6 June 2024

06.06.24

From Josh Foulis, Acting Principal

Welcome Mr Patrick Harmer, College Principal

Already communicated to community this week, it is a pleasure to add my welcome to Mr Patrick Harmer, St Paul’s College Principal from 2025. While Mr Chris Woolley, CEO of EREA Colleges Ltd, has provided the most representative summary of Patrick’s appointment in his letter to our community (available here) I add the excitement shared by College leadership and staff for Patrick’s appointment.

Upon his return from Long Service Leave in August, Mr Paul Belton will undertake a thorough handover with Mr Harmer who will have opportunities to be onsite on occasions this year, as he familiarises himself with our community.

Congratulations and welcome to Mr Patrick Harmer. Welcome to St Paul’s College!

Josh Foulis - Acting Principal

Leadership Charter of St Paul’s College

Synonymous with our community, Our Common Ground (click HERE to open) is a document driving personal responsibility to our college values and naming the expectations shared by all members of our community.

Adding depth to our Common Ground, all staff with a position of leadership (teaching and non-teaching) have collaborated and created the St Paul’s College Leadership Charter. This Charter identifies what our community can expect from leaders and leadership teams alike, providing clarity and accountability via this public-facing document.

In January of this year, all leaders on college staff engaged with a Leadership Day at the Grange Surf Life Saving Club, Outlining requirements and goals for the year was followed by professional learning around effective teams. The final component of the day started a six month journey in collaboratively developing this Leadership Charter, which is proudly launched to our staff and community this week.

Leadership development and efficacy is a pivotal component of the college’s strategic plan and this Leadership Charter provides clarity and accountability for the benefit of our leaders and community.

Welcome Mr Patrick Harmer, College Principal

Congratulations and welcome to Mr Patrick Harmer. Welcome to St Paul’s College!

Josh Foulis - Acting Principal

Leadership Charter of St Paul’s College

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From the Secondary Years

Pastoral Care Program

In an exciting and innovative development within the college pastoral care program, staff will be utilizing ‘Wellio’ to support the delivery of pastoral care lessons for the remainder of this year and the near future.

Wellio is a digital platform for staff and students, with a content library full of age-specific topics relating to wellbeing that will allow students to engage in Pastoral Care lessons through interactive activities, videos, live quizzes, and reflection questions. Wellio also empowers teachers with the ability to track student progress, while Leaders of House will work with students to best determine relevant topics for students throughout each year. The Wellbeing Council will work with Home Group Teachers to review the program throughout the second semester, for refinement and continual improvement in 2025 and beyond.

Parent Communication Processes

A reminder to parents regarding the following communication processes:

Student absences

Parents are to notify the college of any student absences from school via the school absentee line on 8334 8334, SMS 0409 143 820, or email absentees@stpauls.sa.edu.au by 9:00 am.

We ask that parents avoid sending a SEQTA message or email directly to Home Group Teachers, as it is our reception staff who need this information to accurately mark student absences. Should reception staff not receive this information directly, an SMS will be sent to parents to verify student absences, as per college procedure.

Parent/Student Contact During School Hours

Any parent/student contact during school hours must occur via Student Services and not via parent/student mobile phones.

This is imperative as it:

Safeguards the College’s duty of care.
Supports compliance with the Student Mobile Device Policy, with reference to the following points of the policy:
Mobile devices should not be visible in class, nor should they be a distraction.
Students are asked and encouraged to lock their mobile device in their assigned locker, to minimise the risk of distraction.
Students may need to make calls regarding employment, sporting commitments or after school travel arrangements. These calls should be made during recess and lunchtime via the front office (Student Reception), and not on mobile devices and not during lesson time.

The full policy can be accessed on the college website here

In the case of emergency, early dismissal, or passing on messages to students, parents are to contact student reception.

Administration staff will then notify relevant staff to ensure the message is passed on to students or arrange for the student to be sent to the front office for collection. We thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Anthony Farina - Head of Secondary

From the Primary Years

Dear Families,

Here we are just over halfway through the term! A reminder that this Friday 7 June, is a Pupil Free Day. The students are very excited to be having a 4-day weekend. Whilst they have an extra day for their long weekend, our Primary Years staff will be led by Anita Schneyder from Teams On Purpose. The Key Intent for the day is to “build a positive team culture and create an aligned, cohesive Primary Years Team”. We look forward to learning together, understanding our “Why” and sharing our values as we continue our collaborative practice journey.

Student safety at St Paul’s College is our highest priority and the safe and appropriate supervision of students is an important element of our duty of care. Part of this duty is ensuring parents and students are aware of our student supervision arrangements before and after school.

Before school: Primary Years grounds are supervised from 8.20 am.
After school: Primary Years grounds are supervised until 3.30 pm.

Outside these times, Primary Years students on college grounds will not be supervised (unless they are attending OSHC or a supervised co-curricular activity). Parents/carers are requested to ensure that students do not attend school outside of these supervised times. Families are encouraged to contact Extend Out of School Hours Care for more information about the before and after school care facilities available to our college community.

Regarding concerns around children’s behaviour, I ask that you contact your child’s teacher as the first port of call if you have any questions about your child that need addressing. Your child’s teacher has all the relevant information to quickly resolve a situation or provide the correct information.

If you require further clarification around any issue, please contact Student Services to speak with a member of our Primary Years Leadership Staff:

Teaching and Learning concerns – Nadia Morris
Wellbeing/Behaviour concerns – Samantha Hankes
Inclusive Education concerns – Victoria Romeo
Religious Education concerns – Miranda McGlaughlin

If all these steps have been taken and you require further information, feel welcome to make a time to speak with me via Student Services in our Primary Years. Please note that teachers are unable to communicate with parents during school hours as they are face to face with the children in their care and they also attend regular meetings after school. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect there may be a minimum of a 24 hour turn around for communication from any staff member given the busyness of a school day. Thank you for your understanding and support with this.

Enjoy your long weekend and hopefully you get to share some family time together.

Until next fortnight.

Marianne Loftus - Head of Primary Years

Reading

Our commitment to using evidence-based research in the teaching of Reading was highlighted in the Week 2 Newsletter. At St Paul’s our vision is to ensure that all students in our community are confident, capable, fluent, and reflective readers. Students in the primary school are involved in a high-quality Literacy program that focuses on the five components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension vocabulary, and oral language. But what does all this mean? Over the next few issues, each area will be defined and accompanied by some suggested activities you can do at home.

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate the individual speech sounds in words called phonemes (Australian Research Organisation). For example, the word cat has three phonemes you can hear, k/a/t. The word shop has four letters but has three phonemes you can hear, sh/o/p.

The English language has 44 different speech sounds:

19 consonants: b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z
7 digraphs: th, sh, ch, wh, ng, ck, ph
5 'r-controlled' sounds: ar, er, ir, or, ur
5 long vowels: a, e, i, o, u
5 short vowels: a, e, i, o, u

More information about phonemes can be found here.

Activity ideas:

Play rhyming games with your child
Ask them what sounds they can hear at the beginning, middle and end of a word
Change one sound in a word and pass it to the next person; for example - cot, cat, cap, map, man
Sort pictures or objects into groups that start with the same initial sound

New Nature Play

The new nature play area has been busy over the past few weeks with students working together and using their imaginations to make cake shops, ice cream parlours and 5 star restuarants. To support this new popular play area, we are looking for donations of old cooking utensils, pots and pans and baking trays.

If you are wanting to clear out your kitchen please bring any unwanted items that the students can use to the front office.

Nadia Morris - Head of Teaching and Learning- Primary Years

Reconciliation Week

Week 5 of this term saw us acknowledge and recognise National Reconciliation Week. We held an R-12 assembly on Tuesday morning that was led by our First Nations students and College leaders. The assembly included two memorable cover performances by our band of Bagi la m Bargan by Birdz and Took the Children Away by Archie Roach. These performances were supported by didgeridoo player Craig Atkins and it was wonderful to watch our students engage with the music throughout the performances. During this assembly, we launched our Acknowledgment of Country video, held a minute of silence in recognition of the Stolen Generations and listened to primary students share their work on what Reconciliation means to them.

During this week, we also launched our school Acknowledgment of Country to the wider community which was written by our students with the support of our First Nations key teacher, Campbell Burton, Naomi from Deadly Mentorz and ESO’S Brandon Jackson-Martin and Claudia Lamberto. The video can be viewed on our website and social media pages. In addition to this, our students participated in First Nations inspired art activities, Reconciliation focused PC lessons and the digital screens around the College were transformed with Reconciliation themed artwork.

At St Paul’s College we are committed to actioning reconciliation in our community. We are looking forward to continuing to embed this across the remainder of the year through working towards our Reconciliation Action Plan deliverables.

Alexandra Harrison - Head of Learning Diversity

Holocaust Guest Speakers

On Wednesday the 5th of June, two Holocaust survivors, Andrew Steiner, OAM and Eva Temple, came to St Paul’s to talk to students from Years 10, 11 and 12. The Holocaust survivors shared their unique experiences during the Second World War and the persecution and discrimination, which they faced during this period of time. We found this experience extremely interesting and insightful and were honoured to have the opportunity to speak with these Holocaust survivors. We also were privileged to have a presentation from the Adelaide Holocaust Museum's coordinator, which enriched our studies of History.

Mitchell D and Sam P (Year 11)

Year 8 Art - Lino Printing

This semester, year 8 students have explored the art of lino printing, inspired by Indigenous artist Billy Missi. They began by studying Missi's intricate and culturally rich prints, learning about the significance of storytelling in Indigenous art. Students then sketched their own designs, incorporating patterns and themes inspired by Missi. They transferred these designs onto lino, carefully carving and then printing them. This project not only enhanced their technical skills and creativity but also deepened their appreciation for Indigenous culture and art. All four classes have done a great job this semester.

Sarah Fedele - Leader of Learning the Arts

Year 6 Camp

On the first night at camp, the Year 6 students participated in a variety of fantastic activities. We walked to Aldinga Beach and learned about surf safety. In the evening, we enjoyed a brilliant quiz night as our evening activity. Mrs. Loftus also stopped by to say hello!

The next day was filled with amazing activities. We visited a place called TreeClimb, where we tackled obstacles in the trees. For the evening activity, we roasted marshmallows by the campfire, and some students watched the footy on TV. We all appreciated the warm, cozy campfire on a cold night.

On the last day of camp, we continued with more exciting activities. We made bracelets using a special material called paracord, which is also used in parachutes. All the bracelets turned out beautifully. The Year 6 students engaged in tribal challenges, such as making a shelter with limited materials or solving problems as a team. At camp, our favorite play equipment was the jumping pillow, which we loved.

The Year 6 students' favourite food was the desserts and the evening snacks. After enjoying lunch and a little ice block snack, we were ready to go home. We gave a huge "Thank You" to everyone and then departed. Year 6 camp was such a fun experience!

Manreet K - Year 6 student