Dear Parents and Carers,

On behalf of our staff at St Michael’s Mittagong, I welcome all families back to school for 2023. I hope that you had a fantastic new year and holiday and that you had the opportunity to share many memorable moments with your children.

Welcome to our wonderful new families and staff who have joined our school community for the first time this year. I know that you will be kindly supported by our families and staff here at St Michaels. 

Our new students for this year are:

Kindergarten:  Leuen, Flynn, Benjamin, Ryan, Benji, Madelyn, Natalia, Maisie, Layla, Cassidy, Bianca, Lillian, Reid, Elena, Arden,  Evie, Arabella, Finn, Isaac, Elouise, Olivia, Phoenix, Cruze, Audrey, Ellouise, Sophia, Dallas, and Lucia

Year 1: Katherine

Year 3: Jack, Travis and Jacob

Year 4: Kiri

Year 6: Gabby

Our new staff members are:

Mr Liam Adams (Year 5 teacher) and Mrs Linda Francis (School Support Officer).

Thank you for joining our St Michael’s Primary school community.  

PHOTOS

Below is a gallery of photos containing each class on their first day of school. The students have settled in really well and have been very positive in their interactions with one another and in their learning experiences.

Kindergarten- Mrs Bourke-Nash and Mrs Janine Webb

Year 2- Mrs Anderson

Year 3- Mr Nash

Year 4- Mrs Williamson

Year 5- Mr Adams

Year 6- Mrs Mitchell and Mr Tuckwell.

PRAYER FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR

Lord, as we commence a new year at school, make us ready, attentive and available to hear you. 

Thank You for the gift of being able to rise each day with the assurance that You walk through it with us. 

Thank You for the gifts of creativity and uniqueness, and the energy to put them to good use. 

May all that we are today, all that we try to do today, may all our encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings, all be placed in your hands. 

May the work we do and the way we do it, bring new hope, new life, and courage to all we come in contact with this year.

We thank you, Lord.

Amen 

YEAR 6 LEADERSHIP ASSEMBLY and COMBINED SCHOOL BEGINNING OF SCHOOL YEAR MASS

This year, Fr Sean has asked that as a parish, we have a combined schools, Beginning of School Year Parish Mass, which will be held on Sunday 5 March at 5pm at  St Thomas Aquinas Church, Bowral. Students from St Thomas Aquinas, Bowral and St Michael's, Mittagong will be participating in this Mass. The parish extends a warm invitation to all our families to join together for our first celebration of the year. Our Combined Schools Liturgy group and Parish Youth Group will lead us in song. 

Students in Year 6 usually receive their leadership badges in our first Mass. As the Mass is now a combined Parish Mass, we have decided to do a very special liturgy at school for our students and their families, to recognise the role of leadership they will have in our St Michael's school. 

I invite all parents and family members of our Year 6 students to a Leadership Liturgy on Friday 17th February at 9am in the hall. Our school students will attend this liturgy as well. Following the liturgy we will have a morning tea for the Year 6 students and their families in our school library. 

We know this will be a truly special occasion for the Year 6 families and their Year 6 child.

Further information about the Combined Schools Mass will be given closer to the event. Please save the date (5th March at 5pm) in your calendars. It will be lovely to see as many families attend as possible. 

SAVE THE DATE- PARENT INFORMATION EVENINGS

Each year we hold a Parent Information Meeting for Year 1-6 early in the term. All parents are invited to attend. At this meeting, your child's class teacher will explain the curriculum highlights for the year and other areas pertaining to that class. It is important that at least one parent from each household attend these meetings.

The evening will be on MONDAY 20TH FEBRUARY. Please see below the times for the individual class meetings.

Year 1: 5:30pm-6:00pm

Year 2: 5:30pm-6:00pm

Year 3: 6:00pm-6:30pm

Year 4: 6:00pm-6:30pm

Year 5: (Mr Adams will meet with Year 5 parents on a later date as he will be on sick leave due to surgery at this time). Details have been sent to the Year 5 parents in regards to this. 

Year 6: 6:30pm-7:00pm

Kindergarten parents will be meeting with Mrs Bourke-Nash as part of Meet and Greet meetings. Further information about these meetings will be given to the Kindergarten parents in the near future. Thank you for your support of these valuable information sessions.

TERM 4 SWIMMING PROGRAM AND ST MICHAEL’S SWIMMING CARNIVAL

In Term 4, we hope (fingers crossed!!) to hold our swimming program for Kindergarten to Year 3. At the end of this program, we will run our 2023 St Michael’s Swimming Carnival. At that carnival in Term 4, non swimmers and competitive swimmers will have the chance to participate in skill related activities throughout the day. Competitive swimmers will then be selected from our swimming carnival, to represent our school in 2024. So basically, our swimming carnival is being moved to December and all opportunities will be available to the students similar to what usually has occurred prior to covid restrictions. Hopefully after having a swimming program, our junior students will be more confident to participate in the carnival at the end of the year. We are aware that due to covid restrictions and a decreased access to swimming coaches, a lot of our students have not had swimming lessons for a very long time. 

In Term 4, we are also booking into the NSW Surf Lifesaving program for Years 4 to Year 6, where the students have the opportunity to travel to Wollongong and be instructed by qualified surf lifesaving instructors on beach safety and in particular, how to be safe in rips. This has been a truly valuable program that we have run in the past and I know our students will benefit greatly from this opportunity to learn new skills.

ASSEMBLY

Our Friday afternoon assemblies will resume this week with Year 4 leading us in prayer. All families are welcome to attend. Assemblies start at 2:20pm generally unless otherwise notified. This year we are only having live assemblies at school and not online assemblies. There will be an online recap of events over a few weeks, that will be uploaded for you to view photos of the students participating in various school activities. I thank Mr Tuckwell for the amazing work he did in creating these online assemblies as a response to covid restrictions and for the future work he will be doing in creating the online video learning stories.

NAPLAN for Year  3 and Year 5 students is held this term commencing in Week 8 on Wednesday 15 March to Week 10 Monday 27 March. Parents who have students in Year 3 and Year 5 will receive information about NAPLAN at the parent evening on Monday 20th February

COMPASS

Just a reminder that COMPASS is our main point of contact from school. From time to time, staff may send you a news feed message in regards to something at school that you need to know. I have noticed that lately when I send out a news feed via a phone notification and email, the email has not been reaching our community until hours (or days) later. There must be a glitch in the system at the moment. Can I ask that you all check your phone notifications please, so that you get messages in a timely matter. 

Our main messaging will be via news feed this year, with a newsletter sent out when we have a lot of information. We have had positive feedback that parents like the short version of information that the news feed option gives and it also means that I can let you know information straight away, rather than having to wait until the next scheduled newsletter. When you do receive a newsletter, can you take some time to read it through, so you don’t miss out on important information, especially things sent to us from the Catholic Education Office or the community. 

Thank you for your wonderful support of our school community. 

I hope you have a  lovely week ahead.

Best wishes and God Bless

Katrina West