2023 Kinder Enrolments

The enrolment package is available from our school or online at www.dow.catholic.edu.au

Afternoon Dismissal

Thank you to our community for supporting the return to pre-Covid afternoon dismissal procedures and ensuring the safety of all children. The parent pick up is a routine we are excited to welcome back. Please find below reminders to the procedures and times for afternoon dismissal.

• 3.15pm bell - this is the first dismissal bell for students to be ready for parent pick up

• Students are dismissed by the class teacher, this allows us to be able to be aware of where and who the children are going home with
• South bus, car pick up and fun club are dismissed to the hall for supervision

• 3.20pm bell - this is the end of school day bell. Car pick up begins. By this time there is safe dismissal of remaining students.

• If there is no room in the car pick up line please drive around the block to avoid traffic congestion for the community.

Please be mindful that the car pick up zone is not to be used as a parking space for parent pick up. 

NAPLAN

NAPLAN is a national literacy and numeracy assessment that students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 sit in May each year. It is the only national assessment all Australian students do. As students progress through their school years, it’s important to check how well they are learning the essential skills of reading, writing and numeracy. 

NAPLAN assesses the literacy and numeracy skills that students are learning through the school curriculum and allows parents/carers to see how their child is progressing against national standards and over time. 

NAPLAN is just one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process. It doesn’t replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance, but it can provide teachers with additional information about students’ progress.  

St Michael’s NAPLAN Testing Schedule

Parents, carers and students are invited to use the public demonstration tests to familiarise themselves with the types of questions and related functionalities available in the online NAPLAN assessment. 

Please go to this link for further details: https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site 

House Captains

We would like to introduce our Red & Gold House Captains in the following video clip!

Band

Band and singing online information session tonight at 7.30pm. Please see the flyer in the community section for further details.

Peer Support Program 2022

In Term 2, all students from K-6 will be engaging in a Peer Support Program that will be facilitated by our Year 5 and 6 students. 

This week, the Years 5 and 6 student’s were involved in a two-day leaders training program in order to prepare them for their role as Peer Support Leaders and highlight the structure of the Peer Support Program. Students engaged in a range of activities that aimed to assist them in developing the skills needed to effectively run the sessions which will begin in Term 2. 

The Peer Support Program will provide a fun and engaging environment for the students to address issues that arise throughout Primary School.  Trained Peer leaders will facilitate activities each week over an 8 week period for 30 mins with small groups of younger students. Each group will include two-three Peer leaders from Years 5 and 6 and multi age groups of 8-10 younger students from Kindergarten to Year 4. 

The module that we have chosen to run this year at St Michael’s is called, ‘Keeping Friends’. This module will support the students in developing knowledge, skills and attitudes enabling them to make friends more readily and maintain those friendships. The students will be provided with a range of  opportunities to discuss different types of friendship, the importance of friendships and how to play well together. 

Keeping Friends is underpinned by the premise that resilient children have a broad range of supportive networks as opposed to a single best friend. 

Parents can assist their children by encouraging them to play with many different children, hence strengthening their social capacity and ability to cope. The following is a list of key behaviours parents can encourage in their children to help promote friendship skills:

• talking with others during play 
• offering encouragement 
• taking a genuine interest in others 
• being willing to share with others 
• smiling often 
• learning how to move graciously into or out of a group 
• providing help to others

Mrs Ronelle Peardon and Mrs Chelsea McLeod

This has been a huge 2 weeks for our Mini Vinnies!

Vinnies Flood Appeal: 

Last Thursday and this Monday we had a stall at recess and lunch raising money for the Vinnies Flood Appeal.

These stalls were hugely successful thanks to the giving and empathetic hearts of everyone in our school community. 

Last Thursday, everyone was in the spirit of St Patrick’s Day with their green ribbons! 

This Monday, students participated in Harmony Day activities with their orange ribbons! 

Through this initiative, St Michael’s raised an amazing $373.55!

All proceeds raised during these two events will be donated to the Vinnies Flood Appeal. 

You can also donate directly by accessing the St Vincent De Paul Society website. 

Easter Appeal:

This term, the Mini Vinnies are hosting an Easter Appeal so that they can provide non-perishable food and water to those less fortunate and enable them to celebrate in this Holy holiday. Each classroom has been provided with a basket for students to collect their non-perishable items. Non-perishable items include but are not limited to pancake mix, muesli bars, canned tuna, canned beans, noodle cups, tea bags, powdered milk, juice poppers etc. 

The Easter Appeal collection began running earlier this week and will continue through to next Friday (Week 10). The baskets will be collected by John Denning, the St Vincent de Paul Thirroul coordinator for our school, who will provide these items to people in need in our community.

We thank you in advance for all the support you provide to the school, the Mini Vinnies team and the community. 

Miss Negus and the Mini Vinnies team.