17 March 2021

Dear Friends of St Paul’s,

This week around Australia we are celebrating Harmony Week.

From an official Australian Government website.

“Harmony Day is observed annually on 21 March in Australia. Harmony Day is intended to celebrate the cohesive and inclusive nature of Australia and promote a tolerant and culturally diverse society. Initially celebrated in 1999, Harmony Day coincides with the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which was established in 1966 with the aim of eradicating racism and racially fuelled hate crime.

The continuing message of Harmony Day is 'Everybody Belongs' and its annual observance aims to encourage inclusiveness, respect and belonging for all Australians, regardless of cultural background, and celebrate core Australian values.”

An interesting statistic is that almost half of all Australians were either born overseas themselves or have a parent who was. At St Paul’s we would have an even greater percentage. Harmony Day is a celebration that we warmly embrace here at St Paul’s, primarily because, for us, it is formal recognition of what we do – day in and day out!

Our four core school values; Faith, Relationships, Excellence and Diversity, clearly articulate our passion for being known as, and living daily, a school grounded in diversity and inclusivity. Our College theme for 2021 “Valuing Diversity” has been specifically chosen to not only recognise cultural diversity, but every single different form of diversity, from gender, to culture, to religion, to academic or sporting ability, to interests, to family structures etc and to celebrate them all.

As a College we want no more than to provide every member of this awesome community the opportunity to maximise their God-given potential and living in harmony is paramount to the success of that vision.

Sacrament of Reconciliation

On Tuesday 11 March our Primary students and 6 of our Secondary students celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time in our College Chapel with Fr Matthew. This is such an important event for St Paul’s and for these young boys. With the decline in active church-going families it is so lovely seeing the families and the boys themselves wanting to continue their Catholic faith journey together with us. As a Catholic College we fully understand that for many of our students, the College provides the only real connection to “Church” and we take that responsibility very seriously. We are very happy to continue to work with families to enhance and encourage them in their spiritual journey, through the celebration of the Catholic Sacraments.

We had 20 parents/grandparents visit us to share in this celebration. The next Sacramental celebration will be a combined Confirmation and Eucharist in late May which will be held at St Pius X Dernancourt.

College Events

Over recent weeks we have continued to celebrate Year level camps (Yr 4 Zoo Snooze and Yr 8 Camp), Vinnie's lunches, Dental Clinics, College Tours (still being booked out), Enrolment Interviews and this week we are preparing for one of the highlights of the year – our Sports Day. Thankfully, we can once again welcome families back into the College to witness a great day of community spirit and fun. Our Co-curricular Coordinator, Mr Nick Gillard, has done an enormous amount of work to make sure both the Primary and Secondary events run smoothly.

Congratulations to Mrs and Mr Foulis

As a community we are all excited and very happy to share with you all the wonderful news of the safe arrival of Owen Nicholas Foulis on Tuesday 16 March at 8.19pm. Owen is Josh and Irene’s firstborn and both mum and baby (and even dad) are doing well. Josh is having a short break from school to both celebrate Owen’s arrival but more particularly to help with the transition home for Owen!!

God Bless

Paul Belton 

St Paul’s College is excited to announce that the ‘Master Chef Cooking Club' will be offered as a co-curricular activity in 2022 in preparation for the introduction of Hospitality as a senior subject in the upcoming years. 

This co-curricular activity will help students to develop their cooking skills, practise food preparation and planning, broaden their knowledge of different cuisines and learn about the importance of a healthy and balanced diet. Students will expand their culinary appreciation by cooking a variety of foods from around the world. Most importantly, students will discover that cooking is fun!

We look forward to the Master Chef Cooking Club next year. Stay tuned for exciting updates.

Dental Clinic Feedback

It was wonderful to have so many families utilise the free dental clinic service offered by the Dental Foundation of Australia over the last two weeks at St Paul’s. This is the first year that we have engaged with this initiative and I am interested to receive feedback from families about the service. If you can let me know your thoughts – positive and negative, I would appreciate it very much. Please direct message me via SEQTA or you can email me on esayer@stpauls.sa.edu.au.

Uniform

All outstanding orders for the college uniform have now been filled and all students should be in the correct uniform. The current uniform is being reviewed and of course we are busily planning our girls’ uniform for 2022.

If you are unsure of what the uniform is, you will find it on our College website. I am still noticing that there are students who are wearing the black sandshoes with their summer dress uniform. The expectation is that students wear lace up black leather shoes on the days that they wear their summer dress and sandshoes can be worn on PE days.

Wearing a uniform is about consistency and equality. There is not a need for arguments about what can or cannot be worn. I appreciate your support with this and will be following up with those in the incorrect uniform. 

Primary Sports Day - 25 March 2.30-6.00pm

By now you would have received a Consent2Go notification about the Twilight Sports Day being held on Thursday 25 March. A letter has also been sent home to all families with extra information that will ensure that the afternoon and evening is a great success.

Students do not have to attend school until 2.00pm but supervision of any children who do need to come earlier in the day is available. OHSC is open from 7am and teacher supervision commences at 8.20am. All students need to arrive, through Callan Hall, by 2.00pm for roll call to be taken. We will then move to the oval for the chants and 'march on' at 2.15pm and the first events will commence at 2.30pm.

All families are welcome to join us with a limit of three visitors per family and please be ready to sign in at the entrances. We look forward to seeing you at this fantastic event.

Children's University Australia

I have delivered the enrolment letters to the classes for Children’s University Australia. This is just one of the co-curricular activities that primary students can participate in. In the first year, students need to complete 30 hours of outside school hours of learning to be able to graduate at the end of the year from University of Adelaide. Activities that are recognized as outside learning are playing sport for a club, learning another language, participating in one of the amazing online learning tasks from CUA, travel reviews from local destinations and so many more. If your child would like to participate in this and has not received the enrolment letter and form, please ask them to come and see me.

Have a wonderful week ahead,

Emily Sayer

‘Let the Church always be a place of Mercy and Hope, where everyone is Welcomed, Loved and Forgiven’  Pope Francis  

On Tuesday 16 March, 17 young students took their Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Liturgy was held in our beautiful sacred Chapel and in the Homily, Father Mathews highlighted the importance of receiving God’s forgiveness and knowing God will always forgive you. The Sacrament of Reconciliation helps us to have a stronger relationship with God and prepares us for the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Communion. For our students, their Sacramental Journey will continue later this year, celebrating their Confirmation and Holy Communion at St Pius X Catholic Church. The students who celebrated their sacrament of Reconciliation were Louis Bastiaans, Nathan Chacko, Samuel Daka, Marco De Jesus, Vincenzo Dimasi, Cobey Drum, Kellen Drum, Luca Francesca, Sebastian Garstka, Zander Girdler, Kiyan Hettiachichi, Domenic Leonello, Sebastian Ocas, Duy Tran, Joshua Tremble, Riley Trgetaric and Domenic Vottari.

Mrs Girolamo-Corbo
Faith and Justice Coordinator

E/B Grey Shorts & Socks

There are still a quite a few back orders not collected.  Please arrange payment and collection as soon as possible.  Payments can be made via the Qkr app.

Easter

Due to early closure for Easter the Uniform Shop will be CLOSED on Thursday1st April. Reminder that we are open Wednesday afternoons 3pm to 5pm.

Winter Uniform

Term 2 will be winter uniform.  Blazers are required from Year 7.  Winter stock has arrived. Unfortunately, there will be a delay in the delivery of Sports Jackets until late May. Get in early there are no appointments needed for Winter Uniform. 

Due to COVID RESTRICTIONS we will be limiting the number of people in the shop to 6 at a time.

School Holiday Openings  

The Uniform Shop will be open in the second week of the upcoming school holidays as follows:

Tuesday 20 April 9:00am to 4:00pm
Thursday 23 April 10:00am to 6:00pm

Mrs Allan
Uniform Shop Manager

The Parents and Friends Committee is a group of parents who meet on a regular and formal basis to provide a forum for parent participation in the College. These meetings are to organise social and other functions for the advancement and inclusion of the whole school community. 

To this end the committee has helped in many of the school’s activities throughout the years including sports days, parent teacher interviews, open days, college tours, primary carols, music nights and many more.

The committee also helps to raise funds to support extra activities or projects needed by individual teachers for the enjoyment and further education of our students.  For instance, each year we donate $1,000 to a specific project.  These have included a donation to the musical, allowing some students to attend an interstate soccer tournament, where we won, a sound studio to record music in the music program and to the Life bus for our primary students.

Hot Cross Bun Fundraiser

Bakers Delight are offering some beautiful big Hot Cross buns to choose from: Traditional, Apple & Cinnamon, Choc Chip and Choc Berry Cherry. They will come as a 6 pack for $8-00 each pack.  This is a cash only fundraiser. 

Please just print the ORDER FORM, fill it in and return the cash and order form to your PC teacher or directly to the front office by 25 March.

On March 29 we will deliver all orders to the primary classes by the end of the day and have the senior student orders ready for collection at student services before they leave for the day.

The Parents & Friends Committee are looking forward to being more involved with the school events this year and would love to hear of any worthy causes within the school in need of some extra funds or help.

Please support us in supporting the school community.

Stalls

A big thanks must go out to Kerry Grieg who has graciously taken over the organising of the special stalls that the committee runs. These stalls include Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas and we very much look forward to the variety of presents available.

Sports Days

The first event that we will be supporting will be the Primary Twilight Sports Day event on Thursday 25 March.  Available for purchase on the day will be cakes, coffee, tea, soft drinks and lolly bags. We will then be doing it all again the next day, Friday 26 March for the Senior Sports Day. During this event we will be helping to run a BBQ and again will have cakes, coffee, tea, lolly bags and soft drinks available for purchase. We will also be running an Easter Raffle on both of these days so make sure you come and have a look at the beautiful prizes you could win for only a $1 a ticket.  If you could help on either of these days it would be greatly appreciated. 

To help with the catering for both of these sporting events we are asking for donations of cakes or slices.  They will need to be individually wrapped and all ingredients need to be clearly attached. We do also ask that if you are able to donate that the cakes or slices do not include cream as we have no way to keep them refrigerated throughout the day. If you are able to donate can you please leave the cakes or slices at the front office on the morning of the event you are donating for.

Entertainment Books

The committee is still partnering with Entertainment Books and as of this year it is fully digital.  This is extremely convenient as you can download the app on your phone and have it with you all the time.  From just $69-99 for a single city,  your membership allows you to share any of the vouchers with other members of your family as well, and what makes it even more great is that from every digital membership purchased the school will receive $14 as a donation.

The Athletes Foot Fundraiser

At the end of last year we partnered with The Athletes Foot stores and the fundraising with them is very simple. $5 from every pair of shoes sold comes back to the school. So, when you next need new shoes just advise them instore that you are from St Paul's College – Gilles Plains and they will do the rest. Win, Win for all!!

Next Meeting

Finally, our next meeting is Monday 22 March in the staff room (entrance off Black’s Road) at 6.30pm.

This meeting will involve the selection of new position holders for our committee.  The positions available will be President, Vice President, Secretary, Vice Secretary, Treasurer, Vice Treasurer. Many of these positions do not require a lot of direct weekly tasks and the more helpers we have the less work for everyone.

The committee loves to see new members and there is no pressure to hold a position just a friendly face to help us at some of our events and bring new ideas to the meetings is all we want. There are a lot of experienced committee members who are more than willing to help. It would also be great to see some male committee members that can help to get involved and show your sons how we can all create an inclusive and caring community.

Even if you can’t get to the Monday meetings your help is much appreciated throughout the year so please make us aware of your interest.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email stpaulsparents1@gmail.com.   

We are a fun, organised group so our meetings do not last longer than an hour.

Look forward to meeting you all soon.

Bec Verrall
P&F President

Team: Middle B1
Date: 12 March 2021
Game: SPC Vs Pulteney Grammar College
Result: WON

Scores: SPC 3 SETS  68  POINTS   
Scores: 0 SET 59 POINTS

Best and/or Performances of Note: Oliver Castillo

It was a hot, humid night when the team played Pulteney Grammar for the second time. The first set was a close battle although the opposition played with 5 members which included Ali from St Paul's. In the second set, the serves were better as were the match tactics.  Oliver served well and maintained a steady influence as did Carlin. With the match secured, several of the senior SPC players joined in with Pulteney to play a close 3 set. St Paul's were victors 3-1 set, 68- 59 points.

Ms Edda Gastaldo