Newsletter 30/5/2022 Term 2 Week 6

Our Prayer

From the Principal

Dear parents, carers and community members,

We are entering the winter months now and, even though we have ridden the wave of flu cases, parents are asked to continue to monitor their children for symptoms and keep them at home if they are unwell. Your ongoing help with this will support the school greatly as we battle our way through until the end of term. 

COVID update

We ask that parents contact school to advise if children are either positive or a close contact with Covid.  A reminder that if the children are close contacts that they must test 5 out of 7 days and wear a mask (8 years or over)  if coming to school.

Winter Sports

Our winter sports (Trisports) will be held this Wednesday the 1st of June. The football will be played at the Noorat recreation reserve and the soccer and netball will be played in Terang. Children will need to bring their own food and drinks on the day and warm clothing to keep warm and dry between games. Parents of the children selected are asked to complete the permission form on PAM as soon as possible. We are hoping the weather will be kind on the day.

Parent/Teacher Interviews

Teachers are currently gathering evidence of learning to form the basis of our first semester school reports and parent/teacher interviews. Parent Teacher Interviews will be available to book on PAM soon. Please keep an eye out for the request to nominate a time and format to meet with your child's teacher to discuss their learning. 

Parent Teacher Interviews will be held as follows:

• Foundation - Grade 2     Tuesday 21st June
• Grade 3/4     Wednesday 22nd June
• Grade 5/6     Thursday 23rd June

Traffic Concerns

We have been alerted to a safety concern for the bus pick up area on Henderson street once again. We ask parents not to drop students off on the North side of the street as this requires them to cross the road and even move between parked buses. This is a no standing zone at these times. The yellow area on the South side of the street (below) is the designated drop-off area. Parents are asked to adjust their route to school to always enter the street from the church end rather than Bowen street.

HCSN Activity Day

Our Hampden Catholic Schools Network activity day was a great success with students enjoying the opportunity to learn and play with their fellow year levels at the other two network primary schools. This day is often a highlight of the year and it is great to be able to celebrate it once more.

Junior AFL Clinic

This Wednesday 1st of June we have organised an AFL Footy Clinic for the F-2 children through AFL Western District.

AFL Footy Clinic Times;
10am 2B
11:30am 2SD 
12:30pm 1WC & 1M 
2:15pm FDB & FSC 

Children are to wear the sports uniform and can bring along a footy jumper to wear.

Grade 6 Camp

The experiences of our Grade 5 camp to Portsea and our Grade 4 camp to Ballarat have caused a review of the plan for the Grade 6 children to visit Canberra later this year. With the health concerns we are facing at the moment and the expectation that students are to be picked up from camp if unwell, we have decided to adjust our camp from Canberra to Melbourne for the 2022 Grade 6 camp. The same company who organise the camp will adjust the program to Melbourne and fully plan the event. With reduced costs, we anticipate a rebate on the amount charged and this will be passed on to families when it is made clear. 

Feet

Many of our Foundation "feet" have been returned and put up on display at school, however, there are still many that have not been returned to school yet. If you have misplaced the foot that was sent home earlier this year, please contact the school office. We would love to have all these in as soon as possible. 

Fr Neville

We ask for the prayers of our school community for Fr Neville as he has travelled back to Sri Lanka for the funeral of his brother-in-law who passed away recently. We wish him well and look forward to his return soon.

Division Cross Country

The Regional Cross Country is being held today, Monday 30th of May and we wish Harry Sinnott, Maddison Mitchell, Madison Lucas and Gus Fryers every success as they compete in this event. 

New Quilts

The Camperdown Clocktower Quilters have been busy making some beautiful artworks to present to the school. These donated quilts will be used to keep students warm in sick bay during the winter months. We thank them for their generosity and their work in our local community.

Catholic School Culture

Catholic Education Week

We had such a great week celebrating Catholic Education Week with so many highlights!! The Winter Woolies theme was so popular on Wednesday with many creative outfits. Mixx FM broadcasting from St. Pat’s was very entertaining for all children as they engaged in fun activities and had their questions answered about the radio station. Some children were even lucky enough to win prizes. Children also watched the National Simultaneous Storytime Story, Family Tree at the same time that over 1 million other children from schools all over Australia read the same book. Friday was Hampden Catholic School’s Network Day where the junior students met at St. Pat’s, the middle students met at St. Colman’s and the senior students met at St. Thomas’. They engaged in lots of fun activities, met many other children and made friendships.

Friday Parish Mass

On Friday all senior students will attend the Parish Mass at St Patrick’s Church at 9:30am. This will be their first mass for the term and a lovely way to come together in Eucharistic celebration.

Mini Vinnies Winter Appeal

Thank you to all families who have washed and sent in items for the Mini Vinnies volunteers to collect for the Winter Appeal. These collections will continue throughout this term so please feel welcome to send in washed winter items such as blankets, sleeping bags, coats etc. It will go a long way to assisting people to keep warm this winter. Thank you.

First Holy Eucharist

Thank you to all families who have returned their note regarding First Holy Eucharist and advising of their chosen date; either Saturday 16th of July at 6:30pm in Cobden or Sunday 17th of July at 11am in Camperdown. If you are still to return your note, please do this today so administrative tasks can be completed. Preparation at school will begin soon and a home preparation pack will also be coming home.

Student Free Day and Staff P.D.

There will be a Student Free Day on the last day of term, Friday 24th of June. Staff will be involved in a Professional Development Day on the Catholic Education topic of Scripture. This day will be presented by Liz Dowling, a highly regarded academic teacher in this subject.

New Books for Reading in the Junior Area   

Teachers in the Junior Area are using resources from Little Learners Love Literacy for instruction during Literacy time in classrooms each day. These resources were selected after Professional Development and learning teachers have been involved in based around the Science of Reading.
Learning to be a skilled reader is a complex task, a task which involves many skills including word recognition (phonological awareness, decoding and sight recognition) and language comprehension (background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning and literacy knowledge). Learning to read and building accurate word recognition is built upon through teaching students the alphabetic code / phonics. Phonic knowledge is helpful for all children for both reading (decoding) and writing/spelling (encoding).
Children in Foundation, Grades 1 and 2 are using new books from Little Learners Love Literacy, these books are for both teacher focused instruction and for home reading. At the beginning of the year we purchased the fiction sets from Stages 1 through to 7.5, and at the moment we are covering the non-fiction sets which have just arrived.

We would like to thank all families for contributing to the Fete Levy; this Fete Levy and fundraising efforts by the Parents and Friends Association has made these specific purchases possible.
We sent out an alert last week looking for helpers to cover these books so that students can use them. If you are able to cover any books please see Debbie at the office.

MERCY REGIONAL COLLEGE - 2023 ENROLMENTS

The Mercy Regional College enrolment applications for Year 7 2023 are closing on Friday 24 June. 

The College would like to invite prospective Year 7 families to complete an enrolment application form through the new enrolment portal - Enrolment Information. If you require any further assistance completing the form please do not hesitate to contact MRC Registrar Nicole Darcy at ndarcy@mercy.vic.edu.au or 03 5593 2011.

The Junior O’Keeffe Campus will be open for tours throughout Term 2, to welcome those families who could not attend the MRC Open Day and O’Keeffe Afternoon in March.  Please visit the following link to register - O'Keeffe Campus Tours.

Mercy Regional College understands that choosing a school is one of the most important things you will do for your child’s education and welcomes all enquiries about enrolment at Mercy.

MRC Car Raffle 2022 Is Live!

The Mercy Regional College Car Raffle was launched on Wednesday last week. Tickets are available online at rafflelink.com.au/mrc-raffle-22. There are great prizes to win, including a Renault Captur, an Apple Watch and a Timboon Tiny Homes holiday voucher. All proceeds from the raffle will be contributed to the purchase of a mobile coffee trailer for Mercy VCAL students.

The great offer of 13 tickets for $100 can also give you a chance to win the Early Bird prize - $300 MRC School fees voucher. Buy a bundle of 13 tickets before 2 August to enter the Early Bird draw. 

If you are unable to purchase raffle tickets online, you can buy paper tickets at numerous stores, cafes and offices around the region. 

Mercy Regional College asks everyone in the wider community to support their fundraising effort not only by purchasing tickets, but by spreading the word about the raffle and helping distribute ticket books. If you would like to request an extra ticket book for your family, friends, colleagues, or customers, please contact the College Office on 03 5593 2011 or community@mercy.vic.edu.au. When selling the whole book of tickets, you will get to keep the bonus Early Bird ticket as a ‘Thank You’ for your help.

More information about the Raffle is available on the MRC website https://www.mercy.vic.edu.au/community/car-raffle/ .

Birthdays

Happy Birthday to the following students who celebrate their birthdays this week.

Katelyn, Lyla & Mali

Parish Bulletin

Student of the week

COMMUNITY EVENTS