Dear Parents, Carers, Staff and Students,

At St Anthony’s, we often reflect on our vision statement. 

With Christ as our model,

we the school community of St Anthony of Padua,

in partnership with the parish,

strive to provide quality Catholic education

in the spirit and charism of St Mary Mackillop,

whilst living by our school motto 


"Grow in Respect and Honesty" 

This is our goal, it is what we strive to achieve and what we base our decisions around. In every classroom the students are taught about our Catholic faith and this is modelled by our staff and religious when they visit classrooms. As educators, we strive to see the face of God in everyone we meet; this means to see the good in everyone. 

St Anthony, our patron Saint lived his life as a man of faith and service. Next week our staff will engage in a Spiritual Retreat centred around the theme, Where Do We Find God? The purpose of this retreat is for the staff to support their own spiritual wellbeing and engage in time for prayer and reflection.

IT'S WHO WE ARE

Recently the Diocese of Wollongong produced a beautiful, short video, narrated by Bishop Brian Mascord that describes who we are as Catholics in the Diocese of Wollongong. The video points to all of the good works of so many church agencies and the people of the diocese. Bishop Brian Mascord reminds us that, Together, we are one in Christ, seeking to be bearers of his saving love. I invite you to view the video. It showcases the wonderful people and works of the diocese that happen every day and often goes unnoticed.

Take Care

Mr Justin Devlin

Principal

We are happy to announce as of Term Four St Anthony's Picton will have a Facebook page. This exciting, new adventure will allow us to celebrate with parents, grandparents and family members all over the world all the wonderful achievements of our students. We understand parents find it hard or sometimes impossible to attend feast days, carnivals and assemblies. Now with Facebook, we will be able to post all the highlights and keep you up to date with any changes that may occur at St Anthony's. 

Staff at St Anthony's fully support the CEDoW Social Media Policy to promote positive interactions online, and the standards/expectations that it (and we) will be upholding for all members of the school community using social media. For ease, the link to the policy is https://www.dow.catholic.edu.au/socialmediapolicy and the SM Statement/Standards here

Photo Consent Forms were sent home earlier this year, thank you to the parents who have signed and returned this form. This form gives us photo permission and also includes online publications (such as the website and social media). St Anthony's will be following what each child's photo consent form says in regards to posting on the official school Facebook page, unless you wish to contact the office to advise otherwise. If we have not received a signed consent form, your child will not be posted on the official Facebook page. Please click on the following link to access a copy of the photo consent form.

More information to come in Term Four and we will share with you the link to click on so you can follow us. 

Over the years we have changed the style, colour and suppliers of our school hats. This means we have a few combinations of hats circulating around the school. Mr Devlin, Judy Logozzo and Kate Chrystal have worked together to  create a logo and source a hat that is made of a better material, has a studier brim and that the navy colour is a better match for our uniform. The staff and students are very pleased with the results and our new school hats are available to purchase at the uniform shop or school office for $15 each. Our aim is it phase in the new hat over the next two years  and we would like to emphasise that there is NO expectation for Stage Three students to buy a new hat. 

Listed below are some important dates for Term 3 and 4.

Grade Mass 

Year 3 will celebrate Mass on Friday 13 September at 9:30 am.

Assembly

Year 3 will lead assembly on Friday 20 September at 2:15 pm in the School Hall.

AWARDS

Congratulations to the following students who will receive an award at assembly on Friday 20 September for being a great learner and wonderful community member.

Left to Right - Harrison Satara, Joel Parish, Bryce Parish and Ayden Kokcek

Congratulations to Joel and Bryce Parish who both made the MacKillop Cricket Team. We wish them the best of luck when they play in Term Four Week One down at Wollongong.

Congratulations to Harrison Satara who has made the NSW PSSA Tennis Team which will be played in October in Perth. Good luck Harrison.

Congratulations to Ayden Kokcek who played in the NSW Golf State Carnival in the Blue Mountains and came 15th in Scratch and 1st in Nett. Ayden had the lowest Nett score out of all the boys who competed in the carnival. Well done.

SUNDAY 10 NOVEMBER 

During Local Government Week our year six students visited the Wollondilly Council to learn about the role of our local council. We were also invited to enter the writing competition where students were asked to write about what they would do for a day in the life of the mayor. Out of the students from local Wollondilly council schools, we were fortunate to have two children achieve an award for the competition. Arianna Phillips came first and Charlotte Utberg came third in their category of years 5 and 6 students. Our Mayor, Matthew Deeth came to our school and presented the certificates and prizes to the students. We are very lucky to have such a wonderful local council that provides opportunities for our students to show their artistic and literacy talents.

This year some of our students spent their lunchtimes drawing and painting artworks to enter the Threatened Species Art and Writing Competition. The competition was held during the month of September and celebrated Biodiversity Month. Students between the ages of 5 and 12 were allowed to enter and were competing against children from the Wollondilly, Camden and Campbelltown Shires. This year was the first time that we had a finalist. Ivy St Quintin from Year 4 came in second place in the 7-9 years category for her beautiful artwork depicting the matted pea bush. Ivy was presented with a certificate and prize at the presentation night held at the Mount Annan PlantBank. All of our students that entered had wonderful artworks and they should all be very proud of their effort and for their interest in our local threatened and endangered plant and animal species.

If you have any unwanted Coles Little Shop 2 Collectables or Woolworths Lion King Ooshies, Kindergarten would love them for Mathematics and Developmental Play.