Dear Parents and Friends,

Whilst we were sad to have to postpone our Athletics Carnival last Thursday, we were certainly blessed with the weather holding out for our Mothers’ Day celebrations on Friday morning, even the sunshine made an appearance! 

The measure of a strong and caring community is the way in which it gathers together to celebrate significant events and milestones, and last Friday was definitely another wonderful example of just how giving, prayerful, thoughtful and genuinely happy we are at Holy Cross! I particularly thank our staff who planned and prepared for the Mothers’ Day Liturgy, the special gifts made for their students’ mums, the exciting activities during the open classrooms, and also gave their time and service from early in the morning during the breakfast. We appreciate and thank our P&F, especially Lisa Faulkner, who organised the Mothers’ Day Gift Stall, and the four fabulous dads, (Matt, Anthony, Shannon and Lee) who ran the stall with such enthusiasm and delight!

We can’t fit all of the lovely photos here , but check out our facebook page for more photos of the morning and the link to this video of all the wonderful photos you sent in.

Congratulations to this year's The Mothers’s Day Raffle winners: 

Hunter - Year 2 

Eoin - Kindergarten

Patti  - Year 4

Amelia - Year 6

Samantha - Year 2

Term 2 Monday Morning Prayer 8:50-9am - We warmly welcome you, our parents, to join us every Monday morning on the bottom playground (undercroft area) as we gather to start the week and pray together. 

Parish Masses - As a parish catholic school, we seek to enable opportunities for our community to encounter the mass. Each term, our classes attend a weekday parish mash, as well as whole school masses for important Feast days. Parents are always welcome to attend. 

• Friday 24th May - K-6 Mass for Mary Help of Christians @ 9:15am
• Thursday 30th May - Year 2, 3 and 4 @ 9am Parish Mass
• Friday 7th June - K-6 Mass for Feast of the Sacred Heart @ 9:15am
• Thursday 20th June - Year 1 and 6 @ 9am Parish Mass

Sunday Parish Mass - Families are of course always welcomed to attend the Holy Cross Parish Sunday Masses. On Sunday 2nd June, all Kinder and Year 5 families are invited to celebrate mass. Some of our students and their parents will be invited to read a universal prayer or one of the readings or bring the offertory forward. We hope to see many Kindergarten and Year 5 students and their families there. All families are welcome of course!

TELL THEM FROM ME SURVEY- CLOSING DATE FRIDAY 24th MAY

This term all schools in Wollongong diocese will survey the voice of parents, staff and students in Years 4-6 via the 'Tell Them From Me' survey. The survey will provide important feedback which continues to inform our work in designing improvement priorities that are responsive to the needs of our school community. We greatly value the role of parents and carers within our school community and would greatly appreciate your feedback. The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at Holy Cross Catholic Primary School.

You are able to access the parent survey on your computer or mobile device by using this URL LINK : http://tellthemfromme.com/hch2024

We would appreciate parents completing the survey by Friday 24 May, 2024.

2024 ANNUAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN PROGRESS

Goal 3: Excellence in Teaching: In 2024, we will develop alignment between curriculum teaching, learning and assessment in English and Mathematics.

• Our K-2 teachers have all engaged in collaborative conversation meetings to clarify practices and to identify effective assessment tools in the teaching of reading in their English block. As a result, teachers have added decodable readers to their small group instruction time, matching their teaching sequence of phonics. 
• All teaching staff engaged with our Mathematics Staff Development Day in Week 10, developing a deeper understanding of the content areas of the revised 3-6 Mathematics syllabus and refining scope and sequences. Our K-2 teachers designed pre and post assessments for the area of Data, and our primary teachers worked with a CEDoW Education officer to develop understandings in the programming process known as Understanding by Design (UBD). 
• In the first few weeks, as part of a ½ day professional release to work with our Instructional Coach, teachers further developed and programmed with a focus on a unit on Data.  As a result, teachers are now using the UBD cycle to design pre assessments, analysing what their students know, which then informs their planning and selection of teaching content and strategies for the unit of Data being taught. This cycle of professional learning and collaborative planning will be repeated for another content area in Mathematics
• All teaching staff engaged with our English Staff Development Day this term, developing their understanding of all focus areas in the revised 3-6 English Syllabus, with a deeper dive into two focus areas
• Understanding and responding to Literature : How quality literature texts are carefully selected and effectively used to build student understandings of textual concepts such as character, narrative, perspective, genre, theme or imagery. As a result, teachers will be adding to their repertoire of teaching knowledge, and updating their scope and sequence and teaching units to ensure that the stage expected textual concepts are taught using a wide variety and exposure to quality literature. 
• Reading Fluency : examining the research, outcomes and content, as well as a wide range of effective teaching strategies. As a result, teachers will trial and implement two or three fluency teaching strategies in their English teaching block this term. 

Goal 1: Living Our Catholic Identity: In 2024, we will revise our school’s Vision and Mission. 

• We have commenced a review process this week with staff, facilitated by one of theCEDoW Catholic Life, Education and Mission Team. Mrs Turton has written a little more on this. More soon on how the students, parents and our Parish will contribute to this.

Next Newsletter: HELPFUL CURRICULUM GUIDES FOR PARENTS 

 Professional Learning

Research tells us that the quality of the teacher is the greatest in-school influence on student achievement. Therefore high quality professional learning for teachers must be a priority to ensure improved teacher practice that leads to improved student growth. Recent professional learning undertaken or other professional commitments by our staff this past fortnight includes:

Every Blessing,

Milena Colussi

Principal

Pentecost Sunday

This Sunday, we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. The Feast of Pentecost takes place 50 days after Easter, and celebrates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples and fulfils the promise of Jesus. In Christian tradition, the Feast of Pentecost not only commemorates the Holy Spirit but also marks the birth of the Church. We pray that,with the Holy Spirit, we will be empowered to overcome the barriers and divisions that separate us from God and from each other. Although the Easter candle has been extinguished, the light of Christ will continue to burn brightly in our hearts. Let us reflect on all the marvellous things that God is doing among us and rejoice and celebrate the feast of the Spirit!

Feast of Our Lady Help of Christian’s Mass

On Friday the 24th May, we commemorate the special feast of Our Lady Help of Christian’s. Mary is the patron saint of our country, Australia. As a school community we will pray to Mary who intercedes for us so that, “under her protection our country Australia may be granted harmony, justice and peace.” The infant church in Australia had a special reason for turning to Mary. No priests were sent to the colony in its early days and Mass was not allowed except for one brief year until 1820. The Australian Catholic community remained faithful to Mary, and Australia was the first nation to choose her under the title, ‘Mary Help of Christians’ as principal Patroness. All parents are warmly invited to join us in prayer for our whole school Mass at 9:15am. 

Vision and Mission

This term we begin our work on our Annual Improvement Plan Goal of, “In 2024 we will review our School Vision and Mission.’ Gary Quinn who is part of the Catholic Life, Education and Mission Team worked with the staff this week to begin this process. As a staff we reflected on our core beliefs as Catholic Educators and what actions therefore are important in our school. We also reflected on what we would like a graduate of our school to have experienced, know and understand about themselves, their faith, learning and personal wellbeing. This work will continue throughout the term and form part of our staff development day on the last day of this term. Next term, Gary will work with the students, parents and parish to revise and refine our school vision and mission. This work will also inform our school vision for learning.

Laudato Si Week (19/5-26/5)

Laudato Si’ Week is the annual celebration that marks the publication of the encyclical Laudato Si’.

2024 marks nine years of Laudato Si’ and will be celebrated from 19th - 26th May. This year’s theme is "Seeds of Hope", inspired by Laudate Deum which exhorts: "There are no lasting changes without cultural changes [...] and there are no cultural changes without personal changes" (LD 70). 

This Laudato Si’ Week invites the global church to contemplate and nurture seeds of hope for our “suffering planet” (LD 2). The theme is inspired by the symbol for the Season of Creation 2024, “first fruits.” Let us be seeds of hope in our lives and our world, rooted in faith and love.

I encourage you to try the activity below on Pentecost Sunday…

The students and staff at Holy Cross will be engaging in some activities, such as this one to engage in an understanding of the importance of caring for our common home.

If you would like to find out more about “Laudato Si Week” I encourage you to visit:

https://laudatosiweek.org/

In Peace,

Mrs Debbie Turton

Religious Education Coordinator

Year 2 Spotlight on Learning

With the sun shining, Year 2 ventured outside this week to work on length in Mathematics. We are learning to:

• make and use a tape measure calibrated in uniform informal units
• compare and order two or more shapes according to their lengths using an appropriate uniform informal unit
• compare the lengths of two or more objects that cannot be moved or aligned (Reasons about relations)
• record length comparisons using drawings, numerals and words, and by referring to the uniform informal unit used

LIBRARY SHOWCASE

WEN TEAM & GARDENING CLUB NEWS

Peabody Mines, Symbio Wildlife Park & Holy Cross Helensburgh present… 

The Stuttering Frog Conservation Project

Hi. I’m Jake Jee Bugby from Holy Cross Helensburgh, here to give information about the Southern Stuttering Frog and the development of the exciting conservation project - Stuttering Frogs Breeding Program- a partnership between Peabody Mines and Symbio Wildlife Park. 

First off, what is the Southern Stuttering Frog and what’s with all the fuss? Well, put it simply, this frog species is in a vulnerable position, meaning it’s close to extinction! To save this creature, we must know about it at least a little.

Diet. Insects & greens. What else would it eat? Its size is for males, 65mm and for females 80mm. It looks like a frog (duh) with its colour scheme being brown, yellow and green. It should be around the south east coast of the down under so for people like us, it can be anywhere around us here in Helensburgh. And if someone says Mixophyes balbus, this is what they’re talking about. Another unique thing about them is that they remain as tadpoles for up to 12 months! A much longer time than the average frog! This may be one of the reasons they are seen as a vulnerable species.

What will our role be, you may be asking? In the current state of the project, our WEN team and Gardening Club have been invited to be part of an interview to be filmed in our gardens next week. As Symbio will be breeding and feeding the tadpoles in their specially built facilities, our students will grow special food in our garden beds that will be fed to the stuttering frogs. This program is trying to help the stuttering frogs to be rehomed in the Royal National Park and live on as part of the ecosystem again. 

Lily, our visiting ecologist from Ecological, Mrs Attenborough, our WEN and Garden Club students learning inside about the Stuttering Frog food and mapping the garden beds (during last week’s rainy days).

LIBRARY NEWS

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE (PRC)

Our PRC Champion for this fortnight is:   

Year 4 – Pippin

CONGRATULATIONS for completing the challenge!

STOCKTAKE – SENIOR FICTION SERIES

Each term at Holy Cross, mandatory Stocktakes need to occur. Each Collection needs to go through Stocktake every 3 years – this is where we need to account for every resource in a Collection. Last week I completed our Senior Fiction Series Collection and I was able to account for all but five copies (out of 532 copies) – this is a great result.

There are two reasons for this outcome:

1. our students are being mindful to make sure that all books are borrowed and returned – in other words we have had very few that go ‘missing in action’; and
2. our Library Warriors are making sure the books are being placed in their correct Collection – they really are brilliant at sniffing out a book that doesn’t belong in the Collection they are looking after!

Well done Holy Cross and keep up the good borrowing and returning work!

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB ISSUE 3

Book Club is a great way for parents to provide their children with popular literature in a variety of genres which aids in encouraging children to read. And they also make great gifts!

Book Club Issue 3 catalogues were sent home last week. These orders are due by 20 May 2024.

How to order:

* jump online to order: https://bookclubs.scholastic.com.au/

* if your order is a gift, you can nominate it online as ‘gift’.

* once the orders arrive, all parents are given a courtesy call.

PLEASE NOTE: all orders are done online, the school does not collect cash or cheques.

NEW BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE – STUDENT REQUESTS

This newsletter I am going to highlight some of our new books that form part of some of our popular series which have all been student requests. As always, the students who requested these books get to borrow them first. 

At Holy Cross we have a very active Wish List system which I think is wonderful - it shows that many of our students enjoy recommending what titles they would like to see in our Library. I believe the Wish List system is part of why we have such a wonderful borrowing culture at our school - it allows for our Library to be a dynamic space where our students are actively involved in the selection of books and their suggestions are heard.

“169 Storey Treehouse” – Treehouse series (Fiction Series)

“North and South” – Avatar, The Last Airbender series (Graphic Novel)

“Ruby’s Sparkling Surprise” – Pearl and Friends series (Popular Fiction series)

“The Great Chicago Fire, 1871” – I Survived series (Graphic Novel)

As always, I would like to express my sincere thanks to our P&F for supporting our Library and our wonderful parents who cover the books!

Stayed tuned for more titles next newsletter…

Happy reading everyone!

Sue Murray

Library Coordinator

UNIFORM

Students are to wear full winter uniform from Monday 20th May, this includes the wearing of ties.

Term 2 Dates - All dates can be found on the school website via the Parent Calendar. Further dates will be shared by the end of this term, and on the Parent online Calendar. 

ASSEMBLIES

Term 2

Our fortnightly school assemblies during Term 2 will be held on Monday afternoons at 2.35pm. 

Week 4 - Monday 20 May (Year 6 Sharing)

Week 6 - Monday 3 June (Principal Awards)

Week 8 - Monday 17 June (Kindergarten Sharing)

Week 10 - Monday 1 July (Principal Awards)

An Invitation to Sunday Mass

Holy Cross Parish would like to extend a warm invitation to all our beloved school families to join us for Mass on Sunday mornings at 8:30am. 

Attending Mass as a family is not only a wonderful opportunity to strengthen and nurture our faith but also a chance to deepen the bonds that unite us as a parish, school and a wider community. 

Some things you may not know:

• Sunday Mass goes for one hour, 8:30 - 9:30am. 
• We regularly gather for morning tea and a catch up afterwards. 
• Every second week we have a children's liturgy which enables our kids to build some great friendships and learn about their faith.

We look forward to welcoming you and your family at our next Mass as we come together to celebrate the gift of faith and the joy of community.