St Bernadette's Primary School Dundas Valley

As you know tomorrow is our CEDP wide fundraiser for the flood disaster victims, Fiver for Flood Victims. While we do try to limit the amount of money we ask of our parent community, we feel that this is an important Social Justice initiative as it directly supports the Option for the Vulnerable and Poor in our Catholic Social teaching. I suggested in the letter to parents that students try and donate the ‘fiver’ themselves as they can understand that they can directly contribute to the support of others less fortunate. Teachers will also relate the ‘rainbow mufti’ idea to the Bible story of God sending a rainbow as a sign of hope after the floods. 

We hope that our small acts of charity will be a sign of hope after the floods for needy communities. 

I also wanted to say thank you to our families as we continue to navigate through these challenging COVID times. We have been so appreciative of the way parents have come to collect children when they may be sick or kept their children home when they may be unwell. Testing of children by their parents has ensured that they don’t come to school if they are sick.  This has helped keep our school community quite safe when other schools have had quite a spread of COVID throughout their school. Thank you for your continued support. 

Have a wonderful week, 

Jackie Willard

Assistant Principal

This term, Stage 1 has been developing their understanding and appreciation for Prayer. 

This week the students were assigned a task where they had to reflect on the following questions:

• What Prayer means to them 

• Why they pray 

• Where they pray 

• When they pray 

• How they pray 

Here are some of our Year 1 responses...

Father Christopher would like me to inform the community that there has been a change to receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. He has decided to invite children who are in Year 7 or older (not Year 6) to participate in this program from this year. 

If you have a child in Year 7 who wishes to participate in this Sacramental program, please contact the parish on 9871 4414 for further information.

Term 1

Lessons : Weeks 8-10 inclusive.

Week 8 : 17th or 18th March

Week 9 : 24th or 25th March

Week 10 : 31st Mar or 1st April.

Term 2

1st Practise – Sunday 29th May 3.30 – 5pm. (Please meet in the church – Compulsory)

Final Practise – Sunday 5th June 3.30 – 5pm. (Please meet in the Church- Compulsory)

 First Holy Communion – Sunday 19th June at 11.30am.

This year we have been very lucky to partner with our CEDP Teacher Educator, Nadine Meredith, for an exciting new Mathematics initiative. Titled EMC3 (or EMC cubed), Exploring Mathematical Sequences of Connected, Cumulative & Challenging Tasks), this infants school  focused project was developed by the professors at Monash University and has been delivered successfully in many CEDP schools. It presents challenging tasks which cater to all learning levels and encourages children to make meaningful connections between mathematical concepts.

Thus far, Kindergarten has been exploring principles of counting including visual recognition of number patterns, counting forwards and backwards from a range of starting points as well as recognising numbers one more and less. Currently they are experimenting with measurement by comparing lengths with a range of informal units, as well as the difficult concept of accurately determining the lengths of several objects, with which to then determine a length that falls in between them!

In Stage 1, the children have Explored the structure of numbers by organising a range of quantities in many different ways and seeking to work in a systematic way to explain their thinking and find many (or even all) possible solutions to problems. Currently they are working on the concept of making things equal by balancing quantities and even writing balanced equations in the form of number sentences!

It has been so impressive to see how the children have embraced this challenging mathematics with a growth mindset and a willingness to take risks - in infants we don’t rub out our mistakes, as they are all part of our thinking and ultimately the solution! Another great thing has been how our infants team have worked together with enthusiasm and in such a collegial manner, frequently discussing what is happening in their rooms and planning next steps together. Stay tuned for more exciting news later in the year.

Diocesan Swimming Carnival

Last Friday St Bernadette’s was represented at the Diocesan Swimming Carnival by 3 excellent swimmers. They have done very well just to compete at this very high level of competition, which sees the best swimmers in all Parramatta Primary Schools come together.

Congratulations to our Diocesan Swimmers for 2022!

Ian B

Jayden E

Ayden H

Ian successfully qualified to represent our Diocese at the NSW Catholic Primary Schools Championship in the following events:

50 metre Freestyle, 50 metre Backstroke and 50 metre Butterfly.

Congratulations to Ian on this outstanding achievement! We look forward to more swimming news later in March.

This week three of our Stage 3 children attended the Parramatta Diocesan Football (Soccer) Trials. It is an achievement in itself to be selected to attend these trials, as due to the popularity of the sport there are hundreds of applicants, many of whom are not selected to attend.

All of our children performed well at the trials and gained valuable experience to take away with them for future competitions. 

Congratulations to Eamon N, Noah P & Sofia!

Sofia is away from school today, attending the MacKillop Tennis Trial in Wollongong, having already been successfully selected for the Parramatta team earlier in the year! Great work Sofia!

It has come to my attention that a number of children are wearing watches that can make or receive calls to school. If children are wearing these to school they must be treated like a mobile phone and be handed into the office once they come into school and they will be returned at the end of the day.

If you wish to purchase any items from our clothing pool please email the school office via dundasvalley@parra.catholic.edu.au . The items are to be paid for via EFTPOS only in the school office. Another option is to order and pay via the QKR! app.

For 2022 we will continue our Assistant Principal awards.  Mrs Willard will update our community on the upcoming events and present two students from each class with an award based on achieving a personal best.

Once a term a Principal’s Morning Tea will be held where two students from each class will be selected according to the nominated criteria.

Term 1 - Encouragement

Term 2 - Positive Behaviour

Term 3 - Christian Service 

Term 4 - Academic Excellence

These Principal Awards will be handed out at the second last assembly each term. Parents will be contacted for both of these awards as usual by our office staff.