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St Michael's Christmas Concert -
Friday, 6 December
Dear Parents and Carers,
On Monday as a school community we commemorated Remembrance Day. It was a reverent and solemn ceremony led by the school captains of both Thirroul Public and our very own St Michael’s. It was a time to remember those who fought for our freedom and who still today serve our country.
The students were very reverent and were able to appreciate the solemnity of the occasion. It is a priveledge to be able to join with local service men and women to commemorate this special day.
The Eleventh month, on the Eleventh Day at the Eleventh hour we will remember them.
Lest We Forget
God Bless,
Mrs Belinda Hughes - Principal
MINI VINNIES TERM 4 APPEAL
This year for our Christmas Appeal we are offering our support to the Christmas Card project run by Sister Myree Harris and the Gethsemane Community. Each child will receive a label of a man or women who have mental illnesses or other disabilities and the students will write them a Christmas card. Our students will be making some lonely, isolated people very happy this Christmas.
Every student is required to bring in 1 standard size Christmas card with an envelope before November 22nd.
SACRAMENT OF FIRST HOLY COMMUNION
In the following weeks, students from St Michael's will be continuing their preparation to receive their First Holy Communion (the second step in their initation into the Catholic Faith). We wish students and their parents the strength to continue to share with each other their beliefs and love in Jesus Christ. A reminder that the second preparation lessons are on 12th & 19 November at 3.45pm.
REMEMBRANCE DAY
On Monday 11th November our school participated in a joint service with the Austinmer - Thirroul RSL and Thirroul Public School. Students from Years 3 to 6 represented our school with the utmost respect and reverence at this service. Thank you to the parents and friends who joined us at Thirroul Cenotaph to commemorate this very important day.
On Friday November 8 I engaged in a Religious Education Coordinator Network Day. The day covered components such as Educating Young People Spiritually, Morally and religiously for the 21st Century, Strategies to Engage with Scripture, Religious Education Coordinators and their role as senior leaders and ways to make programming interesting and relevant for our students. I am excited to share my new knowledge, learning and ideas with St Michael’s.
YEAR 5 FAITH AND LEADERSHIP DAY
On Wednesday November 13 the Wollongong MX Mission Team facilitated a Leadership and Faith Formation retreat for our Year 5 students. During the day the team facilitated 3 distinct sessions that used various elements to engage students in the theme of ‘Leadership & Faith Formation’.
Through the lens of leadership, the students had opportunities to discover how God has gifted every person as a leader, seeking to inspire a life lived to the full. This day has assisted in preparing our Year 5 students as they become the leaders of St Michael's in 2020.
Miss Emma Groves - Religious Education Co ordinator
Term 4 School Assembly Dates
Assemblies at St Michael’s are an opportunity for our community to come together to acknowledge and celebrate the great learning and events that happen in our school. The school assembly allows all students at St Michael’s to be recognised for their efforts. This term we have added an additional component to our assembly which allows one class per fortnight to share some of the brilliant learning that has been happening in their classrooms.
Week 5- Friday 15 November
Week 6- Friday 22 November (Year 1 sharing their work)
Week 8- Friday 6 December (Year 5 sharing their work)
PB4L update
Hair style and jewellery reminders
Hair that is over collar length must be cut or tied back. Hair may not be dyed. Hair that is untidy (for example long in length or on top or sides, in face) must be cut, no hairstyles that are inappropriate for school (eg. rat tails, mohawks, beaded hair etc.) are allowed. Only light blue or navy coloured bands, ribbons etc. may be worn.
Jewellery
For safety reasons, jewellery, with the exception of simple watches, signet rings and plain stud or small “sleeper” earrings, is not permitted. Crosses on chains may be worn under uniforms.
Nails
Nails are to be kept short and clean (No nail polish or other cosmetics are to be worn).
Supporting your children with writing at home
This term we will continue our parent engagement strategy to support our school goal of collaboratively engaging and working with parents to support student learning. This strategy involves providing parents with a digital resource that will assist them to support their children at home. Each term there will be a focus for the digital resource. This term our focus is on providing parents with some simple and easy tips to support their children’s writing at home.
In the link below you will have access to a short clip developed by Mrs Mayo that gives some very useful strategies to help students develop engaging imaginative texts .
Mr James Bryce - Assistant Principal
Thank you - St Michael’s Trivia Night
Thank you to all families who supported the Trivia night, whether it was through your attendance, donations or the purchasing of raffle tickets. It was a night of laughter and fun. Thank you to the organising team who provided a well themed night with wonderful prizes.
2020 STAFFING AND CLASSES
Staffing for 2020 is currently being finalised and will be shared with the community later in the term.
CHRISTMAS CONCERT / CAROLS
It's time to get excited about our Christmas concert. The children are busy rehearsing their songs and are looking forward to sharing their talents. Bring a picnic blanket and some nibbles and non-alcoholic drinks and join us for some festivities. We are looking forward to the evening celebrating a great year. See you there!
END OF YEAR STOCKTAKE
The last week of borrowing will be Week 6, 18 November – 22 November. This is due to the fact that we need to do a stocktake of the Library collections during Weeks 7-8. We need your help and assistance by beginning to search now for any library books that need to be returned because they are overdue. It would also be of great help if students could return their books by their due date. All students are permitted to borrow up to 3 books per week and these books become overdue after 2 weeks. We are happy to renew loans if needed.
Mrs Medina – Library School Support Officer
School Building Proposed Works
St Michael’s is moving towards being a one stream school. As this process occurs there is a proposal being put forward to the Catholic Education Office to update the facilities of the school to improve workflow and provide contemporary learning spaces. This Christmas holidays it is anticipated that the current Kindergarten room will become the new staffroom. Before the end of the year, Kindergarten will move into the library as their temporary classroom for a couple of weeks. The current administration area will be significantly refurbished towards the end of next year to provide a fully functional administration area with extra meeting rooms and office spaces for the leadership team as well as dedicated work areas for teachers. The master planning process is also taking into consideration the classroom spaces to cater for a one stream school.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education
Uncle Kev, our Aboriginal students and their families have been working with each other over this semester. They have been painting bollards that include local flora and fauna which represent local Dreaming stories.
The school community is invited to celebrate the bollards and hear the stories behind these beautiful works of art. This assembly will be held on Friday 6th December (Week 8) at 2.30pm.
OUR SCHOOL GARDEN
Our school gardens are looking amazing at the moment with each class having a responsibility in taking care of it.
Here is a snapshot of Year 2 watering the gardens and making observations. They were extremely excited to find so many lady beetles!
Year 2 have been working on the Religion unit ‘Caring for all Creation’ so some of our lessons have linked in beautifully with visiting our gardens.
This Friday afternoon, some of the produce will be sold for a gold coin donation after assembly.
Mrs Katie Kelly - (WEN - Wollongong Environmental Network Contact)
TALENT SHOWCASE 2019
On Tuesday, 17th December (Week 10) we will be having our St Michael’s Talent Showcase. This was a great success last year with many performances on the day. Everyone enjoyed watching the variety of items – instrumental, dance, singing, jokes and magic.
A note will be going home over the next week which needs to be filled out if your child is keen to perform this year. Could you please make sure that this note is returned to school by Tuesday, 3rd December.
We ask parents to view their child’s performance before the day. If your child is dancing or singing to a song, please make sure that the lyrics are appropriate, likewise if they are presenting jokes as their item.
The Talent Showcase will start promptly at 11.30am in the hall. We plan to have the Infants items first, followed by Middle Primary and then Upper Primary.
Students are asked to bring in their music by Monday, 16th December so we can put them in order ready for Tuesday. This also gives us the opportunity to check that the music given to us works fine on the sound system in the hall.
All students will be presented with a participation certificate and we look forward to the talent that will be shared with us on the day.
Mrs Kelly and Mrs Kors - (Talent Showcase Co-ordinators)
TRANSITION TO SCHOOL PLAYGROUP AND ORIENTATION
We are into our last week of Playgroup sessions for the children who are starting Kindergarten next year. Our last session will be held on Friday, 15th November from 9.30 to 11.00 am. It has been a lovely journey over the past four weeks, seeing friendships formed and the children enjoying their time with the activities provided. The last few sessions have also included an art / craft table where the children have been busy making paper bag frogs, paper bag fish, painting, chalk drawings and free drawing. Their amazing work has been displayed in the hall along with beautiful photos. The children also had fun on the playground equipment during one of our sessions.
Thank you to all the Year 4 students who have been so enthusiastic in helping out. They have truly done a fantastic job and will be great buddies next year.
The Kindergarten Orientation will be held next Friday, 22nd November at 9.00am - 11.00am. I look forward to spending 2 hours with my new Kindergarten students. All families will attend the Orientation Meeting in the school hall during this time.
Mrs Katie Kelly - Kindergarten Teacher 2020
SPLICED Launch day
Today seven of our St Michael’s Thirroul students were celebrated for their achievements in the SPLICED program ‘ Goodness, beauty, true’. These amazing students have been working hard throughout the year in producing artworks, stories, poems and sketches of the highest quality. Due to their deep thinking and reflecting skills these students have had their work published in the 2019 SPLICED book and website.
A huge congratulations to the following students;
Leon
Daniel
Oscar
Charlie
Lachlan
Sophie
Not only do we have seven student's works in both the book and website Leon’s artwork was used to create the cover of the publication.
Sophie Lyon's story was published into her own book as well as featured on the SPLICED website. We will be sharing all the SPLICED work at school in the coming weeks.
http://spliced2019.dow.
Miss Eliza Treble - Middle Leader 2
CDF Sport Awards
A big congratulations to Amelie Kelly and Seamus Wood for both receiving a sports council medallion. Amelie received her medallion for competing at the MacKillop level in Cross Country and Soccer. Seamus received his medallion for competing at the MacKillop level in Swimming and Ruby Union.
Basketball, Cricket and Tennis Trials
Well done to Baden Balding (Tennis), Will Egan-Brown (Basketball), Zoe McNamara (Basketball), Kalan Taylor (Cricket) and Cooper Garrard (Cricket) for all making it through through to the next round in their chosen sport, these students will be competing at the MacKillop level early next year. Best of luck to you all!
Mr Jason Novak - Sports Co-ordinator
Prinicpals Awards
- Liam Nedeski
- Jude Bell
- Lulu Bell
- Ciaran Stuart
- Zali Calvert
- Leon Do
- Sunny Canales
- Tyrah Beckinsale
- Charlie Squires
- Dylan Fisher
- Oscar Nasso
- Ella Foran
- Darcy Foran
- Dylan Fisher
- Charlie Lamberger
Gold Award
- Mitchell Fisher
- Ruden Mayers
- Sunny Canales
- Leon Do
- Harper Pingnam
- Charlie Lamberger
St Michaels' Blue
- Charlie Squires
- Leon Do
- Charlie Lamberger
Dear parents, friends and school staff,
We would like to say an enormous thank you to everyone that attended the Trivia night on Saturday night and to everyone that bought raffle tickets if they could not attend. We had a fantastic evening of Trivia and dancing with well over 100 people attending. The quality of dress ups was beyond what any of us could have imagined! (see pics for evidence)
In addition to us all having a great time, we had a number of fundraising activities which could not have happened without the generous donations by our local businesses in and around Thirroul, as well as donations by families at the school. Our school is part of a wonderful local community and it is great that we can support them, and in turn they support us. The tickets for the event and fundraising activities on the night mean that we raised over $8000 for the school - and lots of you snapped up some great prizes!
Thank you again to everyone that was involved, including those who helped to coordinate the event, donated a prize, organised a table of friends to attend, bought at ticket and dressed up, or bought a raffle ticket.
P & F Commitee
Donations were sponsored by:
Cucina Café
Old South
Thirroul Academy of Music and Drama
Station Street Tennis
Collins bookstore
Ryans
Lewis Hotels Group
One Agency Thirroul
CBC Law
Thrive
Diggies
Sparkles North
Cricket Australia
Savvy Fitness
Foran plumbing
Northern Stars swim school
Divine Beauty
South Sailor
TDA
Flip out
Divine Beauty
Thirroul Physio
Spicy Apple
Fernwood
Neve Art of Hair
Collins bookstore
Motocity
Gromz
Escandidos
Divine Beauty
Coastal Thai
Luca Luna
Lou & Bobby
Chin Chin
Coles
Thirroul Boxing
Fit for change
Jose Jones
Pure Bread Meats
Coccon
Flip out
Crust pizza
Bulli meat
Woolworths
Thirroul Pavillion
CBC Travel Company
Genesis Building Company
Volunteers Required – aged 10 upwards
Disabled Surfers Association: 7 December
A fun day surfing experience for any person with a disability, no matter how challenging, with complete water supervision. Registration for Participants is $10 and all participants receive a bag of goodies, thanks to the local participating surf shops and businesses. Free registration for Volunteer Helpers and for giving up your time you will receive FREE Sausage Sizzle on the day, Saturday, 7 December from 9:00am at Thirroul Beach.
Disabled Surfing is about helping individuals with a disability to get into the surf and feel the freedom of catching a wave in a safe environment. What the DSA does is provide a safe surfing experience to all in the community with a disability. Volunteers are needed for this to occur. You DO NOT need to know how to surf. If you can stand waist deep in water you can help.
