Dear Parents and Caregivers

At Holy Name, fostering student agency is an important aspect of education. It’s about giving children the power to take ownership of their learning, make decisions, and actively participate in shaping their educational experiences. When students feel a sense of control and responsibility, their engagement, motivation, and confidence flourish.

In Year Six, our students are given a voice to identify areas of the school they can actively change to make meaningful decisions.  At our recent student representative council, students identified some opportunities and presented meaningful solutions.  The school uniform, playgrounds and changing behaviours are some of the areas raised. 

At its core, promoting student agency is about trust—trusting that even the youngest learners are capable of making meaningful choices. By embracing this philosophy, primary schools empower students to take charge of their learning journey and cultivate skills that will serve them far beyond the classroom walls.

And that is our shared aspiration.  To ensure that when students leave Holy Name, they have a sense of belonging, learning and service not only to the school, but as global citizens. 

In other news, I have had the privilege of welcoming new families through the Kinder Enrolment process.  Places are filling quickly, and I strongly encourage existing families to ensure they have completed their enrollment to secure a position in 2026.  

With Kindness

Ben Doyle

Hello everyone. I hope this newsletter finds you healthy and happy. 

PB4L

Our PB4L focus for the past fortnight has been I Wear my Uniform with Pride. Students have been given surfboard tokens when they are “caught” displaying this skill. As we have our Harmony Day celebrations today, our Class and Principal’s Awards will be given out on Monday morning.

The main areas of concern with uniform are shoes and socks. Another reminder that shoes are to be an all-black leather jogger and socks are to be all black crew socks – not ankle socks. We will continue to monitor uniform over the course of the year,

Attendance

Please ensure that school is notified if your child is absent. This can be done on the Compass app or by phoning or emailing the school office.

Attendance at school is mandatory. If a student misses 1 day of school a week, they are missing almost 1 whole term of learning! Our school day starts at 8.50am and students should be at school by this time.

NAPLAN

The NAPLAN testing window closes on Monday, March 24^th. Students who were absent on testing days will be caught up on Monday if they are back at school. Some catch up testing was completed today. If students are still absent on Monday, they will miss the testing window.

The year 3 and year 5 students have completed tests in writing, reading, language conventions and numeracy. The data we receive from these tests, as well as data from other sources, helps us to plan for future learning experiences, pedagogy and assessment.

Kyla Loring

Assistant Principal

HNS Forster

The Season of Lent begins at Holy Name

Holy Name celebrated both Pancake Tuesday and Ash Wednesday with our parent and parish community to commence the Season of Lent. Many, many pancakes were cooked hot off the BBQ by Mr Greg Byrne, Mr Glenn Strong and Mr John Matlawski and served by Mrs Annie Evans and Mrs Monique Johnson parishoners from Forster Tuncurry and also by our Holy Name Staff.

Much fun was had by our students in the jelly eating races. This year's contest was most competitive, particularly amongst the Fr John and our parent body. 

This weekend marks the third Sunday of Lent, we are already half way through the Lenten Season where we are asked to pray, almsgive and take on something for others.

Parish News- Reconciliation

Sixteen students from Holy Name and four students from other schools in the Forster Tuncurry have begun their preparation for Reconcilation. During their first session, children focused on understanding right and wrong, choosing what is right and being sorry when they recognise what they have done is the wrong choice.

This year the Sacramental Team has grown in size and we welcome Mrs Maria Armitage, Mrs Kay Fox, Mrs Mary Horsburg and Mrs Susan Huurdeman. These ladies have many years of experience teaching as part of the RCIA team within the Parish.

Please keep in your prayers the following children as they learn more about recognising when they have made poor choices in their relationships with others, being sorry for what they have done and then asking God for forgiveness: Charbel Andary, John Andary, Arthur Cooper, Aaron Huynh, Finn Montesin, Blaze Montesin, Christopher Azzopardi, Enrico Azzopardi, Emmanuel Shibu, Johnny Black, Luka Zic, Robyn Wyldman, Isabella Caberlon, Mackenzie Quilter, Oliver Quilter, Joseph Sleiman.

The second preparation lessson is on Monday 24th March beginning at 3:30 till 4:30pm, then we will move into the Church with parents to explain what the Reconciliation Cermeony will look like on the following Monday 31st March at 4:30pm.

Kind Regards,

Genevieve Williamson

Religious Education Coordinator.

Great Learning Happening in Year One!

Each fortnight we like to put a spotlight on the great learning happening in a particular grade in our school. In this report the spotlight is on Year One.

In English, the Year One classes are continuing to engage in their reading group sessions with a high level of engagement and motivation. The students are enjoying having their own decodable reader each week, which enables them to use the reader during group sessions and practise reading the text at home. The decodable reader the students have week is linked with the class sound focus which assists the students in building their knowledge of more complex letter sound combinations. Each day students read the class reader together to build reading fluency and work towards their goal of reading a target amount of words per minute. Students take part in a daily dictation within their groups where words containing the sound focus are included in the sentence the students need to record.

During writing our Year One students are learning to construct quality sentences to include in their narative writing pieces. Over the past fortnight teachers have been modelling how to include adjectives to sentences to make them more interesting. The students have enjoyed using think/pair/share to verbalise their interesting sentences before attempting to write them in their books. The students have been listening to a variety of different fairytales to gain inspiration to write their own fairy tale narrative. During this process the students were so keen to share their thinking and discuss their progress with their peers. When students were happy with their story plans in draft form, they were able to progress to drafting the orientation of their fairytales.

During Maths our Year One students have been busy investigating 2D shapes in a fun and hands-on way! Through exciting activities, they explored different shapes, counting their sides, vertices, and parallel lines while developing their mathematical thinking. The students enjoyed using shape hunts around the classroom and playground to find real-world examples of circles, squares, triangles, and more! They worked in small groups to sort and classify shapes based on their properties, discussing what makes each shape unique.

In Religion, the students have been learning all about  the season of Lent. The students know that Lent lasts for 40 days which is the length of time that Jesus spent in the desert to fast and pray leading up to Holy Week. The Year One students learnt that Lent is a time to remember Jesus' fasting in the desert. Each student made a Lenten promise, which is something they would give up during Lent that would be challenging for them just like the fasting in the desert was challenging for Jesus. Here are some of the Lenten promises made by our Year One friends.

In Science, Year One have been working on a unit titled ‘Living Things’. In this unit, the students have observed the external features of living things. They are learning to describe the features of both animals and plants. Students now understand the reason why plants are classified as living things and have recorded their observations in their Science Journals. Students have enjoyed investigating how living things can be grouped according to their external features. The highlight of the unit has been creating a birdfeeder that is appealing to a variety of birds and is durable for the outdoors.

 In Sport, the students have been working on developing their throwing, kicking and catching skills through a range of different skills and cultural games. This week the Year 1 students played a fun game where the students had to pass the ball around the circle using the correct throwing technique they have been taught. When a student drops the ball they then need to count backwards from 10 until they reach zero, the students with the ball at this time has to sit down. The laughter and encouragement was so nice to see and hear.

Well done Year One students and teachers keep up the awesome work!

Mrs Suzie Monks

Primary Coordinator

Why do we have Mini Vinnies at Holy Name?

Service to Others Through Good Works

Wiyabu (hello)

This term Crystal and I have been running our Cultural Immersion Groups on a Wednesday and Friday in the Learning Hub. This term’s theme is ‘Identity- Where am I from? I’m a proud Aboriginal student at Holy Name School. During our cultural immersion lessons our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have been learning about Worimi culture, the animal totem Guparr (Dolphin), the meaning of the Aboriginal Flag as well as the Torres Strait Islander Flag. The students have also been working hard on a self-portrait with guidance from Crystal, you can find these portraits on display in our school hall. Our Year 4 and 5 and 6 Aboriginal girls have been participating in Girls group with Crystal and myself learning about their identity, culture and creating together. Our Aboriginal boys in year 4 and 5 have started to meet with Josh Wood, Aboriginal Education Worker from St Clare’s School to learn more about culture, dance, weaving and language.

Over the past few weeks Crystal and I have been visiting classrooms and teaching about Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country. From these lessons each class has created their own personal Acknowledgement of Country to display in their classrooms and share with the school when it is their turn at morning assemblies. It has been a pleasure to see that our students here at Holy Name know that we a learning on Worimi Country and that our totem animal is the guparr (dolphin).

Coming up in Term 2 is our NAIDOC celebrations where the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will be learning traditional dance in Cultural Immersion Groups. The NAIDOC theme this year is The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy, celebrating 50 years. Throughout the term Crystal and I will be connecting with the whole school, sharing the theme and planning activities for all classes. We will release our NAIDOC day save the date at the end of this term.

Marrungbu- Thank you

Lara Went

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Worker

Easter Raffle – Donations Needed Please!

Easter is just around the corner, and we are getting ready for our annual Easter Raffle, to be drawn on Wednesday, April 9th, at 8:50 am!

To make this event a sweet success, we kindly ask for donations of Easter eggs or other chocolate treats. All donations will go towards creating fantastic prize hampers for our raffle winners. If you can contribute, please drop off your donations at the school office by Wednesday, April 2nd.

Raffle tickets will be sent home in students’ school bags next week, so keep an eye out! We kindly ask that you write the phone number of raffle ticket purchaser’s on each of their tickets to make contacting the winners a smooth process. All raffle tickets are due back to the office by Friday, April 4th. Thank you for your support in making this a fun and exciting event for our school community.

Thank you for your generosity!

Holy Name Primary P&F committee

Breakfast Club

Each Monday morning around 8:30am Miss Jas and Mrs G serve our school community at Breakfast Club from the Hall kitchen. The ladies love seeing so many happy faces enjoy vegemite on toast and a chocolate milk. This week children got to enjoy a tasty vegetable and fruit platter. Miss Jas and Mrs G would love to see you next Monday, everyone is welcome!