a high standard of uniform and not use Term 4 as an excuse to become complacent about what we wear to school.

I will continue to ask all students to be wearing proper school shoes and uniform right up until the end of the year. I understand that students are growing constantly, however they will continue to grow for many more years and so I cannot always accept this as an excuse. We must remember that many students are adhering to the correct standards of school uniform and therefore, it is important that the students and their families please respect this. Secondary schools do not accept poor uniform standards.

If finance is a concern when it comes to uniform, please speak to your classroom teacher. St Patrick’s has a very good second-hand uniform shop that you can top up your child’s uniform with. It is a third of the price you would pay at the normal uniform shop, and the money goes straight back to the school.