St. Patrick's Blog Week of January 5th, 2015

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of January 5th, 2015

Happy New Year!

I would like to take this opportunity to extend a Happy New Year to all of you in our St. Patrick’s community.  I hope that our Christmas holidays provided you with an opportunity to relax and spend some time with family and friends.  From experience, the second half of the school year will roll out quickly, and we will be emphasizing goal setting and organization with our students.  We have a number of initiatives planned to assist students with meeting the expectations at the end of term 1 and beginning of term 2.  

Advent Liturgy / Christmas Mass

During the last week of school before Christmas, Ms. Baril’s class led us in a beautiful Advent liturgy that focused on the importance of Hope, Preparation, Joy and Love as we continually invite God into our lives.  We continue our Christmas celebration with a Mass on January 28th that will revisit the birth of Christ as well as the Epiphany and remind our community of the importance of this special time of year.  Thank you again to Fr. Greg who generously makes himself available to lead our school masses.

St. Patrick’s Christmas Hampers

We recognize that our strength as a school community can be seen when we work together with good intentions in mind.  This quality was at the forefront of our Christmas Hamper initiative this December.  All of our grade 7 and 8 classes came together to contribute to Christmas packages for those in our community who might not otherwise have food and gifts at this time of year.  The amount of goods that our students and staff contributed was overwhelming.  A big thank you to everyone who participated in any way they could.  Our community is thankful!

St. Patrick’s Career Fair

On December 16th, all of our grade 7 students had the opportunity to visit our Career Fair, organized by our Student Services Department.  We had community representation from several vocations and agencies including firefighters, police officers, colleges, bank employees and electricians to name a few.  This is an opportunity for our students to ask questions and get additional information on career opportunities as we encourage them to begin the planning process for high school and beyond.  Thank you to those in our community who gave of their time to provide information at the fair.

Shamrock Fashions Consignment Store

A group of students, supported by our Student Services Department, has opened our Shamrock Fashions Consignment store at the school.  We opened our doors before Christmas so students could find some gifts for family and friends ahead of the holidays, and now we are having our Boxing Week sale!  This Thursday, January 8th at lunch, students are encouraged to get a pass that will allow them to go shopping at the consignment store.  Our parents and guardians are also encouraged to visit and shop on Thursday between 11:45 and 12:15 after signing in at the main office.  We are also continuing to look for donations to keep our inventory up.  We have asked students to bring in any gently used clothing or accessories which can be dropped off in our students services department.

School Council Meeting

We will be having a school council meeting on Tuesday, January 6th at 7:00 pm in our Learning Commons.  Our emphasis is always on providing information to our parent and guardian community on what is going on at St. Patrick’s.  I would certainly encourage you to attend to get some information or to ask questions.  Our meeting minutes and other news are posted on our website at  http://spe.ocsb.ca/catho.

Band Concert

We will be collaborating musically with St. Patrick’s high school on January 14th (at the high school) for a band concert evening at 7:00 pm.  The concert was to take place before Christmas but was postponed due to inclement weather.  Come and join us - it is a great way to keep the spirit of the season alive!

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly