Dear Parents and Carers,

Last week, we enjoyed welcoming the 2025 Kindergarten cohort for their first transition visit to St James’. It was wonderful to meet some new faces and welcome back existing parents and their children. A huge thankyou to Kindergarten 2024 for their presentation and to all the staff involved in making the day such a great success. We look forward to our next transition days commencing Term 4.

Next Monday we will hold our monthly P&F meeting in the Parish Hall at 7pm. Thank you to the P&F for your recent donations. The students are enjoying using the equipment and new books. Much appreciation to our generous community for supporting our events.  

Rehearsals for our upcoming Grandparents’ Day are well underway. We are looking forward to a wonderful liturgical celebration, dancing and acting prepared by Mrs Carr. Well done to the students who are working so hard to learn lines, words to songs and dance steps. Great teamwork everyone!

Thank you to the families who responded to the Tell Them From Me Survey last term. The results have been very affirming of the great school we have at St James’. As always, there are always areas that can be improved upon. Suggestions and feedback assist the executive and staff in planning for goals for the year ahead.  

Did you know that the first Fathers’ Day was 114 years ago? Fathers’ Day as we know it, started in 1910 as a result of the efforts of a young American girl who wanted to recognise fathers, inspired by her own father who was a single Dad with six children. Since then Fathers’ Day is celebrated in many countries but not all on the first Sunday in September as it is here in Australia. While Fathers’ Day is a celebration of fatherhood, it’s a time for us to honour, celebrate and to be thankful for all of the men, father figures and male role models in our lives… including our uncles, grandfathers, Godfathers, and even our male teachers. We recognise the very important role you have in the lives of children. Thank you to the Year 1 teachers and student's for leading the liturgy. Much appreciation to our P & F for organising a successful Father's Day Stall and BBQ. 

Thank you to all the dads in our school community. The children love you and are so proud of you. I hope you have a great day on Sunday.

Best wishes,

This Sunday’s gospel is from  Mark

^“Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders, and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash, and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

“You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

 

In this Gospel reading, the religious leaders criticize Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before eating.  This is clearly about more than just a concern for their hygiene.  For the Pharisees, this is about tradition, faithfulness, respect and honour.  The ritual washing was a whole routine that was about spiritual and ceremonial cleanliness…something that’s hard to draw a parallel to today.  Washing hands was about being presentable before God.  And the commitment to the ritual came from a deep desire to be faithful to God and respectful of the cultural and religious tradition of honouring the faith and the elders.

Religious Literacy in Year 1

This Term Year 1 are leaning about “Belonging to a Christian Family". Through this module the students will explore how they are part of a bigger family in the Church, building connections that contribute to their sense of identity and belonging and an understanding of why and how they are part of the body of Christ.  The module also introduces students to Baptism as the sacrament of initiation into the People of God. By the end of this module each child should be able to demonstrate the following Religious Literacy Components:

RELIGIOUS LITERACY COMPONENTS

Identify ways that the Church is one body in Christ.

Recall the scripture about one body in Christ.

Identify the purpose of Christian Baptism.

Recognise images of Baptism.

Identify the symbols of Baptism.

Explain the meaning of various symbols used in Baptism.

Describe the ritual actions that take place during a Baptism.

Identifying the saints as role models.

Throughout the term you might like to talk to your child about what they are learning about belonging to a Christian family. A good way to start is to ask them what they talked about in Religion today/this week, remembering that these components will be part of the learning throughout the whole term.

Term 3 Liturgies and Celebrations

Friday Parish Mass:

Week 7: 6^th September-Year 3

Week 8: 13^th September-Year 6

Week 10: 27^th September-Year 5 and Year 1

We would love to have you join us..

First Eucharist Masses:

Saturday 14^th September

Saturday 21^st September

Grandparents Day: Friday 20^th September

Liturgy 12:00pm

Confirmation

Congratulations to the following students who had the Sacrament of Confirmation conferred upon them by Bishop Michael Kennedy on Thursday 22nd August: Xia, Patrick, Rafael, Sophia, Leo D, Emmanuel, Oriana, Anna, Hailey, Ollie, Zeke, Ava, Electra, Harrison, Suni, Darcy, Thomas L, Claire, Will, Hannah, Lincoln, Cooper M, Audra, Mannix, Thomas R, Darcey, Priya, Harlan, Cooper S, Harriet, Joshua, Kathleen, Ruby, Leo W, Miles, Drew, Abigail and Madeleine.

Bishop Michael was most impressed by the participation and reverence of the congregation during the ceremony and the sense of community that was evident in the hospitality afterwards.

Sacramental Program

The Parish Sacramental Program will continue this week with preparation for the Sacrament of Eucharist.

Face to face lesson will be held next Monday and Tuesday. Please remember that you need to attend one lesson to be eligible to receive the sacrament. Please pray for our children who are preparing to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.

Mrs Patricia Miller
Religious Coordinator

Mrs Debra Petersen
 Assistant Principal

Throughout Term 3 we are focusing on the Resilient pillar of our PBL matrix. We are resilient when we recover quickly form challenges and tricky situations.

Throughout weeks 7 & 8 we will be exploring the expectation  of “Celebrate others”. We all know how important acknowledge and celebrate the success of others, whether it is our classmates, teammates in sport or our own family members.

When we celebrate others, we give ourselves opportunities to grow and learn. We can show this action through:

• being positive and saying “great job” to others
• joining in when the community applauds a success
• giving others smile and a thumbs up on a job well done.

NSWPSSA Netball Championships 

In Week 4, I went to the NSWPSSA Netball Championships. I was in the Polding team. The tournament went over 3 days and we played a total of 13 games. On the last day, the NSW State Netball team was announced as well as the winner of the tournament. My team came overall second out of the 13 other teams. It was a great experience, and I had a lot of fun playing with my team and representing my school and region.  

Addi, Year 6 

 

Gymnastics K-2 

Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 students will be participating in Gymnastics in Weeks 7,8 and 9 on Monday starting next week. We kindly request that students come to school wearing their sports uniform on Monday and Friday for these weeks. 

Mrs Tegan Fry & Miss Renee Pettet
Sports Organisers

There has been Food Safety Changes for all school canteens. If you are a volunteer in the school canteen, can you please follow the below link to ensure compliance of the new NSW Government Food Authority Standard 3.2.2A.

https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/retail/school-canteens

Playgroup

Year 3 have been enjoying sport together the last two weeks. The children have been having lots of fun participating in a range of circuit activities.

Thank you to our parents for the support and value that you place on your child being at school each day. Regular school attendance plays a critical role in ensuring that every student has access to the same learning opportunities. When students are not at school, are late to school or leave school early, they are missing out on so much that can impact on their future learning.

The following Attendance Guidelines are based on current legislative requirements, research on attendance and best practice.

✔ Attendance affects a child’s academic achievement and their overall wellbeing.

✔ There is NO safe threshold of absence – everyday counts.

✔ School attendance patterns are established early in a child’s schooling

 ✔ The effects of school absenteeism accumulate over time and affect children’s development now and into the future.

✔ Daily punctuality is important. The early part of each day is critical. Important learning is scheduled during this time when children are rested and receptive. Key concepts are built up in the time.

✔ Sporadic absences can affect academic achievement as much as absences over consecutive days.

✔ We ALL need to work together with our children’s best interest in mind to ensure that students are at school every day that they are well enough to attend.

Compass Unexplained Absences

Unexplained absences are required to be explained within 7 days of the absence on Compass. A weekly email will be sent to parents to alert of any unexplained absences that can be updated on Compass. Please note that if the absence is longer than 7 days, the absence is then unable to be explained by parents or school.

Complaints and Grievances

It is great to see the sun shining and warmer weather predicted over the coming weeks. Therefore, to accommodate this change, students are welcome to transition from the Winter school uniform to the Summer school uniform. Parents may make the decision daily depending on the forecast.

The official change over date for all students to be wearing our full school Summer uniform will be Week 10, Monday the 23rd September. 

The first week of Term 4 will be PUPIL FREE on MONDAY OCTOBER 14. Staff will be working with CSO Education Officers on improving our PBL Framework ready to launch in 2025.

There is a large amount of lost property at the moment. There are many jackets, drink bottles and containers without names that are waiting for their owners to collect them. The Lost Property box is on the Year 6 Veranda. Please encourage children to have a look for their missing items.

If you have any 2nd hand St James school uniforms at home you no longer require, donations are welcome to the Front Office please. We can add them to our 2nd Hand Uniform pool for sale to other families. Thank you.