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Dear Parents and Carers,
As the term comes to an end and we once again approach the school holidays I always like to reflect on the term that was.
It is with joy and gratitude that I can reflect on term 3 with fondness and an appreciation of what we have been able to achieve. For the first time in a very long time I feel like we have been able to open the school again to the community and authentically involve parents and grandparents in the life of the school. From reading with children to liturgies, open classrooms and art exhibitions. The smile on the children’s faces and the excitement and pride to showcase their work has been priceless.
Thank you to our community for joining us for all of these special moments and for your lovely feedback. It has been wonderful to be able to share these experiences with our community again. They all are an important part of making our school so special.
I sincerely hope that you enjoy the holidays coming up and they are an opportunity to spend time with family and friends and to recharge for the run into Christmas!
A reminder that next Thursday 22 September the Prime Minister has announced a public holiday, the school will not be open on this day.
God Bless
Mrs Belinda Hughes - Principal
Father’s Day Prayer Service
Friday 2nd September we celebrated all the wonderful father figures in our lives.
The students had spent the week prior reflecting on how special their Dad’s are.
My Dad is so special because he keeps me safe and protects me. (Mary Kindergarten)
My Dad is so special because he takes me to good restaurants. (Julia Year One)
My Dad is so special because we get to cook steak on the barbie together. I love Dad’s steak. (Hunter Year Three)
My Dad is so special because he gives me big hugs and always has time to hang out with me. (Sebastian Year Five)
Christmas Story Art Competition
"WE ASK OUR STUDENTS TO TAKE A BLANK PIECE OF CANVAS... AND MAKE IT SPEAK OF GOD"
The Christmas Art Competition gives our Years 5 and 6 students the opportunity to be engaged in the process of theological reflection. Through the process of ‘breaking open’ Scripture, students bring their understanding of the Scriptures of Advent and Christmas to artistic expression. They illustrate their understanding of the themes of our faith story through art.
The Scripture passages are taken directly from the Primary Religious Education Curriculum in Years 5 and 6 Advent and Christmas units.
On Tuesday we had the honour as a school community to view our students' showcasing their artwork and accompanying descriptions. Our students' creations and reflections show a thorough depth and understanding of the Christmas Story, shared through the Scriptures.
Thank you to Miss Riolo and Mrs Peardon for the guidance and support given to the students in the preparation and creation of their artworks and the wonderful exhibition.
Parent Spirituality
Ripples is a PODCAST developed for staff and parents on-going spiritual formation designed by Robyn Gallagher (Professional Officer - Staff Spiritual Formation - Catholic Education Office). It seeks to offer a space where people can draw on the wisdom of a series of guest speakers and can experience some treasured stillness through meditation. Practices like these create a ripple effect. They have the potential to impact the way we respond to family, friends, colleagues, to creation and to our loving God. Come and enjoy some Inspired Voices and Treasured Stillness.
RIPPLE EFFECT
This program is called Ripples because of Robyn’s belief that there are some practices that have a ripple effect. When we have time to connect with matters of the heart, to hear a new perspective and to enter into silence we are more able to respond to life from a better place and space. And this has a ripple effect. It impacts the way we respond to family, friends, colleagues, others in our world, to creation and to our God.
THE PROGRAM
Each week a new Episode and Meditation will be offered. You may like to listen to both the Episode and the Meditation in one sitting or you may choose to do them at different times of the day or week. You can choose a time that works best for you.
A journal is a wonderful tool to support you in this time of reflection, so you may like to bring this with you as you sit with a question that the guest speaker offers during their Episode.
Grace and Blessings
Mrs Steph Brown - Religious Education Co ordinator
What a celebration for R U OK day! The students were engaged in so many different activities from lunch time drumming sessions, peer support groups, in class activities and of course our whole school assembly. A big thank you to Miss Emma Riolo for her drumming leadership and Mrs Steph Brown for the organisation of the peer support groups. It was very clear that as a community we want to make sure everyone feels like they are supported and loved!
Don’t forget to ask each other the important question of R U OK throughout the year and remember our 4 steps of an R U OK conversation!
Thank you again to all the parents and friends who were able to join us at our R U OK day assembly. I think you would all agree that we walked out feeling better than when we walked in!
Electricity safety week
This week is Electricity Safety week, a statewide program designed to raise awareness of hazards associated with electricity and teach students how to stay safe around it. Our Living Fully in Community year 6 leadership team spoke with the school about the importance of this week at Monday morning assembly. They are running lunchtime workshops where kindy to year 3 students are participating in an endeavour energy poster competition and year 4 to 6 are creating electricity safety comic strips.
Each class will have a school winner and these students’ work will be posted to endeavour energy to go in the draw for a $500 dollar cash price for the school as well as an individual prize!
Miss Eliza Treble - Assistant Principal
Transition to Summer Uniform
The formal transition to summer uniform is the 1st day of term 4, Monday 10 October. If the weather is quite warm in Weeks 9 and 10 of Term 3, the students can begin to wear their summer uniform in those 2 weeks. Please see below an outline of our updated school uniform policy.
Would you like to share your expertise with our students?
Do you have a special gift, talent or experience in a field that you would like to share? We are looking to build a ‘database’ of parent / grandparent names and talents at the school where teachers may be able to access your expertise in the classroom when it is appropriate. For example you may be a writer or editor and you may wish to share your skills in how to be a good writer, you may be musical and you may be able to help out at liturgies and masses with the music. If you would like to share your talents please complete the google form and we look forward to hearing from you.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14jsRoUG5KBwKskCaO9a0RnqHd2RCYCXaHJyMf4IEfSI/edit
Life Education Van Visit
PB4L News
‘Focus of the Week!’
Congratulations to Year 2 for winning the focus of the week two weeks in a row for displaying expected behaviours during morning passive play. They were lucky enough to have ‘Bear’ (still waiting for a name!) stay with them for the two weeks. Bear will be staying with the winning class for the duration of the week. Today, the Leaders of Living Fully in Community surveyed the school to get some ideas for Bear’s name. There were some very interesting suggestions. We can’t wait to see the end result!
The behavioural focus for week 9 and 10 is the expected behaviours during eating time on the playground, both recess and lunch.
We have unpacked the behaviours with the students as:
- Walk with teacher to designated eating location
- Remain seated for eating time and wait to be dismissed by the teacher (on the second bell at lunch)
- Put all rubbish in the bins
- Put lunch boxes into lunch basket or beside the basket, out of the play area
- Sitting outside handball courts
These expected behaviours are to ensure that we are true to our school rules of taking care of each other, taking care of yourself and taking care of this place.
Each fortnight we will roll out a new focus area and will be shared at the Monday morning assembly. We appreciate the conversations that you have with your children at home in helping to support endeavours, such as these. We are aiming to project a consistent message of respectful behaviours.
Vinnies Van Appeal
Last week, all classes had the opportunity to visit the Vinnies Van and learn about what they do and why they do it. Everyone was very appreciative of the volunteers' time and effort. Students learnt about what homelessness means and the items and food that the van donates to the homeless. The questions that each class asked were extremely compassionate.
This term, the Mini Vinnies will be hosting an appeal for students to donate items to the Vinnies Van so that they can provide necessary items like deodorant, washing detergent, toilet paper, toothpaste and toothbrushes, food and warm items to those less fortunate and enable them to stay warm, dry, clean and full. Each classroom is provided with a basket for students to collect their items.
The Vinnies Van Appeal is running through Week 8 and Week 9 and will be collected on Monday Week 10 by John Dening, our St Vincent De Paul representative.
We thank you for all the support you continue to provide to the school, the Mini Vinnies team and the community for this Vinnies Van Appeal!
Miss Negus and the Mini Vinnies team
The Unity Garden Rock Painting
On World Environment Day we announced that we would be creating ‘The Unity Garden’ on our playground to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and to create a space where students could go for quiet prayer and reflection. During next week we would like to give the students the opportunity to contribute to the creation of this garden by painting rocks that would be displayed in the garden.
The rock painting will take place during lunch time in week 10 and will be facilitated by our Mini Vinnies team. If students would like to paint a rock they will be asked to make a gold coin donation that will be donated to ‘The Indigenous Literacy Foundation’. This foundation delivers books to Indgeous children living in remote communities and offers programs and support to these communities to create and publish their stories in languages of their choice,
Some acrylic paint pens will be available for the students to use but if any families have these types of pens at home that they would like to donate for the activity we would be very appreciative. If students would like to use their own acrylic paint pens for the activity they are more than welcome too. All rocks will be supplied.
The lunch time timetable will run as followed:
Monday Lunch - Kindergarten and Year 5
Tuesday Lunch - Years 1, 2 and 6
Wednesday Lunch - Years 3 and 4
We look forward to seeing ‘The Unity Garden’ come together over the next few weeks.
Mrs Shari Mayo & Miss Maddie Negus
School Uniform Price List - Lowes
Each year at St Michael's we have a focus on specific improvement priority areas. The strategic approach to improvement is a way for the school to focus its professional learning time, resources and management in the right areas in order to have a positive impact on student learning, wellbeing and faith development.
This year teachers have been working on creating a common understanding of quality assessment practises. What are they? How they should inform practice and how they can be used effectively to share progress on learning and identify next steps in learning.
This term teachers have engaged in planning meetings with a focus on collaboratively creating maths assessments that allow students to develop their mathematical reasoning skills.
To ensure consistent teacher judgement across the school, student work samples were collaboratively marked. This collaborative process was very effective, allowing teachers to use this data to plan effective teaching and learning.
Miss Emma Riolo - Middle Leader 2
This term we have so much to celebrate in Year 4.
This term we started looking at writing Informative Texts. This was linked into both our reading and writing tasks as it provided the students with a range of techniques that they could then use when writing their own texts.
The students looked at the reading strategy, ‘Summarising’ and examined the use of QuIP’s which is a technique used to identify key points and then record them into paragraphs. The students used this strategy in both English and History to record information about a range of Informative topics.
Students then applied their understanding of this technique to gather information to write Informative Texts on the topic, ‘Everyone Needs to Play a Part in Protecting Our World’.
This term the students also engaged in a range of webinars throughout book week to examine different ways that they can create Imaginary texts. We then used these ideas to plan and bring to life our writing.
Creative Arts was linked in with Book Week this year. The students brought a range of different fairy tales to life through the use of freeze frames in Drama.
Congratulations to Riley S who has been selected for the MacKillop Cricket team for the PSSA State Championships in term 4 this year. What a wonderful achievement.
Riley will also be playing in the Hawks Junior Representative team in the National Basketball Championship. We wish you all the best Riley!
Congratulations to Jesse M for coming 19th at the National Snowboarding Championships. Jesse is now the 19th best Snowboarder in his division in Australia! What a fantastic achievement.
Miss Emma Wragge - Sports Coordinator
Principal Awards:
- Ruby K
- Oscar R
Mufti Day
We are looking forward to Term 3 Mufti Day, which will be happening tomorrow Friday, 16th of September. Kids are to come to school dressed in their favourite and most comfortable Pjs! All students are encouraged to bring a gold coin donation which goes towards the P&F. A reminder that students must wear their sports shoes.
Trivia Night 2022 – Dancing Through the Decades
We are very excited to watch the night unfold and look forward to seeing our school community get together over a night full of trivia, games, dancing and most importantly fundraising! Come dressed in your favourite decade from the 20s through to the 90s – The choice is yours.
UPDATE - Ticket sales are now open to families and friends directly related to the St Michael’s School community. We have capped ticket sales at 200. With only a few tables left, we encourage you to jump onto Flexischools and buy your tickets before it’s too late.
$40 each or purchase a table of 10.
Ticket includes – Trivia, games and entertainment! BYO Drinks and Food.
Please reach out to Alexa on 0431 541 244 if you have any questions relating to tickets or tables.
Term 4 - P&F General Meeting – DATE CHANGE
With the excitement and lead up for the Trivia Night in week 4, we have made the decision to move the P&F meeting to the following week, Week 5 - 10th November 2022, 6.30pm for tea and coffee, Meeting commences at 7pm. Please join us as we reveal and share all the success from the trivia night.
