Pelican Post

Term 1 Week 10 2023

Principals Report

P&C Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Last Thursday night we had our AGM. There was a lot of movement with roles this time round with many of our long standing members, having their youngest in Year 6, stepping back ready for when their child moves on to High School. Those that stepped down are Kim, Linda, Rebecca and Yana. I wanted to personally thank these parents for their time, energy and hard work. Kim has been involved in the P&C longer than the 7 years I have been here and has nearly held every role in the P&C in that time. Donating the sand stone for our lovely welcome map at the front of the school, stocking up ice blocks in Term 1 and Term 4 and supporting many other parents in their roles as well. Thanks Kim. Linda has done an amazing job of the uniform shop in years gone by and more recently has done a fantastic job as treasurer. Thank you Linda. Rebecca is the mastermind behind all our hot lunches over the years and the role didn’t even exist before Rebecca came and made it her own. Not having a canteen, this role has been crucial ensuring our students don't miss out. Much appreciation Rebecca. Yana, although not leaving the P&C entirely has stepped back after 3 years of service as P&C President through the most challenging time with floods and COVID. Many great initiatives like fundraisers each term (2 x community based and 2 x fundraiser based) and our school cook book are some of the legacies she will leave behind. Excellent work Yana!

Moving forward we have a number of new faces to the P&C team. You will be able to see the list in full later in this newsletter but I want to thank Andrew, Ewan, Chantelle and Karen for all taking up the mantle and Jen for taking on a few more roles. I look forward to working with you all in future meetings to come. One of the topics discussed at our last meeting was to survey the community for ideas on what kinds of P&C run events they would be interested in attending. We will be finalising this survey at the next meeting. It will go out in the first few weeks of Term 2 after our next meeting which is on the 27th April at 7pm.

 

Election Day

421 voters ventured out to Cattai PS to see the new carpark… and vote. The P&C put on a BBQ and cake stall. The final figure I'm sure will be announced at a later date but I heard around $750 profit was raised for their efforts. Thank you to all those parents that helped out cooking snags and selling cupcakes.

 

First Parent Assembly of the Year

We had another packed crowd for the first parent assembly of the year. Students shared artwork from C2, writing goals in C3 and what they want to be when they grow up in C1. Many awards were handed out to students who have been working hard in class. This year we are trying something a bit different with our parent assemblies. The first 3 assemblies held in Terms 1 and 2 will be on a Friday. The 3 assemblies in Terms 3 & 4 will be held on a Thursday. We have done this initiative to help allow parents a bit more flexibility to be able to make at least one assembly throughout the year. This was a fantastic suggestion from one of our community members.

 

Learning with Leaders

I had the honour of taking our Year 6 leaders down to Milestones for our annual 'Learning with Leaders'. This is an initiative developed by previous Year 6 students at leadership camp where our Cattai students plan a series of fun and engaging learning tasks for the prep room at Milestones ELC. This years activities included: exploring liquids and solids with ooblex, finding numbers in a number hunt, making letters out of play dough, finger painting student names and running and catching a football for OzTag to name a few. I am always blown away by the maturity our students demonstrate when running these activities and the team at Milestones commented on how confident our students were at running the tasks. Well done Year 6! Also thank you to Jackie and Rebecca for helping to transport our students to and from milestones. 


Take care

Robert Hawkes

Principal

Cattai Public School

robert.william.hawkes@det.nsw.edu.au

 

Spotlight on Cattai with Miss Diener

This year, I am very lucky to be able to work in all classrooms in my roles of APC&I and DCO (Digital Communications Officer). I have loved being back at school and have enjoyed working alongside all the teachers and the students on some exciting content!

C1- Phonics 

In C1, I have been working with the teachers and students to develop their phonics knowledge. I have enjoyed delivering the new whole-class phonics lessons, and cannot wait to work closely with small groups of students each week. This week we were focusing on writing dictation sentences to show what we have learnt this term. 

C2 - Writing 

In C2, I have been supporting Miss Maley in delivering her persuasive writing unit. Whilst our Year 3 students were at NAPLAN, I worked with Year 2 on writing strong persuasive sentences using high modality language. We all enjoyed reading a book from the 'Do Not Open This Book' series and writing about why or why not the students thought we should keep reading! 

C3 - Typing 

As part of my role as DCO, I have been working closely with Mrs Jones to help her class access Google Classroom to complete writing and editing tasks. This week, we learnt how to edit our writing on a Google Doc, which will allow C3 to complete their writing assessments online next term. We have also been experimenting with Jam Boards, a digital whiteboard that allows you to collaborate in real time. 

Cattai P&C Update and Dates

AGM

On Thursday night last week we welcomed in our new P&C committee for 2023, their roles and contacts are listed below. As you can see in the minutes we are planning on some exciting events this year. If you have any suggestions for fundraising ideas, please reach out to the committee.


DATES TO REMEMBER

3rd April - Ice block day

5th April - Cupcake day (see roster below)


P&C Minutes March 2023

Term 1 Calendar