Welcome to Term 4! We hope you and your family had a relaxing break and that your children are looking forward to the final term of 2022. It is going to be an exciting term with many school events taking place that haven't been able to occur in the past few years, including our Dance Display, Grandparents Day, Kinder Orientation, Colour Run and Year 6 Graduation. As this becomes our 'new normal' within the pandemic, we will continue to engage in COVID safe practices and would ask families to ensure they do not attend such events if displaying any symptoms of illness.

We will also be recommencing our Centred and Learning and Centred in Faith Gatherings each Friday morning from 8:50 am. Centred in Learning Gatherings will be on odd school weeks and Centred in Faith Gatherings will be on even school weeks. All events are on the Compass app and our school website. Our new homepage even includes upcoming events as a tile when you scroll down the page.

St Thomas More's School Creed

Have you seen our School Creed on the new school website yet? Has your child recited it to you as our school prayer or sung it where it features in our new school song?

Our School Creed is the coming together of all of the aspects of our school that make us St Thomas More's. It gives our students a succinct belief statement of who we are, who we would like to be and how we can go about achieving this. You will hear the language of our School Creed in many areas of our school from learning in Xplore More to supporting students through restorative conversations following social conflict. 

Staffing News

This week we welcomed three new staff members to St Thomas More's. Kate McErlean and Savida Tanzer have commenced as our Defence School Mentors. Both Kate and Savida are married to Defence Force Members and bring a wealth of knowledge in supporting children and families. We also welcomed Victoria Davidson who joined the Classroom Support Team each Tuesday.

Dance Display

We look forward to seeing you all at 6:00 pm in the courtyard for our Dance Display. Whilst it is unfortunate that we now could have had the event with our BBQ and indoors, we know it is going to be exciting for the students to share their learning in dance with you. It also seems that our dance routines have grown where they no longer fit on our hall stage. In 2023 we will look to hold the dance display in a theatre of one of our local High Schools so that we can really put on a show!

Grandparents Day

Next Friday from 9:00 am - 11:00 am, we invite Grandparents and special friends to celebrate Grandparents Day with us. Grandparents Day will be an opportunity to hold our first Centred in Faith Gathering for the year where we will launch our School Creed. Following the gathering, Grandparents will be able to visit their grandchildren's classroom/s to engage in an activity breaking open the meaning of our Creed. At 10:15 am we will then invite our visitors to the library courtyard for a special morning tea. It is sure to be a wonderful day for both our students and their special visitors.

Colour Run

On Friday 25 November we will hold our major fundraiser for 2022, a Colour Run. The Colour Run will take place on our school oval and will be an exciting experience for our children and a wonderful opportunity to raise money. Over the coming weeks, we will be working with the community to determine the appropriate use of the funds raised. 

To hold an event such as this requires the engagement of many members of our community. We are therefore looking to form a committee to support running the Colour Run; this might entail sourcing sponsors, collecting or purchasing prizes, supporting with logistics of raising funds and/or helping out on the day. Alternatively, you may be a business owner or work for a business that would be interested in sponsoring the Colour Run and/or providing prizes. If you are interested in joining the Colour Run committee or finding out more about sponsorship opportunities please contact Luke Donnelly on luke.donnelly@cg.catholic.edu.au.

Luke Donnelly
Principal