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Dear Parents are Carers,
Do few things but do them well; simple joys are holy. ~ St Francis of Assisi
We have had a wonderful week that presented us with many joys with the Athletics carnival on Monday and a fabulous celebration of our Kinder 100 days at school on Wednesday.
This year we changed the venue to Woden Athletics Park, and we were blessed with a beautiful Canberra day for our Athletics Carnival. Feedback from the school community has been overwhelmingly positive about the venue change. We do lose time out of the day travelling via bus to the venue, but we make up time in the ability to schedule multiple events simultaneously, timing/place/race management and the sound system that can ensure announcements are heard all around the venue. I thank Laura Hay, our sports coordinator, for the many hours of preparation she put into the organisation of the day.
100 Days of Kinder
Our Kindergarten students had the most amazing day on Wednesday and partied their 100th day of school away. It was a big day, and a very happy one, as children came dressed up as minions for the day (as did their teachers) and participated in many fun activities. I would like to thank our Kindergarten teachers for their organisation and attention to detail in arranging the special day for our students. Congratulations to our Kinder students: I am immensely proud of you all.
Corpus Christi Cup
We hosted the first Corpus Christi Cup challenge in the school hall yesterday. This initiative has been the brainchild of the 3 numeracy coordinators in our Parish schools. After a close contest that saw each school win a stage of competition Holy Family was the inaugural winner of the trophy. Congratulations to the Holy Family team and St Clare of Assisi for their participation. We hope to expand this in the coming terms to include other curriculum areas and possibly sports. My thanks to our parish coordinators for planning and delivering this exciting initiative.
Staffing Update
After a selection process, Mrs Sharee Thomas will be the Acting Assistant Principal from Week 5 until the beginning of Term 4, while I am on leave. We are currently running an internal process to appoint a replacement Religious Education Coordinator for Sharee during this period. We will write to the parents of these classes shortly to outline how these teachers will be replaced during this period.
We are currently seeking an ELC Office Manager, which is advertised on the Catholic Education Employment page; see the flyer below if you are interested. Our ELC director position closed this week and is currently being shortlisted. In the coming months, after the appointment of our Director, we will commence the recruitment of teachers and educators.
Change to Lunch eating time.
This week we are trialling a change to our eating time during our lunch break. We have shortened our eating time from 15 mins to 10 mins which will now begin at 1:20 pm. This will give us extended teaching time during the middle session 5 mins a day adds up quickly to 25 a week. We have also moved Yrs 1-4 to the hardtop to eat lunch, which will help with rubbish collection, lunch box returns, and allow students who don’t finish in the 10 mins to continue to eat if required.
Peaceful Relationships~ It is not too late to register.
Next Monday, 7th August, the Community Council is hosting a parent engagement workshop, titled Peaceful Relationships. We currently have 19 people registered to attend. This will be run by one of our parents, a trained psychologist and counsellor who will focus on self-regulation, conflict management and communication in relationships within the family unit. This is free to our families and BASCA will provide care for anyone who requires it. Please use the link below or scan the QR code to sign up. For more information, click on the youtube link.
https://bit.ly/PeacefulRelationshipsWorkshop
NAPLAN Results
Parents of children in Years 3 and 5 will be receiving their child’s NAPLAN results this week. Year 5 parents (and parents of Year 3 students who have older children) will note the change in grading terminology. This change in terminology means that Year 5 parents will be unable to compare their children’s results from Years 3 to 5. They can, however, still see how their child’s progress measures against the national average. I have attached a flyer below, which outlines more information about the change. Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions.
Blessings and best wishes for the week ahead.
Sean Rutledge
Principal
Gospel Reflection Matthew 17:1-9
And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.
Today’s gospel features the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. In this story, Jesus was transformed into a glorious image in which his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light. He appeared completely different than he had before. This transformation showed that Jesus truly was from God.
As a result of this event, the mountaintop became a place where humanity meets God. In many ways, life is filled with mountaintops and valleys. There are the happy times when we can feel the presence of Jesus very strongly, and we feel that nothing can take away our peace. We want to stay on the mountain forever. But life is not like that. Life can be difficult and challenging, and during these hard times we do not always feel the presence of Jesus. When we are in the valley, it is important to remember that even though the mountaintop feelings are missing, Jesus never leaves us and He is always with us. Every day can have a little bit of the mountain in it, if we remember to invite Jesus into our every day activities. He is there and will be there and He never tires of helping us along life’s difficult journey.
Sacrament of Eucharist
The Information evenings have now been completed. They were a wonderful way for families to gain a deeper understanding of what the Eucharist is and how to support their children as they prepare for this sacrament. For those families who have not yet attended a Commitment Mass there are four to choose from this weekend. You can attend the morning Mass or the 6:00pm Mass on either Saturday or Sunday. I look forward to seeing some of you there.
Please also remember to continue handing in your Home Session activities as you complete them.
Sacrament of Reconciliation
There have been a number of Year Four families asking about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Year Four will begin preparation for this Sacrament in Term Four. Registrations will be open from Week 8 this term. More information will be made available closer to the date. If you have any other questions about this, please ask.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Amanda Ducker
A big congratulations to all the year 5 students who nominated to compete in Thursday's Corpus Christi Cup. These students competed a number of problem solving challenges, involving team work, mental computation and testing all areas of mathematical knowledge.
Although Holy Family was the overall winner of the day, it was amazing to watch the buzz in the room and the enjoyment all students got from being challenged and having success, as well as being able to build connections across the Parish and work on our resilience and interpersonal skills.
The students are already planning to avenge their loss, so we hope to be able to run more events like this in the future across the Corpus Christi Parish.
Please take some time to read through our fete update newsletter. There is some important information and requests!
Library News
Thank you for your support in encouraging reading at our school. So far, 176 students have completed the Chief Minister's Reading challenge this year. This means that together these students have read 5280 books!! The author Sharon Creech said "I love the way that each book - any book - is its own journey. You open it, and off you go...". If this is the case, St Francis of Assisi students have been on lots of exciting journeys this year! Remember that the reading challenge closes next Friday the 11th August. Please hand your completed sheets to Mrs Bond by this date.
BOOK WEEK
Book Week celebrations are beginning soon!
On Thursday 17th August, children in Years 4, 5 and 6 are lucky to have award winning author Katrina Nannestad speak to them about her experiences as an author. Click on the link below to find out more about her and her books. If you would like to purchase a book for your child to have signed on the day, please follow the instructions on the flyer.
Kate_Nannestad_Book_Week_Flyer.pdf
On Friday 18th August, children in Kindergarten, Years 1, 2 and 3 will view the Way Too Cool! CBCA Book Week Performance presented by Perform Education. Students will join the characters through the twists and turns of solving their differences using empathy, kindness and a strong sense of humour.
There will be a book fair running from Monday the 21st August until Friday the 25th August. This will be open to students and parents to buy books. More details to come.
Our Book Week dress up day will conclude our Book Week celebrations and is on Friday 25th August. Students are asked to dress up as their favourite book character. There will be a parade in the hall at 9:15am. Parents are welcome to attend. Children are already thinking and talking about their costumes at school.