It is hard to believe that we are already at our final newsletter for the year. What a wonderful year we have had at St Thomas More's living out our creed and growing together. Some of our highlights include:

• Our new Year 6 Captain Roles
• The modular classroom being delivered
• Annie commencing as our Wellbeing Dog
• A year without COVID restrictions
• 3-6 meeting Kevin Rudd online
• The cricket nets being upgraded
• Sacraments celebrated with our parish
• TeamKids putting on multiple morning coffees after the vans pipes froze!
• 100 Years of Legacy Torch Relay
• Our Community Garden Beds Initiative
• The Campbell Community Celebration

Farewells

As with each year at St Thomas More's, we will be farewelling several students, families and staff. At our Year 6 Graduation last Thursday we were able to formally farewell our Year 6 students and those families who are finishing their time at the school. After playing a little game we came to discover that the Owen family have had affiliation with the school since we opened in 1961!

We also farewell many of our families who will be moving to different schools all across Australia. Our School Chaplain and Defence School Mentors have been working with these families and their children to ensure a smooth transition to their new school and we wish them all the best with their move. We know that this does not always mean goodbye as some of you may be coming back to Canberra in a few years and reenrolling!

From our support staff, we farewell Kate McErlean and Emily Michel. Kate has been DSM with us since Term 4 of last year and has been a great support for our Defence families, setting up sustainable practices that will continue into 2024 with Jessie Gepp and Ariana Strmota. Emily has been a CSA with us since the middle of last year and now embarking on her first year as a classroom teacher at St Clare of Assisi in Conder.

We also farewell Claire Dekuyer, Brittney Elliot and Christine Washington from our teaching staff. Claire has been a wonderful addition to our staff as PE specialist and has set up programs and resources for this role to continue. Brittney and Chris have been part of the teaching team for 4 years. Brittney has thrived at St Thomas More's since commencing her career here and is particularly noted for her contribution to the development of High Impact Teaching Practices within our school and system. Chris has been and continues to be, a ray of sunshine and enthusiasm for our community. Her commitment to pastoral care is admirable and we can all take comfort in knowing this is not goodbye as Chris will return in Term 2 as a casual teacher. 

Whilst it is not farewell forever, we wish Samantha Mance all the best as she prepares to take on the role of Acting Assistant Principal in 2024 at Sts Peter and Paul in Garran. Samantha is so deserving of this opportunity and we can only hope to welcome her back in 2025!

Finally, we say farewell to Fr Emil. Fr Emil will be taking over as Parish Priest at the South Woden parish in January as the Blessed Sacrament Fathers have now commenced in the new Canberra Inner North Catholic Communities that our parish is part of. As with all of his homilies, Fr Emil graced us with his wisdom as he made connections to the popular book and film 'Paper Planes' and our school creed. Fr Emil encouraged us to see the following lessons from 'Paper Planes' and our creed:

• We all have unique gifts that we should use
• There is good and bad in life
• We can help our parents
• We can experience God through nature
• The greatest joy in life is finding friends and often a person who is the greatest challenge to you can become your best friend, but only if you forgive and give a second chance.

We have been so rewarded with our time with Fr Emil and wish him all the best as he commences his next vocation at South Woden.

Highly Accomplished Teacher - Congratulations

Congratulations to Karen Tozer who was successful in achieving her second module in her journey towards being certified as a Highly Accomplished Teacher. Karen was able to evidence the way she has supported colleagues in their professional engagement across Standards 6 and 7 of the Australian Standards for Teachers. Karen will complete her third and final module in 2024.

It is with great pleasure, and immense pride, that we announce Gwen Tarleton has been officially certified as a Highly Accomplished Teacher! Gwen was successful in her third module evidencing the way she supports colleagues through their professional practice.

Gwen's certification has been a three-year process full of many hours of collecting evidence and annotating it against the standards. Of particular note is the way Gwen has shaped the delivery of curriculum in the 5/6 space, the upskilling of colleagues in the use of ICT in learning and her ability to navigate the school through remote learning during COVID lockdowns. 

Gwen is the first Highly Accomplished teacher in our school!

Senior Playground Equipment

We were so thrilled to open the senior playground equipment with our Year 6 students on Friday. The 5/6 students were involved in deciding the right equipment for the space so it has been rewarding to see the year 6 cohort use it before the year finishes.

We would like to thank each and every one of you for engaging in our community this year through the various fundraising efforts. Thanks to all of you, our community council was able to contribute $18,644 towards the equipment!

Classes for 2024

This afternoon our students spent an hour with their teacher for 2024. Ms Mikkonen and I ensured that all students in Years 3-6 had at least one of their friends from their list of five. We would like to remind you that we will not accept requests for consideration for next year's classes as this opportunity was invited over multiple weeks at the beginning of this term.

Our Staff for 2024

2024 School Calendar    

We are finalising our 2024 school calendar and it will be live on the website and on Compass by the end of this week, Term One events are already there. We will be issuing our fridge magnet calendar at the beginning of next year!

We wish you all a safe, Holy and relaxing Christmas and New Year and look forward to embarking on the adventures of 2024 before we know it!

Luke Donnelly
Principal