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5/6 Camp
Our 5/6 teachers Gwen Tarleton and Karen Tozer, Julie Ogden and I are currently in Stanwell Tops for our 5/6 Camp. We are so pleased that the students were given the opportunity to attend camp, particularly with measures put in place at the start of this term. The camp is an opportunity for our students to push themselves out of their comfort zone, come together as a team and discuss their future leadership potential both in transition to high school and moving into Year 6. We look forward to sharing photos of our trip next week.
Public Holiday 22 September
In line with the announcement from our Prime Minister, the school will be closed next Thursday 22 September for the Queen's Memorial Public Holiday. We understand that this may have an impact on your family's decision to commence the school holidays earlier or have a longer weekend. If you do not intend to send your child/ren to school on Friday 23 September we would ask you to complete the following Google Form for planning. purposes: https://forms.gle/AuHg9AFZGkx4SCpr8
Semester Two Report Structure
We have received the following correspondence from Catholic Education regarding the Semester Two report structure and the systemic removal of report comments. St Thomas More's values report comments for our families, having provided comments in the Semester One report. To accommodate this systemic change we will schedule parent teacher interviews before Semester Two reports are published so that we can share a verbal general comment with you regarding your child/ren's progress and areas for growth.
‘Catholic Education Canberra and Goulburn (CECG) has communicated to schools informing them that general comments will not be required on the Semester 2, 2022 reports. This is in line with other educational jurisdictions and systems. Given teacher workload at present, including staffing pressures across the profession, CECG’s position is to prioritise parent/teacher conferences occurring during Term 4. These meetings provide an opportunity to discuss your child’s progress, their strengths, challenges, and future areas of focus. A Semester Report will be sent home as in previous semesters providing A-E grading and attendance information’.
Carpark Safety
It has come to our attention that there has been some unsafe and disrespectful activity in the carpark of a morning and afternoon. We would like to remind parents of the following protocols when using the carpark:
- Maintain a walking speed of 10kph at all times
- Ensure you are only parking in carparks as opposed to nature strips or driving over kerbs
- Parking within car park so that doors can be opened, and car bonnets are not obstructing paths
- Only parking in the disabled carpark if you have approval to do so
- Actively supervising your children at all times and ensuring their safety when crossing through the carpark
- Remaining patient when waiting for other families to park, exit their vehicle or move about the carpark.
School Reception Carpark
You may have noticed that there are now two allocated visitor parking spaces in the school reception carpark. This is to ensure visitors to the school, and parents dropping off or collecting children during school hours, are able to park close to the reception. We would ask that these carparks are not used to drop children off in the morning as there is insufficient supervision of children passing through the admin block to the courtyard. As a result of these carparks being made available, we will now have a number of staff members parking in the top carpark during the day.
Affirmations
Due to 5/6 being at camp, our Week 8, 9 and 10 Affirmations will be given out on the last day of Term at 8.50 am. Parents are welcome to attend.
Luke Donnelly
Principal
Sacrament of Confirmation
Our Confirmation Candidates have enrolled and are currently being prepared to receive the Sacrament whilst participating in reflection and prayer. As part of the process, candidates are asked to adopt a saint name, their confirmation name. On the day they receive the Sacrament, Archbishop Prowse will confirm them using their chosen saint name. The candidates are encouraged to pick the name of a saint that they admire, can relate to, and aspire to be like. There are many examples of people taking on new names in the Bible. God changed the names of many to reflect the special roles they played throughout the history of the Church. For example, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham meaning, “father to a host of nations.” This name change signified that God was making a covenant with Abraham that would make him the first of God’s people on earth. Simon’s name was changed to Peter, meaning “rock” and refers to Peter becoming the first pope: “And upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:17-18). Confirmation is one of the Initiation Sacraments of the Catholic Church. Please keep the candidates and their families in your prayers.
Yours in Christ,
Samantha Mance
Religious Education Coordinator
Parent Contacts
In the past few weeks, we had sent out an opportunity for our parents to exchange contact details through the parent contacts for each class. During the process it has come to light that there are a number of Facebook groups that have been created within our community to share information and support one another. Whilst this is a wonderful opportunity for our parents who use Facebook, this can also be a platform that excludes those families who do not wish to engage in social media, or cannot due to work commitments.
On Wednesday evening the Community Council discussed an inclusive way moving forward that ensured parents could engage in class networks in a way that meant we were catering to all families, both those opting in and those opting out. The result of this discussion was that the council and school do not feel comfortable endorsing the use of Facebook groups as an effective means of bringing our families together. Rather, the council would prefer our parent contacts distribute information over email to those parents opting in and for the same information to be distributed via Compass to the entire class. Should parents wish to create further social connections online the Community Council would suggest these groups consider the Signal App which has end to end encryption and is a more suitable app for parents who are not wishing to use social media. We would also like to take this opportunity to remind parents of upholding privacy of members of our community by not publishing photos of other students without their parents' permission and ensuring all interactions across any means of communication are positive and inclusive. We pride ourselves on being a community who is welcoming to all and look forward to continuing this strong reputation.Year 2 Sensory Poems
Our Year 2 students have been using their creativity, to compile Sensory Poems.
Here is an example of some of their work ;
Sensory poems inspired by the book, Turtle Song by Alan Brown.
I am a turtle paddling through the soft sand.
I see blurry water as I dive into the crashing waves of the ocean.
I smell stringy seaweed as I swim through the coral reef.
I taste the salty water as I drift on a current further out to sea.
I hear huge tsunamis destroying small waves in the distance.
Fergus
Turtle Song
I see cool dolphins leaping as they do somersaults through the salty water.
I hear the sweet sound of calm whales in the deep waters as they glide through the ocean.
I touch the fantastic coral in the wavy water and the marvellous ocean as it carries me out to the sharks lurking deeper out to sea.
I smell the yucky smelly seaweed in the currents of the ocean as it goes out to the deep seas.
I feel the cheeky sardines tickling my feet as I go by a couple of sharks in a coral reef.
I taste the fresh salty water while seeing a couple of turtles go up to sandy shore on Island.
Jed