Dear Parents and Carers,

As announced via COMPASS on Tuesday, we bid farewell to Mr Peter Dempsey as Principal of Nazareth. After 11 years of dedicated service and commitment to our school, Peter will be embarking on a new chapter in his journey as a Project Officer in the Professional Growth Team at the Catholic Education Office in Wollongong. Throughout his time at Nazareth, he has guided us with wisdom, compassion, and a passion for education. On behalf of the school community, I express gratitude for his contributions and commitment to Nazareth. I wish Peter the very best as he embraces new challenges and makes a positive impact in his new role. Peter will join us at the Gold Awards on 13th December and we will have the opportunity to extend our thanks and best wishes as a school community at that time.

The recruitment process for the position of Acting Principal for the 2024 school year will commence soon.

We are also farewelling four of our wonderful teachers at the end of 2023:

As announced earlier in the year, Renee Logan, who has been working at St Joseph’s Catholic High School Albion Park for 2023, has accepted a permanent position in their Learning Support Unit.

Bree Jedrzejczak, currently our Intervention Teacher delivering literacy and numeracy interventions to students in Stage One, has also accepted a permanent position in the Learning Support Unit at St Joseph’s Catholic High School Albion Park. I extend my thanks and my best wishes to these two dedicated teachers as they embark on their new career paths and follow their passion to work with students with disability.

Please join us at the Celebration of Learning assembly on Friday 8th December as we farewell Renee and Bree.

Kristy South, our Stage One Middle Leader and Instructional Coach, will be working at St Therese West Wollongong for the 2024 school year. Kristy has been a wealth of knowledge and support for our teachers in her role of Instructional Coach. She has been instrumental in assisting our students to achieve learning gains in reading comprehension through her provision of quality professional learning for all staff. We wish her the very best for her time at St Therese.

Brittany Wilson will commence her period of maternity leave at the end of this year as she and her husband await the birth of their first child in January – a very exciting time for Mr and Mrs Wilson!

Staffing for 2024 will be communicated to the community in week 10 and the students will spend the morning with their 2024 teachers on Thursday 14th December.

On Saturday 9th December, our school community will join the Stella Maris and Corpus Christi school communities, and the All Saints Parish, for 5pm Mass followed by Christmas Carols in the church. The carols will be led by students from the schools and the parish choir. Following the Mass and carols, please join us for a sausage sizzle.

Everyone is invited and encouraged to wear festive Christmas clothes for the evening. The P&F associations of Nazareth and Stella Maris have organised a fabulous raffle. Tickets will be sold prior to the event, as well as on the night before mass, and the prizes will be drawn after the carols. All proceeds will be donated to the local St Vincent DePaul chapter.

P&F dates to add to your calendars:

P&F Annual General Meeting – Friday 9th February, 8:30am in the school library

P&F Return to School BBQ – Wednesday 21st February

First Holy Communion

Students have now completed their First Holy Communion workshops and now know their mass time for Sunday, 26 November to receive their sacrament.  Please pray for all Year 3 students receiving this most important sacrament.Thank you so much to the parents for supporting your children and being committed to attending mass.  

Christmas Carols

We would love to see you at our Christmas Carols on Saturday, 9 December. Mass at 5 o’clock will be followed by our celebration.  Students will be singing carols, there will be a sausage sizzle and raffle and everyone is encouraged to wear their best Christmas gear!! Bring your singing voices.

Wednesday Mass and Faith & Learning visits

This week Years 2 & 3 attended Wednesday Mass.  Next Wednesday, Year 4 will attend 9am mass for their final mass of 2023. Families of all students are warmly welcome to attend mass with their children.  We love to see as many families as possible.

St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal

Last week we began our Christmas Appeal for St Vincent de Paul and thank you to all of the families that have already contributed. Our Mini Vinnies team will continue to collect donations to help those struggling in our community until Friday, 8 December 2023.  We will present our gifts to St Vincent de Paul at the Gold Awards assembly on Wednesday, 13 December.

We are asking for the following items:

Kindergarten - Chips, lollies, breakfast cereals, dried pasta/rice & sauce jars etc.

Year 1 & 2 - Christmas food, drinks (milo, cordial, fizzy), Christmas pudding or Christmas cake, long life custard etc.

Year 3 & 4 - Christmas decorations, eg. bonbons, biscuits (sweet/savoury), canned fruit/veg, pancake shake etc.

Years 5 & 6 - Table decorations, serviettes, paper plates, cups, Tea, coffee, milo, sugar, long life milk etc.

These donations can be brought to school by your child and they will be then boxed up and placed under our Christmas tree in the library.  Thank you so much for your ongoing support of all the fundraising we do here at Nazareth.

All mass times can be found in the All Saints Parish Bulletin and all other important information. A link can be found on the Parish Website:  https://www.dow.org.au/parish/all-saints-catholic-parish-shellharbour-city

This week, 4A has been learning about Advent and how we can show kindness to others in Religion. Year 4A has made an Advent Calendar together in which everyday we can do something different that is kind. We would like to share a special story with you written by one of our class mates.

When I went home, I sorted out all the rent and I froze. Since I had not collected their rent, we were short on money to keep the building running. I spoke to my co-owner Koji with tears in my eyes “we might have to shut down” I explained. then the woman I had helped came up to us she said “no you don’t”. I said “I’m sorry we have to shut down”. once again she said “no you don’t we did a fundraiser since you helped us we raised $10,000 here you go”. she handed me three bags full of money. I was so grateful that later on I had a party for all the clients to celebrate this day of kindness, and now business is booming and We are all happy. All I got to say is that the good you put out into the world, will come back around. 

As the term and the year draws to a close, we are still doing lots of learning in 1H. The learning that we are doing is very hands-on and very fun! We have been learning about procedures. We have been reading some procedure texts and even experimenting with writing procedure texts. Our favourite procedure texts are paper folding tutorials. Over the last few weeks we have been watching these tutorials and making things from a simple piece of A4 paper. We have made hearts, glasses and most recently we have made a very strong box!

Check out some pictures of our creations below.

End of year returns

As we approach the end of the year library borrowing and school home readers have now concluded.  

We ask that any school library books and/or home readers are returned to school as soon as possible.  

Oztag Championships

Congratulations to all of the Nazareth students who attended the Oztag Championships and represented the school with pride. Congratulations to the senior boys team who won their division on the day and were named the South Coast Senior Boys Champions. Thank you to the parents and family members who assisted on the day. Without your help we could not attend and take part in these gala days. 

2024 Representative Sport Nominations

Thank you to all the parents and carers who nominated their children for the 2024 representative sports trials for the remaining sports. We are still waiting to receive the final trial lists from the event convenors. When this information is received by the school we will communicate the final trial lists and permission notes for the remaining trials to be held in early 2024. 

Aquathlon 

An exciting opportunity has been provided by Catholic Schools NSW. Please see the following link and flyer for more information regarding the Aquathlon.

https://csnsw.sport/sports/csnsw-sport-programmes/aquathlon

PAYMENT OF SCHOOL FEES BY INSTALMENT – NEW FAMILIES TO OUR SCHOOL

School Fees are invoiced as an annual account, due for payment in full 30 days after invoicing. However, many families select to pay their school fees by regular instalments and as a new family to our school, we would like to offer you this option. If you wish to take up this offer, please complete a Request to Pay by Instalment Form which is available on the school’s website or from the school’s administration office. On completion of the request, either email it to instalments@dow.catholic.edu.au or submit at the school office. Following receipt of the request, instalments will be generated on your school fee account during the process of invoicing 2024 school fees. Your school fee statements are emailed to you and they will provide a list of scheduled payments and their due date.

IMPORTANT: Please note that if you currently have a child or children at another school in the Diocese and you are paying by instalments at this location, you will not need to complete another Request to Pay by Instalment. The instalment request carries over from school to school with the same frequency of payment eg Weekly, fortnightly, etc.

PAYMENT OF SCHOOL FEES BY INSTALMENT
EXISTING FAMILIES IN OUR SCHOOL WITH INSTALMENTS
If you are currently paying by instalments there is no need to complete another Request to Pay by Instalment as your request carries over from year to year unless you wish to amend the frequency of your payments eg Weekly to Fortnightly

EXISTING FAMILIES IN OUR SCHOOL WITHOUT INSTALMENTS
If you would like to pay school fees by instalments in 2024 and have previously not taken up this option for payment, please complete a Request to Pay by Instalment Form which is available on the school’s website or from the school’s administration office. On completion of the request either email it to instalments@dow.catholic.edu.au or submit at the school office. Following receipt of the request, instalments will be generated on your school fee account during the process of invoicing 2024 school fees. Your school fee statement will provide a list of scheduled payments and their due date depending on the frequency you have chosen eg Fortnightly, Monthly, etc.

IMPORTANT: Please note that if you currently have a child or children at another school in the Diocese and you are paying by instalments at this location, you will not need to complete another Request to Pay by Instalment. The instalment request carries over from school to school with the same frequency of payment eg Weekly, fortnightly, etc.

IGNATION MEDAL

Daniel Dimovski

NAZARETH AWARDS

Elina Jovanoivska

Olivia Sarin

PRINCIPALS AWARDS

Mia Gutierrez

Luca Hughes

Violet Wray

Claudia Sears

Kobe Zizic

Mason Redfern

Zoe Cockayne

Cadence Little

Tori Marden

Olivia Sarin

Natalia Tanevski

MERIT AWARDS

Harry Urquart-Duchesne, Claudia Sears, Joshua Kosteski, Austin Pepper, Finn Day, Adam Glavevski Maci Mackaway, Ava Keenan, Solomon Zamora, Thomas Markovski, Matilda Fraietta, Van Smith, Mia Hamilton, Aria Phillip, Thomas Bennett, Violet Wray, Jaxx Marimon, Hendrix Pavlina, Gabriel Khoury, Chidubem Okoro, Willow Ferguson, Milla Fullagar, Carter Onorato.

Over the next two weeks, our PB4L focus will be on Kindness.

The teachers will discuss what kindness is and what it looks like, sounds like and feels like with their class. Students will show kindness towards others in our school community.

Students will be rewarded when random acts of kindness are spotted in the classroom and will receive a token when kind acts are seen on the playground.

Students will be able to:

• describe what kindness is;

• talk about what kindness looks, sounds and feels like;

• share ideas of ways to show kindness;

• complete kind acts for others;

• notice when others show kindness.

NAZARETH PROMOTIONAL FILM

The film captures a day in the life of a Nazareth student.
Click https://youtu.be/olug9FWvZQI to view the film

FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM PAGE FOR NAZARETH

If you haven't already please follow our school pages to keep up to date with events at school and for photos and updates from across the school. 

Please click on the direct links to follow our pages:

www.facebook.com/nazareth.shellhabour

www.instagram.com/nazareth.shellharbour

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY 

Please click on the below link for a direct link to the social media policy.

https://www.dow.catholic.edu.au/about-us/policies/social-media-policy/