Get ready for a swashbuckling adventure! The Year 5/6 students along with the teachers who have been working with them, are thrilled to announce their upcoming musical, "Pirates of the Curry Bean". This will be over two nights on Wednesday 11 September and Thursday 12 September. The show will commence at 6:30pm and will be finished before 8:30pm (so not too late a night). After the last sell-out performance two years ago, this is a show you won’t want to miss! Our talented students have been rehearsing since Term 1 to bring you a sensational evening filled with laughter, music, and pirate adventures. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, 17 August, at 4 pm—make sure to grab yours early! Adults are $20, and children 12 and under are $15. Tickets are general admission and seats are not allocated.  Get ready to set sail for an unforgettable night! Here is the link and QR code to book from Saturday. 

Tell Them From Me Survey

As previously advised, the Tell Them From Me survey is an opportunity to gain important information from our school community to help improve our school in many strategic and operational ways. The information gained from families is vital in order to prioritise resources as well as to gather valuable feedback about school life. All parents and carers, teachers and students in Year 4, 5 and 6 are invited to complete their relevant surveys. For parents and cares, the link to the survey was sent out on Monday. I will resend it this afternoon in case you missed it.

First Eucharist

The students preparing for the very special event of making their First Eucharist had a beautiful retreat day today. Guided by Geoff Ryan, Chiara Strmota, and the class teachers, the children were involved in activities that had them thinking about the specialness of what will take place next Wednesday night when they receive Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time. Please keep these children in your prayers as they take this important step in their spiritual lives.

Late for School

The number of children coming to school late each day has risen significantly recently. School starts with a whole school assembly promptly at 8:50am, and it is crucial that students are in their classrooms, ready to begin the day, by 9am. Arriving on time ensures that your child can start the day with their peers, feeling settled and prepared for the learning ahead. When students are late, it can be unsettling for them, as they miss important instructions and feel out of sync with the rest of the class.

We understand that mornings can be challenging, but we kindly ask that you make every effort to have your children at school on time. If you do arrive late (and we certainly understand that there are unavoidable  occasions when they will be late), we ask that you please sign them in at the front office and they go to their classroom from there, rather than you taking them to the classroom. This helps minimize disruptions and allows our teachers to continue with their lessons without interruption. If your child needs support getting to their classroom, our Classroom Support Assistants (CSA’s) or Leadership Team teachers are more than happy to assist and ensure they get there safely and happily.

It is easy to think, that it’s only a few minutes, but the following visual shows how quickly that time adds up and is valuable learning time lost.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Together, we can create a smooth and positive start to the school day for all our students.

Father’s Day Breakfast

We warmly invite all families to join us for our Father’s Day Breakfast on Friday, 30 August, starting at 8 am. It's a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the remarkable dads and father figures in our school community. To make this event special, we are reaching out and asking for mothers to lend a hand with setup and serving from 7:30 am. Your help will be greatly appreciated! Please click on the link below to let us know if you can come and if you can assist. We look forward to seeing you there!

A "Bluey" Perspective

Here is a wonderful opportunity to join families from schools across the Archdiocese to hear Joe Brumm, the creator of Bluey. It will be an opportunity to discuss his success with the children's show Bluey and his perspective on developing and maintaining positive relationships with our children (and their school). He will also talk about the important role parents play in their child's learning and development.

This presentation is made possible by the support of Catholic Education Canberra and Goulburn and Catholic School Parents Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn.

Register through the link below:

School Community Council meeting

Last Monday the executive of the SCC (remember all parents are members) met for the first meeting of the term. The major items that were discussed were

• The parent engagement grant project being run by Deloitte Economics. This will focus on how to improve parent engagement across the school. Thank you to Angela Schacht who is coordinating this project.
• Community support for the Election Day Barbeque Stall. St Thomas the Apostle is a polling place on Saturday 19 October. You can sign up to help via this link
• Seeking community support to help on Fete Day (Saturday 9 November). Start thinking about how you can help eg. Cultivating plants, seeing what you can donate to the Treasure Trove. There will be more about this coming from the fete committee closer to the date with a sign up link on how you can be involved.
• Planning our next open meeting. This will be on Monday 28 October at 6pm. Childcare will be provided for primary aged students.

School Pick up

I would like to strongly suggest that if you are using drive though in the afternoon, that you don’t come early. I noticed this week that the lineup was out onto Boddington Crescent causing traffic congestion and it was only 3pm.  Pick up goes until 3:30pm so please come from 3:10pm so that the traffic flows smoothly.  Parents who arrive at 3:20pm breeze through.

You can almost feel spring in the air. Not long now. Have a great weekend everyone.

Yours in partnership,

Ursula Jamieson
Principal

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13

I’ve had a super start to Term 3! I joined the Kinders who had a visit from some firefighters. We learnt about fire safety and even saw the fire truck!

I met the author, Jack Heath, who did a talk with our students.

For Science Week, we had a visit from Sam who is the dad of George in Kinder. As well as been in the Navy, he is also a meteorologist and an oceanographer. He taught us all about weather. Super interesting!