On Monday 12 December our students will take part in Step Up. Step Up is a 1 hour session where students get to meet their 2023 teacher and classmates. We are excited that our new teachers are able to take part in this important experience in readiness for 2023.

A big thank you to all of our teachers for their preparation and for their commitment to building rapport quickly. A special thank you and welcome to our new teachers for coming to St Bede's.

Please be advised that letters indicating class placement will be snt home on Monday afternoon after Step Up.

It was terrific to have so many families come to St Bede's and reconnect after so long. The children all sang beautifully and entertained the crowds. Thank you to our wonderfully talented staff for adding to the evening. We are so very lucky to have a great team that are so community minded.

The BBQ was a huge success and the cakes were so incredibly creative. Thank you to all the families who baked to raise funds for St Joseph's Primary School at Eugowra. As you would be aware they experienced severe flooding and have needed to relocate their school for the remainder of the year.

Finally, a big thank you to the talented (or brave) parents for performing. It was so very entertaining and made us feel special. Thank you to Santa for attending and making the night extra special for our students.

Thank you to our wonderful families for your ongoing support in referring new families to St Bede's. St Bede's will commence 2023 with approximately 220 students.

We have just commenced an enrolment campaign targeting our final places in Year 3, 4 and 5. I invite you to make a final effort for the year by sharing this news with your friends that have children in these grades.

In 2023, St Bede's will implement a new spelling program in Year 3-6. Spelling Mastery builds dependable spelling skills for students through a highly structured method that blends the following approaches:

• Phonemic approach - helps beginning spellers learn the relationships between spoken sounds and written letters and then apply them to spelling
• Morphemic approach - exposes advanced spellers to prefixes, bases, and suffixes
• Whole-word approach - gives spellers at all levels the meaning and root of a word and shows how the word's spelling is influenced

Spelling Mastery interweaves these three approaches according to students' skill development and provides straightforward lessons to help efficiently and effectively teach the spelling skills students need to become proficient readers and writers. Explicit instruction, careful selection of spelling words, and repeated and cumulative practice help students master each concept and reinforce and retain key information.

Teachers will undergo professional learning in January 2023 in order to effectively deliver the program from the commencement of Term 1. This evidence based approach is based in the science of learning and connects well with the Initalit program in Year K-2.

St Bede's Primary School is pleased to advise that we will implement The Writing Revolution (TWR) in 2023 across all grades K-6. The Writing Revolution provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach. The model, also known as The Hochman Method, has demonstrated, over and over, that it can turn weak writers into strong communicators by focusing on specific techniques that match their needs and by providing them with targeted feedback.

Insurmountable as the challenges faced by many students may seem, TWR can make a dramatic difference. The method does more than improve writing skills. It also helps:

• Boost reading comprehension
• Improve organisational and study skills
• Enhance speaking abilities
• Develop analytical capabilities

TWR is as much a method of teaching content as it is a method of teaching writing. There's no separate writing block and no separate writing curriculum. Instead, teachers of all subjects adapt the TWR strategies and activities to their current curriculum and weave them into their content instruction. This creates more time within the curriculum to focus on deeper learning.

But perhaps what's most revolutionary about the TWR method is that it takes the mystery out of learning to write well. It breaks the writing process down into manageable chunks and then has students practise the chunks they need, repeatedly, while also learning content.

St Bede's Primary School is pleased to advise that we have been successful in gaining a full time classroom support assistant for Kindergarten in 2023. This position will be shared between the 2 Kindergarten classes and will be assisting from 9.00-3.10 each day. This is a wonderful addition to the Kindergarten team and will benefit all Kindergarten students.

The end of term has been a big one for the P&F. The St Bede’s Carols by Candlelight was such a wonderful night and we were so happy to have everyone back on school grounds as a community to celebrate a big year of growth at St Bede’s. Thank you to all the parents, P&F members and teachers who helped to make the night a success, especially the wonderful Mrs Dwyer.

We were overwhelmed with the number of donations received for our cake stall and are pleased to announce that it raised just shy of $1200 for St Joseph’s Primary in Eugowra who lost everything in the floods last month. A big thank you to Monica, who on behalf of the P&F, reached out to the school and arranged some Christmas craft to be sent to help to lift the spirits of the 22 kids who attend the school. 

The uniform shop will be open on Monday 30 January from 10am-12pm for your last minute back to school needs. Orders can also be placed on Qkr! and will be delivered to the office for collection on the same day.

Thank you to all the mums who have helped in the Boutique this year. We have streamlined our system for next year and would love anyone who can spare an hour on a Friday to work in the shop to reach out!

A special mention to Jenny Tiffen & Fiona Torline who are longstanding members of the P&F who received Walk in Love and Peace awards at our P&F Christmas party for their work in the tuckshop this year.

From the entire P&F, we wish you a safe and happy Christmas and we look forward to another eventful year in 2023.

Jen Maher

P&F President