Mrs Belinda Hughes - Principal

This Advent we have a very good reason to thank God for simplicity and the gift of hope. Throughout the year I have listened to others share how grateful they are for the simple things that we have back in our lives. The simplicity of being able to gather as a school community and share in so many joyous liturgies throughout 2022.

Social Justice

‘Never see a need without doing something about it (1871)’, St Michael’s continued to support those less fortunate by donating money and food through a range of whole school activities. Many of these activities were supported by the Mini Vinnies students from Year 6. As part of the St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal, the students fundraiser, where blankets, jumpers, socks were passed onto ‘The Vinnies Van’ who supply food and warm items to those in need. A Christmas hamper and Christmas crafts were prepared by the students for the St Vincent de Paul to distribute to those less fortunate during the festive season.

This year the students continued their connection with global communities by raising money for Caritas and Catholic Mission. To raise money for Caritas students and staff dressed up ``What do I want to be when I grow up” raising $312. The Mini Vinnies made ribbons for the students to wear on Harmony Day and St Patrick’s where students brought in a gold coin to purchase and raise money for the East Coast flood Appeal raising $373.  During Mission week the students raised $250 to support Catholic Mission in building schools, training teachers, providing food and allowing children to have access to an education in Ethiopia by wearing crazy socks.

Sacraments 

Our students continued their faith development through the sacraments of First penance, holy Communion and confirmation. Thank you Father Ken and the St Michael's parish for your support and guidance in the preparations of these special sacraments.

Prayer life

This year the students gathered and celebrated  ‘Buddy Masses’, this has been an opportunity for all grades to participate in the Friday Parish Mass with another grade in the school.

Each Friday one grade spends time with Father Ken talking  about their current  Religious Education units and scripture passages. The class engages with many questions and listening ears. We are so blessed to have Father Ken be so willing to share his wealth of wisdom.

Prayer for the end of the school year 

At the end of this school year, we give thanks to God: For all the teaching and learning that has taken place in our school, both in and out of the classroom, 

For the talents and gifts that have been shared and the challenges that have been faced; For the burdens that have been lifted and the hurts that have been healed; 

For the respect and care that has been given. We give thanks for the friendships that have just begun and for those that have grown. For the faith that has been lived in our daily struggles, 

For the hope that has lifted our hearts on the dark days And for the love that has kept us going. We give thanks for the community that we are, and we ask you Lord – 

Bless our students: may your Spirit inspire them with confidence and a love of learning; 

Bless our families: may your spirit keep them safe through the holidays and leave them with memories to cherish. 

Pour out your love on us that we may return renewed and refreshed to continue our journey together.

Grace and Blessings,

Mrs Steph Brown - Religious Education Coordinator

Staffing News

Again it is with mixed emotions that I congratulate Miss Eliza Treble on her appointment as Middle Leader at St Paul’s Albion Park. Miss Treble has been an extremely valued member of staff, her passion for the students can not be compared. She is an exemplary educator and St Paul’s is blessed to have Miss Treble as a part of their community. We will miss you greatly Eliza and wish you well on the next chapter of your journey.

Staff and Classes - 2023

Principal - Mr James Bryce

Assistant Principal - Mrs Amy Sammut

REC - Mrs Stephanie Brown

Middle Leader 1 & Instructional Coach - Miss Emma Riolo

SSSO -  Mrs Claire Ryan

Kindergarten -  Mrs Katie Kelly

Year 1 - Mrs Shari Mayo

Year 2 - Miss Pamela Di Domizio

Year 3 - Mrs Chelsea McLeod

Year 4 - Ms Maria Shea

Year 5 - Miss Emma Riolo & Mrs Amy Sammut

Year 6 - Mrs Ronelle Peardon

DLST - Mrs Stephanie Brown

Creative Arts -  Mrs Laura Aguilera

Office Support and Executive Assistant (Principal) - Mrs Jakki Agostino

Classroom Support

Mrs Renee Holt, Ms Emma Cooney, Mrs Jodie Maloney, Mrs Melissa Costello, Ms Natasha Galea, Mrs Cecilia Medina (Library), Mrs Nicole Parker (IT support)

Year 6 Graduation

This week we saw our Year 6 students have their Year 6 liturgy and graduation ceremony. What a special night it was. The liturgy was led by Fr Ken and highlighted the importance of our Catholic faith in the lives of our young people. The graduation ceremony in the hall was a celeration and acknowledgement of the special gifts and talents in our students. An opportunity to reminisce and recognise some great achievements. Thank you to Mrs Peardon and Mrs Brown for their leadership and significant contribution to ensuring that the night was meaningful and special for the students and their families. All the parents were extremely grateful for your time and effort in making the night so special for them.

A thank you to the Year 5 parents who supported the evening with their time in setting up the hall with decorations, a small gift and serving of food. Your support was greatly appreciated by all.

SPLICED 2022

This year's SPLICED program has seen over 200 students across the Wollongong Diocese aged 7-12  successfully engage with the challenging tasks of thinking critically, creatively and contemplatively with this year’s conceptual unit  ‘Taking Up Space: The Length and the Breadth, the Height and the Depth’. Congratulations to the successful St Michael’s students who have successfully completed the SPLICED  program this year. The following students are to be commended for their perseverance, layered depth and enthusiasm, and inspired minds and hearts.

Year 6 - Sophia

Year 5 - Lucy, Audrey, Sophie

Year 4 - Edison, Lila, Maggie, Olivia

To view the amazing work produced by our students please visit the official website that has been launched this week https://spliced2022.dow.catholic.edu.au. 

Unity Garden Update

Over the last few terms our garden club has been busy preparing our Unity Garden. The garden has been established as an area on our playground that will celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and to be a space where students can go for quiet prayer and reflection. At the end of last term students were involved in painting rocks for the garden where we raised money for the ‘Indigenous Literacy Foundation’. These rocks will be placed in the garden very soon.

Over the last few weeks students have helped plant a variety of native plants and native edibles in the space. These plants have been purchased from IndigiGrow, a nursery located in La Perouse public school. IndigiGrow is a 100% Aboriginal owned and operated social enterprise that seeks to deliver positive cultural and environmental projects by growing and reviving local endangered native plants and native edibles.

Next year The Unity Garden will continue to be an area of focus for our garden club members. We hope that students will be able to watch the plants grow and thrive, and learn about the many benefits of native plants.

PB4L 2022 Wrap up

2022 Positive Behaviours for Learning always prioritised the promotion of being proactive with the promotion of positive behaviours and student and family wellbeing and welfare. 

In order to meet the needs of all students in order to promote student learning and wellbeing, we maintained and embedded into school culture several strategies that we had introduced over the last two years. This included classes integrating Social and Emotional Learning through the PDHPE and RE curricula. Our programs incorporated the building of personal and social capabilities that included self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social management through the Zones of Regulation framework. Students were exposed and explicitly taught how to articulate their emotions, their effects on others and how to regulate their emotional states. The strategies used were highly effective in supporting students to further develop building resilience and positive mindsets. 

This year we also maintained the engagement in Christian Meditation. This is a specific type of meditation and is not the same as “mindfulness” or other meditation practices. Christian meditation is the prayer of stillness and silence. It is a universal wisdom found in all spiritual traditions and is part of an ancient Christian tradition. As with all prayer, and in time, we are graced with the fruits of the spirit - love, peace, joy, happiness, patience, kindness, gentleness, attention, compassion and wisdom. 

This year we introduced Peer Support. The Peer Support Program provided a fun and engaging environment for the students that addresses issues arising throughout Primary School.  Our Year 5 and 6 leaders effectively facilitated the groups that were vertically aligned across the school years, meaning that we had a mix of all classes in each group. The ‘Keeping Friends’ module was run during Term 2. Keeping Friends is underpinned by the premise that resilient children have a broad range of supportive networks as opposed to a single best friend. In Term 3 the groups met each Tuesday to share lunch together. To recognise mental health week, we also participated in a walk and talk afternoon, where students were teamed up with different classes and had prompts to lead constructive conversations. 

We also reintroduced a focus of the week. This incorporated students being explicitly taught expected behaviours in a particular setting. Each fortnight, students were asked to display those expected behaviours and were in the running to host Micky, our newest member of the St Michael’s school community. Micky certainly was a crowd favourite; even the Year 6 students were lining up for squishy cuddles.

Again this year, positive behaviours were rewarded with tokens (Dojos). On Wednesday of week 10, the Term 3 and term 4 top token winners and St Michael Blue winners are gifted with a play down at Thirroul Beach park and a small bag of goodies. I look forward to seeing lots of smiles on faces! 

I hope that you all enjoy a happy and holy Christmas surrounded by those you love.

Thank you

Mrs Ronelle Peardon - Leader of PB4L

Year 6 Fun Day

After a huge night before, celebrating all things Year 6 (graduation), we backed it up with a Year 6 Fun day. Many of the students were unaware of just how much fun they were going to have. One of them thought that we were just going to be throwing rubber chickens or having egg and spoon races! We had a morning of a giant zorb ball, laser tag and gaming. The smiles on their faces said it all. The spins and flips in the ball was a sight to see with the onlookers cheering them on as they tried helplessly to control their bodies. At one point I thought we were at the world cup when the gaming truck erupted into shouts of cheers and groans of disappointment of defeat to worthy opponents. Of course, Mighty Mitchell was victorious in the battle of the playground equipment during the laser tag battles. The girls, although a tad quieter, certainly enjoyed the battles too. Following the fun activities the students were treated with pizza and some extra sweet treats. They certainly went home very tired! 

School Review & Improvement Priorities (SRI)

Goal 1: Vision and Mission

This year we have launched and are ritualising the school’s new Vision and Mission statement across the school. It is an exciting opportunity to reconnect with our core values and continue to live out what St Michael’s is truly about.

A part of the implementation journey of our new Vision is the introduction of an award at the end of every term for each class based on the three pillars of the Vision statement. The final term’s assembly will be dedicated to the awards to emphasise their significance. The awards are about acknowledging and celebrating leadership and a genuine expression of our Vision.

Inspired by Christ, we aspire to excellence in learning, living life fully in community.

Goal 2: Literacy

St Michael’s Literacy Goal was focused on all teachers having a shared knowledge and understanding of a balanced literacy approach. The teachers have been working extremely hard unpacking the new English syllabus. All teachers have engaged in new professional learning around the ‘why’ behind the new syllabus and this has created a shared understanding and improved practice. 

Our K-2 teachers have been programming with the new syllabus and we have seen improvements in students' writing and reading skills. The decodable readers have been a huge success in kindergarten and have set our students up to be successful readers with strong reading skills. 

Our 3-6 teachers have been concept mapping on how the new syllabus will look in our primary classrooms and I know they are excited to program and plan using the new syllabus next year. 

Goal 3: Assessment

This year as part of School Review and Improvement, teachers engaged in professional learning to create a common understanding of quality assessment practices. Meetings were utilised to reconnect with the current research around what works best and share ideas of what quality assessment looks like in the classroom. Teachers focused on ways to embed feedback practices into teaching and learning effectively. These practices allow students to be able to self and peer assess their learning to celebrate what they have done well and clearly articulate what their next step in learning is. Teachers were involved in collaborative planning meetings to embed research based quality assessment practices where students can demonstrate their learning and know how they are going. 

After consolidating our understanding of assessment, we focused on developing students' reasoning in mathematics. Teachers engaged in collaborative planning of an assessment task, marking of work samples and data discussions. This collaborative process was very effective, allowing teachers to use this data to plan effective teaching and learning in mathematics.  

Miss Emma Riolo, Mrs Steph Brown & Miss Eliza Treble

What a wonderful year it has been with Kindergarten! They have grown so much from the beginning of the year - socially, emotionally and academically. I am so proud of all the achievements they have made.

They have developed in confidence and have worked hard in all their learning. I have loved seeing them form beautiful friendships and hearing the kind words that they say to each other.

We had a class conversation recently on what they’ve enjoyed in Kindergarten. Here is a list of their responses which gives you an indication on the wonderful first year they’ve had at St Michael’s:

-Learning in Kindergarten

-Teachers

-Maths and adding numbers

-Writing stories

-Art and drawing

-Playing with my buddy

-Helping my friends

-Spelling

-Helping my friends when they are hurt

-Playing with all my friends

-Playing handball

-Making new friends

-Elf on the shelf in our classroom

-Reading

-Becoming smarter and smarter every day

-Learning new things

-Number work

-Using the mini whiteboards

-Number sentences

-Games like Octopus and Jellyfish

-Ball Games

-Liturgies and Assemblies

-Disco

-Crazy Sock Day

-Book Week Activities

-Pyjama Day

-Every day in Kindergarten

CONGRATULATIONS KINDERGARTEN!

Mrs Katie Kelly

Kindergarten Teacher

Games like Octopus and Jellyfish

Ball Games

Liturgies

Assemblies

Disco

Crazy sock day

Book Week Activities

Pyjama Day

The best response - I liked every day in Kindergarten

Principal Awards:

• Daisy D
• Jack B
• James B
• Reuben C

Gold Awards:

• Ella E
• Libby S
• Jess M

Colour walk-a-thon

Well done to the students and staff who participated in the Colour walk-a-thon. The morning was so much fun and the students had a great time getting covered in all of the colours. They actually looked like fairy floss!

A big thank you to the parent volunteers who also enjoyed the colourful experience!!

P&F Christmas Mutfi Day - Thursday, 15 December (Gold coin donation).