It has been wonderful to see our students return to school following the holiday period. There is nothing I enjoy more than greeting each of our students at the gate each morning as they come ready for another day of learning. This is also a great opportunity for catching up with parents and carers. Please always feel free to come and chat - I appreciate your time and feedback on these occasions.
Earlier this week, we had the privilege of welcoming our incoming Kindergarten class of 2025 at their Orientation Day. Our current Kindergarten students and teachers welcomed them into their learning spaces, demonstrating the types of activities that take place each day and our Pre-Kindergarten students were wonderful hosts as students entering directly into Kindergarten joined them for a play and morning tea.
We will continue our 2025 transition events with Pre-Kindergarten 2025 Story and Play session over the next two weeks. If you are aware of any families interested in joining us in 2025, please encourage them to head to our website to join a school tour!
Today we celebrated our teaching staff on “World Teacher’s Day”. I am so thankful for everything our teachers do, going above and beyond as they plan, teach, care and pray for their students. We thanked our teachers with breakfast during our Staff Devotions this morning.
We are looking forward to welcoming our Grandparents at St Peter’s on Monday 4th November, where they will be entertained by our co-curricular music groups, enjoy morning tea and visit classrooms. There will also be our annual book fair available to visit.
This day will be followed by our annual Music Festival on Monday 4th November from 7.00pm. Information was sent in an email to families who have students who are performing in this event.
Welcome back to all of our students. It has been wonderful to see the happy faces and connections over the past week. It has been a busy week with several wonderful opportunities for our students.
Swim school for Years One and Two began last Wednesday and will continue for the next 4 weeks. The students enjoyed the experience and we look forward to seeing them grow in confidence in the water as well as learn all about water safety.
This week we have had the pleasure of listening to the Senior Band perform at lunchtime and we enjoyed the piano recital for these students on Tuesday. The talents of our students is always impressive and having opportunities to perform for an audience is a great way for them to be encouraged and grow in confidence.
This week our Year 5 students enjoyed the Lake Macquarie views at their camp. The students spent time sailing, paddle boarding and building rafts as well as experiencing abseiling, the Challenge Course and Cave Maze. A huge thank you to the staff who attended and supported our students from both Grammar and Heart. This camp is always a highlight for our students and the time spent away from the classrooms continues to build relationships with others and self-confidence.
Before school (8.00 - 9.00am) and at the end of the day (2.45 - 3.30pm), parents should only be driving into the school carpark if they are utilising the ‘Kiss and Drop’ space. Parking is offsite - at the Bowling Club carpark, in Brown Street or Howe Street, or in the carpark off Broughton Street.
If you need to get out of your car, please do not enter the carpark. A reminder that staff have allocated spots and so parking in these spaces holds up staff to be in meetings or prepare for the day. Safety is our number one priority and our systems for using the carpark works safely if everyone respects these processes.
Please do not enter the carpark before 2.55pm as this is our emergency entry and this cannot be blocked during the school day.
Broughton Anglican College invites families of students currently in Year 5 to attend their 2026 Scholarship Information evening coming up on Monday 18 November from 7pm. Scholarships are offered to students entering Year 7 and Year 11 in 2026. Please register for the information evening here.
A reminder that our Pre-Kindergarten - Year 2 Sports Fun Day has been rescheduled for November 15th.
Parent Helpers please advise if you are no longer able to attend or help on this date.
We look forward to inviting families to our Community Christmas Event on November 22. Please see the attached flyer for more details.
As Mrs McDonnell highlighted, this week we had the pleasure of welcoming our 2025 Kindergarten students and their families to St Peter’s for our Orientation events. A key focus of our information sessions is sharing the incredible learning that takes place during our students' first formal year of education. In responding to the many thoughtful questions from parents, it’s clear how deeply invested our families are in their children’s literacy development. We enjoy discussing the ways St Peter’s nurtures the foundational literacy skills that set our young learners on the path to becoming confident readers and writers.
One frequent question from families is how they can best support their children in learning to read. A crucial aspect of this journey from Kindergarten through Year 2 is building strong phonic knowledge. The new English syllabus emphasises the importance of phonics instruction for K-2 students, helping them to connect sounds with letter symbols, decode words and develop reading fluency. A solid foundation in phonics impacts students’ ability to read, write, spell and engage in all curriculum areas.
At St Peter’s, we prioritise phonics instruction through structured, explicit teaching to help students recognise sounds, blend them to read words, and ultimately become independent readers and writers. For parents supporting their children at home, there are simple, effective strategies to reinforce phonics skills, including practising letter sounds, encouraging word segmentation (the process of breaking words into individual sounds), blending, reading aloud together and incorporating phonics games to make learning enjoyable.
With quality instruction at school and family support at home, we can reinforce our students' phonic knowledge, giving them a strong foundation for lasting reading and writing success.
This is one of the questions we are looking at in Chapel this Term. We are seeking to answer this question by looking at the Apostle Paul’s letter to Christians living in Rome around 60 AD. The Roman Empire at the time Paul was writing was vast and powerful. Christians were severely persecuted for declaring to be followers of Jesus and were often tempted to walk away from their faith in Christ.
Paul writes to reassure Christians living in Rome of the truth of the gospel (the good news of salvation found in Jesus). Paul himself had been an unbeliever in Christ Jesus and a fervent persecutor of Christians until the day everything changed.
Paul had a supernatural encounter with the risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. Jesus commissioned Paul to take the gospel to people of every nation.
Paul went from being a very religious, self-righteous man to being a man who humbly recognised how far short he fell from the glory of God. He wrote in Romans 3:23 the sobering truth that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
In Chapel this week I challenged the students to think about how far short they fall from God’s glory. I asked everyone, including adults, to stand and then said, “Sit down if you have ever lied, taken something that didn’t belong to you, said something mean to someone, spoken back to your parents, had a temper tantrum, been rude, been jealous, not said sorry, forgotten to pray, didn’t help someone who needed help, didn’t always put God first…”.
I didn’t get far through the list when I noticed that everyone had sat done. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That’s why we need a Saviour, that’s why the good news about Jesus is such good news.
So, in answer to the question: Is good enough good enough for God? The students themselves said, “No”. We can’t put ourselves right with God by being good, Jesus came to deal with our sin and put us right with God.
We will be thinking more about how this works this Term and the place ‘seeking to be good’ has in the life of a follower of Jesus.
Parents and grandparents, you are very welcome to come to Chapel.
Our Year 1 and 2 students made quite the splash during their first swim school session this week! Over the next four weeks, they’ll be diving into essential swimming skills and survival techniques such as floating, treading water and safe entries and exits from the pool. These skills will help them build confidence and safety in the water while having loads of fun!
After all the splashing, paddling and kicking, our young swimmers worked up big appetites and many of them were extra hungry after their impressive efforts. As the weeks progress, packing a little more food in their lunchboxes might be needed to refuel their energy. With all the energy they used in the pool, they were all ready for a good night’s sleep!
We’re so proud of how well they’ve embraced the program and can’t wait to see them continue to build their swimming skills.
Year 1 and 2 have been filling the air with buzzing excitement the past two Wednesday mornings as they attend Swimming Lessons at The Gordon Fetterplace Aquatic Centre.
Learning to swim is an important life skill. Not only does experience and correct technique save children’s lives near bodies of water, it also teaches life skills that aren’t limited to the pool. As a child revels in their progress and success, they will gain a confidence within themselves that continues once they step out of the water and into other aspects of their lives.
Please take the time to read Why Every Child Should Learn To Swim, and consider pathways for your child to improve their swimming ability and participate in competitive swimming at our next Carnival in the new year.
As the weather warms up, now is the time to start training for our Swimming Carnival in early Term 1, 2025. To participate competitively in our School Swimming Carnival, students must safely swim, in a recognised stroke, to the end of a 50m length Olympic pool without stopping or requiring assistance.
Students have the opportunity to trial for mixed school state sports teams throughout the year.
If you have a child who will be in years 5 and 6 in 2025, who is already involved in a Club Sport Representative or Development team/workshop, please fill in the Student Sports Talent EOI Form. There are many opportunities for students excelling at representative level to trial for Independent Schools State Teams throughout the year that include:
Cricket
Tennis
Boys Basketball
Girls Basketball
Boys Touch Football
Girls Football (Soccer)
Boys Football (Soccer)
Girls Netball
Rugby Union
Boy’s Field Hockey
Girls Field Hockey
Rugby League
Golf
Boys and Girls Softball
Competition Gymnastics (For students in Years 3-6)
Students must be already competing and excelling at a State level outside of school. Entries are limited, so school trials may need to take place.
On Thursday, 17th October we were excited to take a team of students passionate about playing tennis to the Todd Woodbridge Tennis Regional Finals Tournament in Ulladulla.
It was hot and competitive at the regional finals, but our students stood tall and gave it their best. Winning a total of 8 games throughout the day, our students can stand proud for displaying encouraging sportsmanship.
We look forward to beginning a tennis development programme in 2025 for students to begin training from early Term 1 and have more opportunities for competition throughout the year; since it is such a loved sport at St Peter’s.
IPSSO Inter-School Sport
Week 1 - v. Macarthur Anglican School
Sport | W/L/D | Rank | Score | Player of the Match |
Jnr Basketball | L | 6th | 12-10 | Xavier B |
Jnr Cricket | W | =1st | 2/111-5/39 | Ernest M |
Jnr Girls Soccer | L | 5th | 6-0 | Madeleine M |
Jnr Oz Tag | L | 7th | 14-6 | Isaac C |
Snr Basketball | W | 4th | 20-14 | Mia T |
Snr Cricket | W | 1st | 2/29-5/30 | Elijah N |
Snr Girls Soccer | L | 7th | 3-1 | Kavyaa S |
Snr Oz Tag | W | 4th | 14-9 | Ethan H |
Week 2 v. BYE
Tribes were formed… battle lines were taken… the victory cry echoed loud!
Thursday of Week 1 was Year 5 Survivor Day. The challenge for students was to adapt their body and behaviour to survive! Or at least, win as many points as they could for their tribe.
Our young warriors were faced with a wide range of daunting tasks that tested their mind, body and teamwork skills. From tugging the rope of war, to leaping over a chasm, dodging balls, cracking codes, throwing water and more, our students earned point after point chasing the title of the ultimate survivor!
By the end of the day, we discovered that you could only really become the ultimate survivor through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Throughout the rest of this term, Year 5 are exploring their last Unit of Inquiry for the year, ‘Sharing The Planet’, where we will delve into adaptations and the circumstances that activate them.
Did you know that Jesus provides His people with special adaptations to survive and thrive in life now and the one to come?!?! Ask Year 5 all about it!
Our Scholastic Book Fair is nearly here!
Please see the Campbelltown Anglican School Term Dates for 2025 and 2026.
