Newsletter Week 6, Term 4 2022

Dear Families,

With the end of the year looming the school is now setting dates for the 2023 school calendar. Once these are in place you will be notified.

Over the next couple of weeks class allocations for teachers and students 2023, will be finalised. If you have a specific request for your child regarding a class placement please put this in writing, highlighting reasons for the request, and forward it to your current child's class teacher. Whilst requests will be considered they may not necessarily transpire as there are clearly many factors that are considered when students are placed into classes. All requests must be received prior to Friday 25th November. Student class placements and class teachers for 2023 will be announced on Monday 5th December.

This week we welcomed our 2023 Kindergarten students to the school for their half day's orientation. Clearly there was great excitement amongst both children and parents.

Next week is the last week of sport electives - a BIG thank you to Miss King (Yr 4) and to Charlotte in the Office, for making all this happen. Whilst the sport electives will conclude on Monday our K-2 swimming programme will commence. The intensive swimming program will commence on Monday and run for two weeks. The students will be bused each day to the Casuarina Centre for their lessons.

A reminder all library books must be returned to the school. Any outstanding books will be invoiced and families will need to pay for the replacement cost.

Please keep in touch with our school calendar for some significant events coming up: In particular December is very busy!

DECEMBER
6th - End of Year School Mass
7th - St Ambrose Feast Day Celebrations
9th - Nativity & Carols Afternoon
9th - Yr 6 End of Year Celebration Night
13th - Yr 6 Graduation Mass
14th - K-5 Presentation Day
15th - Yr 6 Fun Day
16th - Last Day Term 4

Enjoy your weekend!

Best wishes,

Brian Laybutt
Principal 

Splitting the Beehives

A very big THANK YOU to Australian Native Stingless Bee expert Mark Payne, for educating our Year 2 students' on native bees and their fascinating hives. We were fortunate to have Mark visit our school last week to give us an up close and personal experience of our St Ambrose stingless bee hives and how he splits a beehive to support natural duplication. We even had one of our students' quick eyes spot the queen bee faster than the master himself! Thank you again for your informative experience Mark. We appreciate your time and expertise.
Feel free to check out No Strings Attached to learn more -https://nostingsattached.com.au/

YEAR 2 GUEST SPEAKER
This term we have been working hard on persuasive writing. The students have learned about plastic in our environment and explored solutions to the plastic problems in the environment. Today Sally Evans, Forrest’s Mum, spoke to Year 2 about reducing, re-using and recycling and her first-hand experience with finding solutions for the plastic problems in our environment. We also did an audit of all of the soft plastic in the student’s lunch boxes from lunchtime on Monday.  The students were amazing and many are passionate to join the Green Team next year, speak to their families about reducing plastic at home and become Plastic Police! They are ready to persuade the world about plastic! On behalf of Year 2 we wish to say a huge thank you to Sally for speaking with us today, it was fantastic!

GOLF DAY ST AMBROSE, AMBROSE

On Wednesday afternoon, Royal Pottsville Golf Course welcomed a quality field of highly skilled players who were focused on winning the St Ambrose, Ambrose:  Annual Golf Afternoon. Some Champagne golf was on display with thunderous roars being herd across the course from both competitors and spectators. A great afternoon was had by all with the following teams taking out the converted trophies:

Winners of the day were: 
"The Drive By Show" which consisted of: Rhys Salmon, Jason Arthurton, Sam Farnworth and Tommy Puentes
Runners Up - Staff Team consisting of: Mrs Caitlin Davies, Ms Grace McMahon, Mr Nick Lock and Mr Darcy Townsend 

A big thank you to the Staff and Parents who made up the field. 

Winning team; L-R: Jason Arthurton, Rhys Salmon, absent Sam Franworth, Tommy Puentes
Runners Up:L- R:  Miss Grace  McMahon, Nick Lock, Mrs Caitlin Davies, absentMr Darcy Townsend

Last Day for Uniform Orders 2022

Uniforms delivered to classroom Thursday 8^th Dec – Order by 5pm Wed 7^th December
** Please note – All exchanges must be finalised by Thursday 15^th December

1^st Uniform Orders for 2023
Uniform orders ready for collection in Classroom when attending MAI Testing

Order by 5pm Wed 25/1/2023 – Place order through Flexischools for Thursday 26/1/23

Please make sure you have changed your child’s Year Level/Class in Flexischools to be their Class for 2023 so uniforms can be delivered to the correct classroom!

COVID-19 Update, Term 4, 2022

Students who are unwell

If a student is unwell, displaying any COVID-19 or cold and flu-like symptoms at any time, they CANNOT attend school and should undertake a rapid antigen test. 

If the rapid antigen test is positive and the student is unwell and/or experiencing any symptoms, they CANNOT attend school.

If the rapid antigen test is positive and the student is not feeling unwell and not displaying or experiencing any symptoms, they CAN attend school under the following conditions:

• the school office is informed of the positive test result, AND
• the student (over 12 years old) wears a mask for a period of 7 days in all indoor settings.

Tweed League Seven-a-Side

On Tuesday 8th November St Ambrose participated in the NRL Legends Competition at Casuarina Rugby Club. Selection for this team was tight with trials held at lunch last week and the incredibly difficult decision of team selection falling on Mr Lubans and Mr Townsend. 

The students were put through a range of drills that involved catch/pass and positional awareness which gave the teachers a good indication of basic skill level with regards to moving forward as an attacking side and supporting the ball carrier without compromising them into a forward pass.

The teachers' then demonstrated safe tackle technique and ran tackling drills where the lads worked up to full contact on a ball carrier - further demonstrating the students ability to tackle the opposition in defence, and catch a pass when under pressure. Finally, the squad was broken into two opposing teams and simulated game play was assessed.

Taking both a junior and senior side along, St Ambrose participated in three games per side, with both teams ending the day with one loss, one win and one draw. A tight arm wrestle all day, the students represented St Ambrose with distinction and wore the Bumble Bee jersey with pride. 

Choosing any individual members of the team as exemplary proves difficult, but a special mention must go to Archie Ings and Wyatt Greenhill for their attacking runs and confidence in both defense and attack, as well as Chase Deegenaars and Duke MacTaggart for their ability to lift the team through their example and dedication to get their hands on the ball. 

Look out Tweed. St Ambrose is coming in 2023. 

Mr Lubans

Summer Sports Trials 

We want to congratulate a number of students who have been selected from the Tweed Zone Summer Sports Trials to represent our school and the Tweed at the Diocesan Trials. 

Oscar - Basketball
Sophia - Tennis
Ben - Tennis
Husker - Cricket

Sports  Electives Survey

To wrap up our Sports Electives Program we would like you to provide some feedback. Please follow the link to answer a few short questions. 

K-2 Intensive Swimming Program

This a reminder that the K-2 Swimming Program starts Monday. All students need to bring a towel, swimmers, rashie, cap, goggles, thongs and a change of underwear for the return to school. 

Swimming Carnival

This a reminder that Compass consent closes on the 25th of November. All students wanting to compete must register via the Sports Tracker website. Students who do not wish to participate in the carnival but want to go and watch will need to provide consent via Compass but not on Sports Tracker. 

School swimwear order also closes on the 25th of November. This is an optional extra for students