TERM 4 WEEK 10 NEWSLETTER

Dear Parents and Carers,

 It truly is amazing that we are coming to the end of our school year. Christmas seems to have come upon us very quickly this year, however I know that the students are very excited about the last week of term. As this is our final newsletter for this year, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all of the fantastic support you have given to our students, our staff and to myself. It has been wonderful knowing that everyone cares for each other and will help out in many ways. This time of year provides an opportunity for the school community to reflect upon, celebrate and share the significant achievements that have occurred during the 2021 school year.

2021 AT ST MICHAELS MITTAGONG

* Our New Parish: This year the parishes of St Michael’s Mittagong and St Thomas Aquinas formally combined to be known as the Corpus Christi Mittagong-Bowral Catholic Parish. On Corpus Christi Feast Day, our two schools combined for the inaugural Corpus Christi Feast Day Mass which was held in Bowral. This special Mass was a celebration of the history and traditions of our two schools under the banner of one parish. It was such a special celebration and one we wish to continue every year. Next year if covid restrictions allow, we hope to have a combined schools picnic and Mass on the Feast Day.

* This year was our 130th year of schooling at St Michaels. Whilst we had planned many wonderful community celebrations, including a fete to celebrate this event, we have had to put these on hold due to the covid restrictions, until hopefully next year. We endeavoured though, to continue to celebrate as many things as possible at school. It has been a memorable year filled with great success, happiness, special moments and personal gains. A snapshot of some of the events of 2021 can be seen here below: 

• Continuation of Online Assemblies every week throughout the whole school year including during remote learning. Thank you to the staff who prepared their class activities and especially to Mr Tuckwell who created the video every week. A huge undertaking, which we are very grateful for. 
• Welcome to new Kindergarten students and their parents
• Kinder buddies program
• Beginning of the School Year Mass at St Thomas Aquinas, with our Year 6 students and parents attending and the Mass filmed for the rest of the school to view (due to Covid restrictions) 
• Caritas Launch online for Stage 3
• Caritas HotDog Fundraiser
• Green Day- St Patricks Day
• Ash Wednesday Liturgy with Fr Sean
• Bishop Brian School Visit
• Bishop Brian’s Year 6 liturgy
• St Joseph’s Feast Day Mass and special celebrations
• Corpus Christi Mass with STA at Bowral
• Holy Week Walk and Easter liturgies 
• St Michael’s Feast Day Online Mass
• St Mary of the Cross MacKillop Feast Day- with online classroom liturgy and Year 6 led Olden Day activities
• Feast of the Assumption of Mary Liturgy
• All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day classroom online liturgy
• End of the School Year Mass with Year 6 and their parents (to be held this Friday)
• World Environment Day activities
• RUOK Day activities
• National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) Week- with the company Snake Tails visiting our school
• ANZAC Day online liturgy
• Remembrance Day Online Liturgy
• Year 6 ‘Activate the Fire’ Day
• Netball Gala Day
• Parent/Teacher meetings
• P&F Easter Egg Raffle
• Mother’s Day Stall
• Wollongong Environment Network Day - Year 6 representatives
• MacKillop Rugby League Representatives in Canberra
• Knit for Need program for St Vincent de Paul
• 50m Swimming Trials at Bowral Pool and some of our students went to represent our school at the Diocesan Swimming Carnival
• School Cross Country Carnival
• School Athletics Carnival at Eridge Park
• Year 5 and Year 6 Canberra Excursion
• MindMasters - National Theatre Company Livestream
• Brainstorm Buddies Show
• NAPLAN online
• P & F Sausage sizzle
• Crazy Hair Day Fundraiser for Catholic Mission
• Book Week- celebrated online during remote learning
• Year 6 High School visits
• World Kindness Day activities
• Saints and heroes dress up day fundraiser
• Year 5 Teddy Bear Picnic games day
• Mini Olympics Day- raised $7000 for three SMART Tvs
• Green and Gold Dress up Day
• End of Year Talent Quest- Year 6
• Kinder orientation 
• Kinder Ebook
• Premier’s Reading Challenge
• Year 4 winning the Nestle Olympic Games Design an Athletes Village competition
• Hot Dog Fundraiser
• SPLICED day at STA Bowral
• Sacred Heart Day Mass at Chevalier College
• St Paul’s 325 year Anniversary Mass
• ‘The Best Me I Can Be’ program
• ICAS - English, Mathematics and Science
• Online Musica Viva
• Year 5 Leadership Day with Cameron Brown
• The VegePods vegetable garden and harvesting/cooking the vegetables
• Diocesan Christmas Art Competition with three students representing their artwork in Wollongong and one student representing their artwork in Sydney
• Year 6 two days of fun: Moss Vale Basketball Stadium; BBQ; Arts & Crafts; Movie night; PCYC Mittagong.
• Online Christmas Concert (next week)
• Sporting opportunities: Although many opportunities for Diocesan representation were postponed this year due to COVID-19 restrictions, the students were able to participate in school organised events such as our St Michael’s Mini Olympics Day held at school, our swimming carnival, cross country carnival and athletics carnival. 
• The mission and outreach programs enabled the school community to support people in need, especially in the local area or state through St Vincent de Paul Winter and Christmas Appeals and the Lismore Diocese Flood Appeal as well as the school’s ongoing support of the Maubara Orphanage in East Timor, Sr Anna Warlow’s Good Samaritan Rural Outreach Program, Catholic Mission and Caritas. 

The school and community has been significantly affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, yet through all this uncertainty, students, teachers, parents and parish supported each other and the community bond was greatly strengthened.

Thank you to our Parish Priest, Fr Sean for his wonderful support and guidance, the staff for their expertise and generosity of spirit, the Parents and Friends’ Association (P&F) for their resolute commitment to supporting the school community and the purchase of learning resources and most importantly, thank you to the students who continued to care for one another and worked hard to achieve their absolute personal best in all areas throughout this year.

THE SACRAMENT OF EUCHARIST- FIRST HOLY COMMUNION 
Last Saturday, we celebrated two very special First Holy Communion Masses for candidates from our parish. 

Congratulations to Deeks, William, Gabrielle, Lincoln, Owen, Esther, James and Oliver on receiving the Eucharist for the first time. A big thank you to their families for helping prepare them for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, to Mrs Mitchell and Mr Tuckwell for supporting the children with the program and to Miss Abotomey for the beautiful singing and music during the ceremony. We also thank the many staff from our school who attended the two services.

ENVIRONMENT GRANT FOR 2021
During this year, our school was successful in obtaining an environmental grant from the Catholic Education Office in Wollongong. We were able to purchase a new garden shed to put up for next year, to store the equipment the students use on the playground and with the vegepods. We also were able to purchase a few more subpod organic waste systems to support sustainable waste management within the school. Thank you to Mr Nash and Mrs Anderson for coordinating our environmental teams across the school year and a big thank you to our students in the various environmental teams who have been so proactive in growing the fruit and vegetables in our pods and maintaining the waste management worm farms. 

MRS SUZANNE ADAMS RETIREMENT
It is with very mixed emotions that we say goodbye to Mrs Sue Adams as she embarks on long service and retirement at the end of this year. Sue has been a major person in the life of St Michael’s, commencing her teaching here as a casual teacher in 1985 when her family first moved to the Southern Highlands and then progressing to working on the staff as a teacher in 1991. Over the years, Sue has worked on various classes as a class teacher and literacy support teacher and taught music to the whole school, including teaching recorder to a St Michael’s Recorder Group, who were successful at a number of Goulburn eisteddfods. Sue initiated St Michael's participation in Catholic Education Office Christmas Art Competition many years ago and has continued to support our students over these past years in the Creative Arts Key Learning Area. 

Sue’s four boys were students here at St Michaels and Sue and her husband have been active members of the Parents and Friends Association over many years. Sue also helped run the canteen for many years when it was coordinated by the P&F.

We would like to celebrate the fantastic contribution Mrs Adams has made to our school community by having a special day of acknowledgement. 

Tomorrow, Thursday, 9 December, I am asking all of the students to come dressed in brightly coloured clothes, as a reflection of the beautiful artworks that they have created with Mrs Adams this year. Sue has been our art teacher across K-6 this year. I have explained to the students that they can wear multi-coloured clothes, dressing as brightly and colourfully as they can- like mini-artworks! If they have clothes that have artworks on them such as the Mona Lisa etc, they can wear those as well.

Thank you for your support of this special day for Mrs Adams.

FAMILIES WHO ARE LEAVING
Every year we sadly say goodbye to some of our families whose youngest child or children are leaving our school. We say a huge thank you to the following families, for your continued support of your child and our school. We hope you have found the years as part of our St Michael’s community, ones to remember and cherish. And remember, once you are part of our St Michael’s school family…. You are always a part of our St Michael’s school family.

We say thank you to the following families:-

The Alexander family- Skye

The Cornwell family- Patrick

The Fairbairn (Grech) family- Ava

The Glasspool family- Lucas

The Goodfellow family- Morgan and Imogen

The Hardy (Towns) family- Shaun and Skye

The Millbank family- Jack

The Morris family- Ava

The Moyes family- Hunter

The  Nicolaous family- Nicholas

The Smythe family- Jorjee

The Tully family- Breanna

The Hosan family- Levi and Ben

The Davis (Nunn) family- Harry, Alivia and Jack

ST MICHAEL’S CHRISTMAS STORY AND CAROLS
This year our St Michael’s Christmas Carols presentation was going to be with Mr Andrew Chinn leading workshops for our students next Monday, which we intended to film and share with all our families. We have heard this week that Andrew has been a close contact to a covid case and he is required to do 14 days isolation. We are very happy to hear that Andrew is well, however, very sad that we will not have the opportunity to showcase his talents. 

Mr Tuckwell and our staff are very kindly putting a Christmas video together for all our community. With such short notice I am very grateful for their positivity in creating something that can be shared with you. I appreciate your understanding of this matter that is truly something we couldn’t predict. A video will be shared with you online next week, as we still cannot have our full community on site. 

YEAR 6 END OF YEAR MASS
On Friday 10 December, we will be celebrating our End of Year Mass with Year 6 and their parents at St Michael’s Church at 9:30am.  A reminder that Year 6 parents need to be fully vaccinated to attend,  have recorded their attendance on the registration form prior to attendance and complete the two QR code check-ins on the day.  This is in accordance with Department of Health guidelines which all schools need to abide by.

We thank Fr Sean, Mrs Mitchell, Mr Tuckwell and Miss Abotomey for their preparation of this Mass. Mr Tuckwell will film the Mass and K-5 students will be able to participate online in this liturgical celebration.

VAPING EDUCATIONAL VIDEO FOR PARENTS
As part of the CEDoW support for schools, a team from the Catholic Education Office has created a staff and parents information video about vaping. Whilst we haven’t had any problems with our students vaping at St Michael’s, it is important to be informed about these issues. If you wish to find out more, please see the video on the following site:

Our Stage 3 students will be viewing a student video about vaping in the next few days. This is particularly important for our Year 6 students as they embark on their high school journey.

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STAFFING FOR 2022 and TRANSITION MORNING FOR STUDENTS

Staff who are leaving St Michaels at the end of 2021

As mentioned earlier in the newsletter, Mrs Suzanne Adams will be going on long service leave in early 2022 and then onto retirement.

We thank Mrs Mary-Lynn Lane who has been our Diverse Learning Needs Teacher this year. Mrs Lane was working across our two parish schools (STA and SMM) this year. Next year, Mrs Lane will be working only at St Thomas Aquinas. Thank you Mary-Lynn for the wonderful support you have given to our staff and students this year. We wish you a very happy 2022 at STA.

We also thank Mrs Laura Wilson for her work this year in Gifted Education and SPLICED. Mrs Wilson also has worked across our two parish schools as well as working as a consultant in the CEDoW SPLICED program. We thank Laura for all her support of the students and staff and wish her all the best for a very happy 2022 at STA. 

TRANSITION 

Next Tuesday, our students will have the opportunity to visit their new classroom for 2022 and spend some time with their new teacher. The students will also be given their class requirements lists for 2022 on that day.

STAFF FOR 2022
We welcome to our staff for 2022, Mrs Janine Webb and Mrs Amy Eggleston, who will be working across K-6 in Diverse Learning Needs. 

I am very pleased to announce our 2022 staff: 

Leadership Team
Principal: Mrs Katrina West
Assistant Principal: Mr Richard Tuckwell
Religious Education Coordinator: Mrs Rebecca Mitchell
Middle Leader / Instructional Coach / Diverse Learning Needs: Mr Nathan Sherry
Senior School Support Officer (SSSO): Mrs Rachell Berrell

Classroom Teachers  
Year 6: Mrs Rebecca Mitchell / Mr Richard Tuckwell
Year 5: Mrs Kelly Anderson
Year 4: Mrs Alyssa Williamson
Year 3: Mr Andrew Nash
Year 2: Miss Louise Campbell
Year 1: Ms Christine Brogan
Kindergarten: Mrs Bernadette Bourke-Nash

Diverse Learning Team 
Mr Nathan Sherry, Mrs Janine Webb and Mrs Amy Eggleston

Specialist Support
Creative Arts – Music: Miss Keva Abotomey
PDHPE: Mr Richard Tuckwell

Administration, Library and Classroom Support  

Senior School Support Officer: Mrs Rachell Berrell

School Support Officers:
Mrs Hilda Townsend
Mrs Jennine Toohey
Mrs Linda Sewell
Mrs Carol Davies
Ms Emma Storry
Mrs Kristie Faavae
Mrs Carola Murnane

THANK YOU
Our school could not be the great St Michael's Mittagong that it is, without the generous support we receive from our parents and wider community. Thank you for the honour you bestow, in providing our staff with the opportunity to guide and teach your children. Each day is a special day at St Michaels because of this.

I wish all families a wonderful Christmas shared with family and friends. May 2022, bring an abundance of happy moments and special times with family, friends and our school community.

Merry Christmas everyone.

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER

“May you be filled with the wonder of Mary,
The kindness of Joseph,
The joy of the angels,
The eagerness of the shepherds,
The determination of the Magi,
The peace of the Christ child
And may almighty God, Father and Son
Bless you now and forever”

God bless
Mrs Katrina West
Principal