Newsletter March 3, 2020

It was great to see and catch up with so many of our families at our Colour run last Thursday.  Thanks so much to the parents who volunteered to organise and cook the barbeque for the evening - your willingness to continue to build community is really inspiring.  Sadly with the cooler weather and the wind, the coloured dye was perhaps not as effective as last year - however this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the children - they had a ball!  Thanks also to the staff for their organisation and planning for the event. It was fabulous that so many of our children were able to attend this event - these gatherings are very much a part of school life and it is important that all children do participate in these activities.

Establish healthy attendance patterns early! 

Did you know… 

Attendance patterns are established early.

A child who regularly misses days in kindergarten or in the early years of school will often continue to miss classes in the later years.  

Students who miss school are highly likely to achieve lower results than their classmates.  

It is vital that students go to school every day to give them the best chance to succeed in life.

A reminder that this Wednesday 4th March is the final ‘rest’ day for our preps. As from next week (Tuesday 10th March) the children will be attending full time.

Please check PAM for the permission form and bus travel information for our sports day at Mason's Lane on 16th March.

We will be conducting Parent Teacher Chats in the final week of term:  

Monday 23rd March - 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Tuesday 24th March - 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

The key intention of these chats is to give particularly yourselves as parents and carers the opportunity for you to share relevant information about your child/ren.  Such a chat will allow both home and school to ensure that they are providing the greatest shared support for each child’s learning.  It is assumed and expected that all families will make some time to meet with the teachers. Bookings will be made via PAM, please watch out for notification which will be sent out shortly.

Our Project certainly has not been shelved, but I feel as though it is taking an eternity to get our project off the ground.  At present we are working with an engineer and our landscape designer to reduce the need for railings on the path that will be installed to lead us to the basketball court.  The drop in ground levels between the adventure playground and the court is over 5 metres and so we need to ensure that the path that is installed can be accessed by all including wheelchairs.  Hopefully there will be plans of the updated designs for all to view very shortly.

On Sunday the following children enrolled in our Parish Reconciliation Program.  These children will celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Thursday March 26th.  We ask you to keep the following children in your thoughts and prayers over the coming week:

Madison Buttigieg, Joel Card, Lucas Cardona, Henry Freemantle, Eamon Grigg, Olivia Meehan, Bryson McMillan, Mate Marinovic, Jake Plageman, Jaimi Reid, Ruby Sims, Chelsea Winter, Kristian Seketa

Ash Wednesday – marks the beginning of our Lenten journey. Lent is the time in the Church which lasts for 40 days and helps us to prepare for Easter. It offers us all a very special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism. In our busy world, Lent provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon our patterns, to pray more deeply, experience sorrow for what we've done and failed to do, and to be generous to those in need.

Ash Wednesday, also marks the beginning of the annual Caritas Australia Project Compassion Appeal. Donations to Project Compassion allow Caritas Australia, the Catholic Agency for International Aid and Development, to work with local communities around the world to alleviate poverty, hunger, oppression and injustice. We encourage you to put your compassion into action this Lent through your prayer, fasting and also giving by supporting Project Compassion. Each classroom has  a Project Compassion box for donations or you can donate online via the website at lent.caritas.org.au 

As in past years we will once again be conducting our Annual Easter Egg Raffle. All families are asked to donate an Easter related item for our raffle. Your generous donations in past years have meant we have had over fifty prizes draws which is quite incredible. Raffle tickets for the Easter Raffle will be sent home with the eldest in the family in the next few days. The raffles will be drawn in the last week of term.

Many of these donations will include the iconic Easter Egg.

There’s no denying that the almighty Easter egg you gift this year will be delectable, but will it be ethical?

"One of the first questions to ask is ‘what is a ‘good’ egg?" “A good egg is an ethical egg. But the next question is what is an ethical egg?”

An ethical Easter egg is one that uses chocolate that has been ethically sourced. That means everyone involved in the production chain must be of working age. No slave or child labour should be used at any step of the chocolate-making process, from gathering the cocoa beans to packaging and distributing the choccie egg.

Why would anyone want to use a child to carry out hard manual labour, you ask? Why - because it’s cheaper. When consumers demand cheap chocolate, some production companies in developing countries may find ways to cut costs. Child labour, sometimes, is one of those ways.

A further reminder for us come though the words of Pope Francis. In 2015, he said that “every person ought to have the awareness that purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act.” 

So this year, when buying chocolate check for ethical certification by looking for a 'stamp of credibility' on the egg’s packaging. Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and UTZ Certified are the three principal certification bodies in Australia so scan the packet for their logo. The World Fair Trade Organisation is an international logo that can also guarantee that what you’re buying is ethical.

Please note school photos will be taken on Thursday 26th March.  Full summer uniform is required to be worn.

Order forms will be sent home with children soon.

A reminder to all families that supervision for children commences at 8.30am each morning, when a teacher goes on duty in the playground. We are encouraging all children not to come to school before 8.30am, as prior to this the teachers are busy preparing for the day. If children do come to school before 8.30am they will be asked to sit at the office area until supervision time commences. We do also recognise that on occasion there will be family circumstances that mean children do need to be dropped off prior to 8.30am. If you could let us know if this will be the case it would be most appreciated.

A further reminder that it is vital that if children do arrive at school after 9.00am, they are signed in at the office by an adult and the same applies if children are leaving the school - an adult must sign the student out of the school via the digital program in the office.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Leela House (Year ¾ teacher) on the death of her grandmother at the weekend.

We also keep in our hearts the Sims family - Laura, Sam Sophie, Ruby and Tommy on the recent death of their aunt Danielle McConnell, who was also a friend to many in the community.

Please check the calendar on our newsletter and PAM regularly as it has all of the details about what is coming up this term.