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TERM ONE WEEK THREE NEWSLETTER
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back to a new school year. I hope you had a wonderful time with your children over the Christmas and new year period. The students have settled in so well to their classes and it has been a great pleasure to welcome our new families and new Kindergarten students.
STAFF FOR 2024
We are very excited to let you know that Mrs Keva Prentice had a baby girl, Eadie Prentice, on the 1st January 2024- What a wonderful New Year blessing for Keva and her husband.
We welcome a new staff member to St Michaels, Mr Simon Pauperis, who will be teaching music this year. All other staff members are here again this year, which is wonderful. We are truly blessed to have such caring and committed staff working with our students.
COMMUNICATION / DATES
It has been a busy start to the year already, with Lent beginning today. This newsletter is going to be a very important one for you to access, as it will contain some events that will be happening this term, as well as dates later in the year for you to save on your calendars.
A reminder that all our newsletters are able to be accessed on our school website in the newsletter archive section and anything that is really important or time sensitive, will be given as a COMPASS feed alert. Our St Michael’s School Facebook Page is the main place where we will share photos of events that have happened, so “like” the page to get access to information about our school. Please don’t hesitate to contact our school office at any time if you have any questions regarding school matters.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
LENT
Yesterday, students from our Year 6 Mission Team, joined with myself to represent our school at John Therry Catholic College Rosemeadow for the CARITAS LENTEN APPEAL. Schools from across the Diocese of Wollongong, along with Bishop Brian and CEO team members, attended this special event. The purpose of the event was to launch Project Compassion across the schools of the Wollongong Diocese. Each year Project Compassion invites us into a partnership with Caritas Australia and with those living in poverty so that we can put that compassion into action – to make a difference in the world. Our Year 6 Mission team will lead us in the fundraising aspect to this campaign.
ASH WEDNESDAY
Today is Ash Wednesday. On this day, we mark the beginning of the season of Lent. Lent is a special time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Through prayer, we come closer to God so that we are better able to realise the promises made for us at our baptism, to live justly as Jesus teaches us. Lent prepares us for the season of Easter, the most important time in the Church’s calendar. By praying, fasting and giving alms (sharing), we are reminded of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus brought the promise of hope to all people so that we may, “have life and have it to the full”. As we live into that fullness, may we also be challenged to act with love and hope, now and for all future generations.
This morning, Years 1 to Year 6 celebrated a special Ash Wednesday Liturgy with Fr Sean in our school hall. Thank you to Year 6 and Mrs Mitchell for leading us in this special Ash Wednesday blessing. Fr Sean then visited Kindergarten to share with them, the special ashes and welcomed them to our school.
BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR MASS
Tomorrow, Thursday (15th Feb) we will hold our 'Beginning of the School Year' Mass at 9:15 am in St Michael's Church (for Year 1 – Year 6 classes). This will be a lovely opportunity to gather together as a school community, celebrate the Eucharist and pray for blessings upon our year. After Mass, Year 6 students will be presented with their leadership badges and commissioned into their various roles. All parents are very welcome and invited to attend our Mass. There will also be a special Morning Tea for Year 6 parents and students following Mass.
PARENT TEACHER EVENING
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 Wednesday 21st FEBRUARY (Week 4). 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: 6:30pm-7:00pm
Year 6: 6:30pm-7:00pm
Kindergarten parents will be meeting with Mrs Bourke-Nash as part of ‘Meet and Greet’ meetings during Week 4. This is an opportunity for us to discuss how your child has settled in and for you to share any important information you feel Mrs Bourke-Nash should be aware of. Mrs Bourke-Nash will also share a summary from your child’s Best Start Assessment. The sessions will run for 15 minutes, if you could please arrive 5 minutes early and wait outside.
Thank you for your support of these valuable information sessions.
ENROLMENTS
ENROLLING NOW FOR KINDERGARTEN 2025
Applications for enrolment for Kindergarten 2025 at St Michael’s Mittagong are now open. Enrolment forms can be downloaded from our school website at https://enrol.smmdow.catholic.edu.au/enrolment-form/start
If you know of any family that are interested in applying for a potential position for 2024, please contact our school office on 02 4871 2279 or they can fill in an enrolment application online at https://enrol.smmdow.catholic.edu.au/enrolment-form/start
ASSEMBLIES FOR 2024
This year, the Friday afternoon assembly will be held on every “even week” only, as the school has been granted access to a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Pilot Program created by the University of Canberra. I applied last year and heard from the university that we were successful. The program involves all our students in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 and is based around digital literacy skills and play based learning. It requires an allocated amount of time each week, so we are using every second Friday afternoon to access the program. Students in Years 3-Year 6, will also be participating in school based STEM activities, which will run at the same time as the K-2 program. We are very excited for this new opportunity for all our students. We will still have assemblies every even week- so our next assembly will be on Friday 23 February at 2:20pm.
STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAYS FOR 2024
Each term, the schools across NSW have an allocated staff development day. We have planned our days to coincide with the end of a school holiday period, so hopefully that is less disruption for your working commitments and less disruption in the middle of a term for our students.
The following dates are all of the staff development days for this year.
TERM 1- Tuesday 2 April
TERM 2- Monday 29 April
TERM 3-Monday 22 July
TERM 4- Monday 14 October
PRINCIPAL’S PIZZA PARTY
Congratulations to all the students who received a Principal’s Award in 2023. Each year I recognise in a special way, the students who received Principal’s Awards and we have a special party. I was on leave at the end of last year, so as last Friday was National Pizza Day, what better way to celebrate than with “pizzas and poppers”
I am so proud of all our students at St Michaels. We have had a really great start to the year.
LOOK WHAT’S NEW!!
Great excitement occurred this week, with the arrival of our new desks and chairs!! They have instantly created such a bright and happy environment for our students. Thank you to our parents and the Catholic Education Office for supporting our students with this new furniture
We do have some spare desks and chairs if any parent would like to take them for your home. Please let me know if you are interested.
SPORT
SCHOOL SWIMMING CARNIVAL- THURSDAY 22 FEBRUARY
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The St Michael's School Swimming Carnival will be held at Bowral Pool and will include both Competitive and Non-Competitive Events. The requirements for competitive events are that your child must be turning 8 years old this year and be able to swim 50m independently and confidently and may have participated in swimming or squad lessons. |
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Additional event details: The Competitive Carnival of our Whole School Swimming Carnival allows us to pick a team for the Western Region Swimming Carnival (held in Campbelltown on Wednesday 28th February 2024). Students not wishing to compete in the Competitive Carnival will be given the opportunity to participate in some fun non competitive events in the smaller pool. |
ST MICHAEL’S CROSS COUNTRY CARNIVAL
Our St Michael’s Cross Country will be held on Tuesday 5th March. We are still waiting on confirmation from the council, however, we should be able to hold it across the road on Alexandra Square. Details will come through COMPASS regarding this event.
OTHER DATES FOR YOUR CALENDAR
Hot Dog day- 20 Feb
Dance off Fundraiser for Wakakirri - 4 March
Year 4 Camp Day at Cataract Scout Park- 7 March
NAPLAN commencing 13 March-25 March
St Patrick’s Day- wear green day- 17th March
Feast of St Joseph Mass- 22 March
Easter Raffle: Holy Week draw(date to be confirmed) - raffle tickets will go out later this term.
Easter Holidays- Good Friday 29 March and Easter Monday 1 April (only) followed by Tuesday 2 April Staff Development Day.
P&F Pizza- 11 April
Last Day of Term 1 - 12 April
First day back for students in Term 2- Tuesday 30 April
Parents Day BBQ, Classroom visit and Book Fair- Fri 17 May
G Day- Grandparents, Godparents and special people- Fri 30 Aug
Major Fundraising idea from the P&F: Colour Run, Fri 27 Sept
SPORTING REPRESENTATION
Congratulations to Aoife (Yr 6) for attending the Diocesan Touch Football trials yesterday in the heat at Fairy Meadow. We are very proud of Aoife's efforts and are delighted to let you know that she has been chosen today, to represent our Diocese in championships later this year in Wagga. On the day her skill and spirit was certainly noticed by the selectors. Terrific work Aoife!
Thank you for your continued support of our school.
Have a lovely week.
God Bless
Mrs Katrina West
Principal
P&F 2024
Thank you to the parents who came along to our first P&F Meeting for 2024. It was lovely to see you all. At this meeting, the new P&F Committee was elected as follows:
President Michelle Bennett
Secretary: Sheridan Burgess
Treasurer: Melissa Bartolo
Co-Treasurer/Signatory: Yasmine Gospel
Social Media/P&F Facebook page: Morgan Kennedy
Class coordinators for fundraising events
Kinder: Dominica Lee - Cross Country- Thur 5 March
Year 1: Sarah Mulhullond-Brown - World Parent’s Day- Fri 17 May
Year 2: Emilie Sivak - Disco- Term 2 and Term 4 Dates TBA
Year 3: Helen Saunders - Mothers day stall- Wed 8 May
Year 4: Katrina Bartone - Fathers day stall- Thur 29 Aug
Year 5: Melissa Bartolo - GDay 30 Aug and Crazy Camel Fundraising (cards etc like last year)
Year 6: Theresa Catania - GDay 30 Aug
(Note Year 5 and Year 6 will be responsible for coordinating the GDAY morning tea)
Major Fundraiser for this year- Colour Run on the last day of Term 3 27/9/24
A copy of the minutes from this meeting will be found here:
COMMUNITY NEWS
Physical Culture News-
