TERM 1 WEEK 5 NEWSLETTER

Dear Families,

This week is a very special week in our St Michael’s Community. Not only have we had a wonderful celebration of “Two Two Two’sday” yesterday, we are also celebrating together on Friday, our Beginning of School Year Mass. 

This Mass marks the beginning of our liturgical celebrations for 2022 and is also the Mass where our Year 6 school leaders will be commended with their leadership positions. 

At St Michaels, all students in Year 6 have a leadership role. We are in a unique position as a one stream school, to be able to offer this very important role to all our year 6 students. The students work together as a class to help make decisions in our school as well as undertaking team positions that cater for the variety of things we do here at school.

The four leadership teams are:

Mission Team- lead stewardship and social justice initiatives and support the organisation of school Masses and liturgies

Social Team- plan some of our student body events; organise the play equipment in the hall and on the playground; contribute to fundraising ideas

Sport Team- help the teachers with the distribution of sporting equipment in the school; lead wellbeing initiatives;  support sports carnival team organisation (cheers etc) 

Environment Team: support and plan for environmental awareness and environmental stewardship of school gardens, recycling initiatives etc

Thank you to our Year 6 leaders who have already commenced the year with great enthusiasm and positive leadership. Fr Sean will be blessing the students badges and presenting them, as part of the Mass.

The Beginning of the School Year Mass will be attended by Year 6 and their parents. Mr Tuckwell will film the Mass for all other grades to participate in within their classroom next week. The Mass will also be sent out next week, to all families to watch via COMPASS. On the email you will be directed to click on a vimeo link- just like our Online Assembly.  

LENT and the LAUDATO Si ACTION PLATFORM
Next week is the beginning of Lent. Lent is a special time of the year where we are encouraged to think about others, especially those in need  and share our time, resources  and prayer. 

Last year, the Laudato Si' Action Platform with its seven goals was launched, encouraging the global church to respond to the cry of the earth and to the cry of the poor. One of the concrete ways that schools can do this is through their support of Caritas Australia's annual Lenten appeal, Project Compassion.

The theme of Project Compassion in 2022 is ‘For All Future Generations’ and reminds us that the good that we do today will extend and impact the lives of generations to come.

The students across our Diocese of Wollongong, will explore the themes of Project Compassion during the six weeks of Lent and beyond.  Stage 3 (Years 5 and 6) have been invited to  attend the online launch of  Project Compassion on  Shrove Tuesday, 1 March 2022, via a Zoom from the Caritas Australia National Office in Sydney.

During next week, our school will observe two special days: Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Fr Sean will be visiting our school on Wednesday, to participate in an Ash Wednesday Liturgy.

Thank you to Mrs Mitchell, our Religious Education Coordinator and all staff, for your preparation of these two special days. 

TWO TWO TWO’S DAY (22-2-22) 
Yesterday, students and staff joined in the fun of this special day by coming to school dressed in items representing the letter T or number 2…. Tutus, tennis shoes, ties, top-hats, tigers, tinsel, tea-towel capes, tights and even tea-bags were some of the creative ideas the students had for their costume. 

It was fantastic to see all of our staff join in the fun of this special day. We finished the day with a whole school “Two’s” dance at 2:22 on the 22/2/22.

Click on the link to see some photos of the day. During our online assembly this week, you will be able to see some videos of the school dancing!

PARENT COMMUNICATION
At St Michaels we endeavour to keep families well informed of the great things that are happening here at school. We have an Online Assembly each week, which you can view via a COMPASS email, with a link to the video or else the video will also be on our Facebook page. 

Every fortnight on a Wednesday, we email the newsletter to all parents. Our first newsletter for this term was in Week 3 (there was no newsletter in Week 1 as only staff were on site). 

It is really important that all families read the newsletter, as that is the one place where all the major information for our school is contained. There is information also in the newsletter about upcoming events, which you can then put on your calendar. 

Our first newsletter was a long one as it contained a lot of information about: 

• Welcome to new families and staff
• Staff list for 2022
• The start of a new school year events; 
• Message from the Premier
• Covid and mental health support for families
• NCCD collection of data
• Photos of our new Kindergarten children and photos of all classes
• Links to our two school Facebook pages
• Specialist lesson information
• Religious Education information
• Finances and school fees
• Important dates and school calendar
• Forms that need to be completed by all families
• Swimming Carnival nominations
• Medical information
• Positive Behaviours for Learning information
• Covid frequently asked information
• Diocesan Social Media Statement
• Information about Safer Internet Day
• Scholastic Book Club Orders
• curriculum information. 
• Charity Fun Run information

This is very important information for all our families and especially for our new families. Unfortunately, when I looked at our “readership” of the newsletter that week, only approximately 50% of the school families read it. That means, approximately 50% of the families did not find out about our school events or other important information.  

I understand it is very easy to miss an email (with the many that we receive from work and others). If you happened to miss reading the newsletter, you can always find it again on our school website under “Newsletter Archive”. I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about anything in the newsletter. We are here to help :) 

Thank you for your continued support of our school. Have a lovely week everyone.

God Bless
Katrina West

Listed below are some important school dates.  The school calendar is updated regularly and can be accessed via the school website and Compass parent portal.

• Tuesday 1st March Shrove Tuesday
• Wednesday 2nd March Ash Wednesday
• Monday 1st – 5th  March – Catholic Schools Week
• Friday 5th  March – World Day of Prayer
• Thursday 17th March  - Year 2 Maubara Fundraiser
• Thursday 17th March – St Patrick’s Day
• Thursday 17th March – St Joseph’s Day Mass 9.30 am

St Joseph’s Day  Mass
Saturday the 19th March, is the feast day of St Joseph. As our school was founded by the sisters of St Joseph’s we celebrate our connection with St Joseph and the sisters with a school Mass to be held on Thursday 17th March.

School Mass
On Friday (25th February) we will be celebrating our first Mass for the year. It will be a wonderful celebration for our school community, and although not everyone will be able to attend, Mass will be filmed for each class to watch next week. Year 6 will be commissioned into their leadership roles as part of the Mission Group, Environment group, Sport group and Social group. It will be a lovely way to start our school year and welcome our new school leaders.

SHROVE TUESDAY
Tuesday 1st of March is Shrove Tuesday. “Shrove” comes from the word shrive and refers to the absolution of a penitent’s sins. The Tuesday before Ash Wednesday is sometimes called “Shrove Tuesday”.  Pancakes are associated with Shrove Tuesday because they are a way to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk and sugar before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent.

ASH WEDNESDAY
This year our students will be attending a Liturgy for Ash Wednesday in the school Hall on Wednesday the 2nd of March at 9:30. 

Ash Wednesday Masses will also be held at St Thomas Aquinas Parish at Bowral. All are welcome to. If you would like more information on Lenten obligations and Mass times please visit https://www.ccsh.org.au/lent

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK LITURGY
Each year we celebrate the gifts of Catholic Education and focus on a theme which connects deeply to our schools. This year the theme is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.”  Over the week each class will make an artwork that connects them with their school and their faith. These wonderful reflections by the students will be displayed around the school over this week of celebration. 

WORLD DAY OF PRAYER
Will be held in Corpus Christi Parish, Mittagong/Bowral at St. Thomas Aquinas Church on Friday 4 March at 10.00am.

Light Refreshments will be served in St Thomas Aquinas Parish Hall after the Service.  Everyone is Welcome.

Corpus Christi Parish Mittagong-Bowral News

Mass Times 

Weekend Masses

• Saturday Vigil - 5:00pm
• Sunday - 8:00am 
• Sunday - 9:30am
• Sunday - 5:00pm

 Weekday Masses

• Tuesday - 8:00am
• Wednesday - 8.00am
• Thursday - 8.00am
• Friday - 8:00am​

DEVELOPING SKILLS OF ESTIMATION

The skill of estimation within Mathematics can be very important. It’s helpful in completing number calculations to know what your answer should be close to. It’s also very useful in completing measuring tasks for length, area, volume and mass.

There are many opportunities that parents can help children develop these skills in a fun way.

Cooking: Involve your child from time to time with the preparation of meals. They will experience and gain an understanding of units such as ‘a cup of water’; ‘500 grams of mince’; ‘180 degrees Celsius’ for the oven; and many more.

Driving games: Play guessing games / competitions in the car such as: estimating the time of arrival at a destination; estimating how many litres of petrol it will take to fill the tank (or how much it will cost); estimating the distance in kilometres between two locations on a trip.

Shopping:  There is a great opportunity to discuss the net / gross weight or volume of various products being chosen from the shelves . . . . “Can you please go and get a 3 litre container of milk”.  Shopping also provides the opportunity to learn about the concept of ‘rounding up or down’ for estimation. As items are put in the trolley or basket, round up or down to the nearest dollar. In this way keep a running total of the approximate cost. When paying for the items you can see how close your final estimation was.

These are just a few fun ways to develop the skill of estimation.

Mr Richard Tuckwell
Assistant Principal

Thank you to those who have returned the hard copy permission notes mentioned below.

The school must receive new signed consent/permission each year.

Consent for Use of Student's Works/Images
A new Consent for Use of Student's Works/Images Form is required to be signed by parents and returned to the School.  It is important that this form, which was sent home last week, is completed, signed and returned to the school as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, if the form is not returned we are not able to display, publish, publically acknowledge or "use" any of your student's works or images. This includes but is not limited to our newsletter, social media, newspaper articles, or in school displays/Open Days/Showcases (eg SPLICED, Gday, Office Displays, assemblies), Diocesan publications or Catholic Education Office Publications.

2022 Premier's Reading Challenge
The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely.  All students in Years 3 - 6 will be registered to take part. 

You can search our Library catalogue to see all the available books by clicking on the link below. 

2022 Challenge dates

• Challenge opens: Monday 28 February 2022
• Challenge closes for student entries: Friday 19 August 2022
  
  

Each fortnight the newsletter is distributed via the Schoolzine platform and Compass Parent Portal. Reading our school newsletter is the best way to stay up to date with what is happening at St Michael’s.

Did you know that when you click on the newsletter link and are directed to the online newsletter you then have the option to:-

• Visit the school website
• View previous newsletters
• Subscribe to the newsletter. This is a great way for relatives and community members to keep up to date with the wonderful things happening at St Michael’s school.
• Like us on Facebook
• View the newsletter in different languages.
• View the school calendar.
• Print a hard copy of the newsletter.

Please take the time to use the tabs and links to explore features available.  The advantages of this mode of communication is we can include many more photos, videos, pdf flyers, links to the school calendar and a direct link to our school website.

Our School Newsletter and Compass Parent Portal are the most important forms of regular communication with parents and families. Our school Facebook page is regularly updated with photos and updated information regarding events.