Dear Parents

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY This Sunday is Mothers’ Day. It will be a different kind of Mothers’ Day due to Covid-19 but it should still be a celebration. With a little help from Liz Bugden, our PSF Co-ordinator, we are holding our Mothers’ Day Stall on Thursday and Friday. We will be holding the stall this Thursday morning for those attending school and the following day, Friday 8 May, between 9-12am, for those students who have not yet returned to school, who wish to purchase a gift. Parents, please take your child directly to the Intervention room (opposite Stage 3 classrooms), use the sanitiser provided and maintain appropriate social distancing. It would help if you could text Liz if you intend to come on the Friday so that she might be able to co-ordinate times to try and prevent everyone arriving at once and to help conform with current social distancing rules. Please contact Liz on 0428 285 048. You also have the option to place a written order via the school email: alstp@lism.catholic.edu. (Please include your phone number when placing your order.) Liz has offered to fill orders (subject to availability) and leave them at the office for collection and payment. Gifts range in price from $1 to $7. A full list and sample pictures can be found later in this newsletter. All student’s who purchase a gift, are automatically entered into our Mothers’ Day Raffle. We wish all our mums, nanas, grandmothers, carers and mother figures a very special day this Sunday. We hope you are spoiled a little bit, remembered for all you do and honoured for your unfailing support of your family. We salute all our mums this Sunday. Have a great day! Last week I spent a great deal of time chatting to our families to see how they were travelling. I want to say CONGRATULATIONS to you all. I know the effects of self isolating due to Covid-19 and all the social distancing is hard. I heard stories last week of children just not joining in how parents think they should and parents concerned about the quality of work being produced. Other parents are pushing their children quite hard - often leading to stalemates. Other students are being dream students and just getting on with it. Most conversations touched on that ‘day’ when nothing happened. Then there was the day we just decided to do something different. Or the day we made up variations on what was set.

ALL OF THAT IS OKAY!

We know! We see all that you report here at school on any normal day before Covid-19. There are always students not prepared to engage for whatever reason. There are always students who are self motivated. Other students jump from one thing to another without truly getting into any depth and often have to be redirected. We have students who get overwhelmed. We get students who try, get frustrated and give up. None of what you are seeing is new. It is just being magnified in blended learning because it is you trying to do this with YOUR children!

Please, please be kind to yourself and your family. If it all gets too much, drop tools and divert - cook, walk, let them play, send them for a run. Divert for your sanity and ongoing good relationships. Because you need to know, Covid-19 and how you manage with blended learning, DOES NOT mean you or your child are failures. It just means you have been placed in a very unusual circumstance and you are doing the best you can. Don’t listen to media reports telling you your children will be behind because of this. Don’t listen to politicians and education specialists saying the kids need to be back in school so they don’t lose a whole year of education.

Listen to your heart - you want to walk out of this Covid-19 dilemma still in touch with your child. This means they need to know you love them and are willing to support them through this. It doesn’t mean you have to be the teacher - the vast majority of you have trained in other fields of expertise.

MAY

Mon 4 - Wed 6 - S3 Lennox Head Camp - POSTPONED

Friday 8 - Bookclub issue 3 orders DUE. Online (L.O.O.P.) orders only.

Saturday 9 - St Joseph’s Virtual Trivia Night, 4:30pm. Register here: https://forms.gle/oATtmQY4eTsneetJA

Tues 12 - Fri 22 - NAPLAN Years 3 & 5 - CANCELLED

JUNE

Thursday 4 - Junior Joeys begins (proposed amended start date).

Monday 8 - Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday

Tuesday 9 - ALL STUDENTS RETURN TO SCHOOL

Tuesday 23 - Confirmation, 6pm - POSTPONED

Friday 26 - Term 2 Fees DUE - refer to C.S.O. letter dated 3 April, 2020 available on our school website.

JULY

Friday 3 - Last day Term 2

Monday 20 - Staff Development Day

Tuesday 21 - Students return Term 3.

AUGUST

Tuesday 11 - School Photos rescheduled.

Friday 28 - Family Day

11 Perry Street Alstonville NSW 2477 ( PO Box 265 ) Phone: 02 6628 1009 www.alstplism.catholic.edu.au Email: alstp@lism.catholic.edu.au

WEEK 2

So, these are the facts, according to Joeys:

1. You and your children are trying to co-exist in unusual circumstances. 2. Part of that involves you supervising some type of schoolwork. Another good few

parts involve you doing your own job, running a household and worrying about everything else.

3. When this finishes you will hand your children over to school. 4. We will assess where they are up to (something we do every school day), make

adjustments in our learning plan and get on with it. 5. There may be gaps in learning - there always is! 6. We are missing your children - preparing blended learning is a change and Zoom

meetings sometimes are a bit of fun, but our job really revolves face to face learning. 7. This is ALL temporary.

Our school webpage is a fantastic place to start looking if you need support or have questions: https://www.alstplism.catholic.edu.au/

We would like to again refer families to the CSO site set up for Blended Learning. There are lots of ideas there to support you: https://sites.google.com/lism.catholic.edu.au/learning-from-home-families/ So the plan for return to school looks like this:

Please contact us if you need to manage this differently or you have questions. So that we can ensure we have enough supervision in place from Week 3, I really need to hear from EVERY FAMILY about your plans (i.e. When your children will return to school: Will you be following the above staggered planned return to school?; or require variations to the plan; alerting us that your children won’t be returning yet…). We need to know what YOUR plans are, IN WRITING please. Email the school: alstp@lism.catholic.edu When students do return to school, they will need to bring a drink bottle as our bubblers are still cordoned off for the time being. They will be reminded of distancing expectations and some fairly strict hygiene expectations. We have a stringent cleaning routine in place already. We will be asking families to stop at the front office for now. So please don’t be offended when we ask that you don’t visit classrooms or wander into school. We are happy to allow limited entry to Before and After School Care and we will monitor all visits for the Mothers Day Stall this week. These precautions are all in place to protect all of us. We are very grateful to families and businesses who have assisted us in sourcing hand sanitiser, masks and other products.

Would you please consider downloading the Covid Safe app? The monitoring which this provides would be of great benefit to schools during this staged return as, in the event of a case being diagnosed, it will allow medical authorities to track movement and connections. Thank you for considering this.

THANK YOU Thank you for your patience with the roadworks currently occurring in Perry St. Last Thursday we had a water truck supplying our water as extensive infrastructure work was carried out. Once complete, we will have a beautifully kerbed and guttered street with marked parking and a footpath along the school side of Perry St. There will be signage in place to show where you can and cannot park. After many years of waiting for this work to occur, we are very grateful to Ballina Shire Council for this work and for the consultation which has been ongoing in the planning. LOCKED GATES During the roadworks, the side gate is not being opened and due to low students numbers, we are only unlocking one of the back gates in the morning and afternoon. We thank you all for your understanding and patience with all this.

Therese Seymour

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Term 2 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Week 3 ES1 & S1 ES1 & S1 ----- ----- -----

Week 4 ES1 & S1 ES1 & S1 S2 S3 -----

Week 5 ES1 & S1 ES1 & S1 S2 & S3 S2 & S3 -----

Week 6 ES1 & S1 ES1 & S1 ALL STAGES S2 & S3 S2 & S3

Week 7 ALL STAGES RETURN - school as normal

Three cheers for Mrs Seymour who completed an online survey about teacher workload and won a coffee

machine for our staffroom.

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The following children have celebrated their birthday since our last

newsletter:

Peter Carroll

Happy Birthday from all of us at

joeys

REMINDER Joey’s Virtual Trivia Night is THIS SATURDAY, 9

May from 4:30p.m. All are welcome!

The questions are family friendly. There will be questions suitable for all members of the family. This is the perfect activity to add to your family

Saturday Afternoon Happy Hour.

If this proves popular, we can host another soon after, to help keep us all entertained whilst social distancing.

Register via the form found on Class Dojo or here: https://forms.gle/oATtmQY4eTsneetJA

STEM News with Mrs Anna Moloney & Mrs Dana Crosby

STEM during Term 2 will have a little bit of a twist. Check out our STEMsational Virtual Science Fair Page to find out more. Please Note: The purpose of this STEMsational Science Fair is for all students to learn something new and truly engage with their subject. The student may choose to complete this project completely independently OR it could be a family affair. Parent and sibling (younger and older) involvement is absolutely welcome as long as the students complete the simple fortnightly 'check-ins' showing us their learning. We encourage students from the same family to work on the same project in order to make family life easier. This is not compulsory but we want this to be as easy on families as possible. Wanted: EGG CARTONS We are wanting to make an egg carton igloo at school. Please save and bring in your egg cartons when you return to school.

Leader of School Evangelisation - Mrs Julia Meyers

PARISH NEWS Fr Max will continue to offer communion on Saturday and Sunday if there is no total lock-down due to Covid-19. If you would like to receive Holy Communion, the Sunday Reading and the bulletin, please go to the churches at the following times:

Our Lady of the Rosary Church, Alstonville: Saturday 6:00pm - 6:30pm Sunday 8:30am - 9:15am

Fr Max will be standing outside the church, under the church awning. Please drive-through to receive Holy Communion whilst remaining in your vehicle. Drive in via the bitumen carpark, forming a queue down the street, and then exit via the grass carpark.

St Patrick’s Church, Wardell: Sunday 5:00pm - 5:15pm

Please park in the carpark and Fr Max will walk to each car and distribute Holy Communion whilst you remain in your vehicle.

Hard copies of the weekly parish bulletin will be available at the front of the Alstonville Church after the completion of the Sunday drive through. MASS ONLINE Please click on the following link to Bishop Homeming’s celebration of the Fourth Sunday of Easter Mass held on Sunday 3 May, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQt29UXdSxY

Bella Duncan

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SCHOOL FEE SUPPORT We take this opportunity to again bring to your attention, special support arrangements for families, implemented by the Diocese of Lismore due to the COVID-19 health crisis as advised previously. These are: 1. Waiving of outstanding 2020 school fees for those families in receipt of JobSeeker payments. In order for school fees to be

waived, please forward a copy of your letter from Centrelink. Please note: the JobKeeper payment does not make you eligible for this concession. CLARIFICATION: This relates to School Tuition Fees and School Building & Maintenance Levy.

2. Families experiencing financial hardship due to the COVID-19 health crisis may apply to defer the payment of school fees until 1st September. Please make your application in writing via the school email: alstp@lism.catholic.edu.au. When considering this option, please take into account that deferring the payment of school fees will result in an increase to your minimum instalment amount once this period has ended. Please contact Tanya Pagotto, who will recalculate your new minimum instalment amount.

Of course, at any time when your circumstances may change and impact your financial situation, we ask you to please contact Therese Seymour to discuss the options available to you. The letter from C.S.O. regarding fees, dated 3 April, is available on our school website under Recent Notes or via the C.S.O.’s website Covid-19 Information Centre for your reference also.

Hello everyone at

home!

On Friday, we held an Assembly for the children at school and had some fun playing charades!

MOTHERS’ DAY STALL PRICE LIST 2020

Mother's Day Gift Bags

50c

Fluffy Heart Keychain

Magnetic Shopping List

Tassel Keychain

Grandmother Keyring

Grandmother Magnet

Sentiment Plaque

Mobile Phone Pop

Holder Nail Clipper Set

Cake Tester Sun Cap

$2.00

3D Shadow Box

$3.00

Cookbook

$4.00

Champagne Candle

$5.00 Mother's Day Cards Bead Bracelet Dream Catcher Mum's Wine Glass

Bookmarks Nan/

Grandma Love Mug Notice Board Garden Set

Bookmarks Mum Face Mask Chalk Board Pineapple Platter

Harmony Cards Flamingo Pen Lifetrack Journal

$1.00

Head Massager Love Glass Photo

Frame

Mum's Coupon Book

Leather Loyalty Card

Holder LED Torch Timber Photo Frame

$6.00 Grandma Pen Cactus Fiesta Candle Twinkle Toes Splice Tote Bag

Nail File Tin Candle Lipstick Purse Hanging Planter

Fragrance Sachets Compact Mirror Umbrella

Message in a bottle Disco Tassle Keyring Glass Trinket Holder

Car Air Freshener Sunglass Pouch Ceramic Jewellery Box Llama Light Box $7.00

Luggage Tag

Decorative String

Lights

Dreamcatcher Light

Box

Best Mum Ever Pen $1.50

Silicone Spatula Bubble Bath

Graphica Pen Grooming Set Thursday 7 May: for students at school.

Friday 8 May: for students who have not yet returned to school. Written orders may be placed via the school email:

alstp@lism.catholic.edu for collection and payment at the office.

Jewellery Case

Mobile Phone Stand

Llama Photo Frame

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RECOMMENDED READING from Stage 3

Grenade by Alan Gratz is a great action packed book with times that make you cry and times where it is so interesting you can't leave the book. it also switches point of view from two young soldiers. I completely recommend this book to anyone who is into exciting war books. Bruce Savage

I would recommend Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. It may sound like a boring girly book but it is so interesting. It's about an elderly brother and sister that want to adopt a boy to help out on their farm but there was some miscommunication and the brother and sister get a girl called Anne. Anne loves using big words and people tease her for it. All she has ever wanted was a true friend, which she found. Diana, she is very pretty with thick dark black hair. Anne wishes she was pretty, Anne thinks she is very ugly because she has carrot red hair and freckles but using her imagination she can be pretty, or smart or anything she has dreamed to be. Eva Gallagher

The Giver by Lois Lowry This gripping novel will keep you wanting more, staring the young boy Jonas. Jonas lives safely within his community a place of no war, no hunger and no pain. When Jonas is selected for the receiver of memory, he starts to discover the dark secrets that lie beneath the surface of his perfect world. Can you see the flaws in a perfect world? Jemima Southwood

Wonder by R. J. Palacio - Everyone should try reading wonder. People say Wonder has the power to move hearts and change minds, that it wreaks emotional havoc. It is a book of all to rare power. It is incredibly charming, brutal and brilliant a book beloved by all ages I love it and so will you. Lilly Cluff

Meditating at home on one of the glorious sunny days we

have been enjoying lately.