From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers

Please note that weekly Parish mass times will now be located each week on our School Hours / Timetable page in our newsletter. 

Prayer for Spring

St Michael's School Production

Tickets - Please go to the link here: AN AUSSIE ADVENTUREto book your tickets. Six tickets per family are available until Friday 15th September, after which Trybooking will be open for people to purchase more tickets.

Ample parking is available at the venue. We still require 4-5 people to take responsibility for ushering cars through the carpark for easy organisation. Please email Annie at aherbison@smashburton.catholic.edu.au if you can do this job on the night. You will be shown what to do and you will also be able to watch the show. 

Costumes: THANK YOU for your contribution of baseball caps!! We have more than enough now and greatly appreciate your donations.

Please note no photography will be allowed during the performance. Families may take photos before and after the performance of their own children in the spacious foyers available. The school has hired a videographer for the evening and recordings of the full performance will be available for purchase after the event.

DVD/USB order forms have been sent home in today's office basket. 

These must be returned to the school office by Thursday 12th October.

FULL DRESS REHEARSAL FRIDAY 15th SEPTEMBER

TOMORROW we will hold a Whole School Full Dress Rehearsal. Students are asked to wear their black pants/shorts or jeans/jean shorts according to their year level requirements. All headpieces and tops will be supplied. Thanks to parent payments received over the last few weeks. 

2024 Planning

As term 4 approaches, we will commence our planning of the many considerations for the 2024 school year. I am sure you can appreciate that this is something the staff spend a great deal of time and energy in doing. 

2024 Classes - Placement of Students - This work takes many weeks of consideration and deliberation with the following in mind:

• The social and academic distribution of the children within the same level across classes
• A gender balance in each class
• Children’s requests for friendship groupings
• Specific placement of siblings and children with individual needs, inclusive of emotional, learning, physical and behavioural needs
• The social needs of children including the working relationships of all children and the desired separation of children who do not have a positive social or learning influence on each other
• An awareness of teachers in the previous academic year.   

To support the placement of our children we ask each child to name five classmates with whom they work well.  Children will be reminded to consider children from their current class and from other class settings.  Classes will then be structured with the aim to have each child with at least one nominated friend.  However, if the class teacher feels that the choices are not in the best interest of the child then the child will be asked to nominate others.  

We note here that sometimes children's choices with regards to friendships change and may not be in line with who parents believe their child might select.

With approximately 22 children in each class, each child is provided with 21 opportunities to either further develop existing friendships or the opportunity to develop new friendships.  

To be highly successful participants in our social, school and future working environments it is a most important skill to create new friendships each year and not to be reliant on the same close friendship/s each year.  We make every effort to support our children by providing them with supportive environments but at the same time we wish for some form of challenge so that our children can further develop personal life skills by negotiating new friendships. 

As detailed above, there is a significant level of care that goes into establishing the best learning environments, along with social interactions, for our children.     

Parent Requests - Meeting with Leadership

We are aware that some parents may have valid reasons to have input into the placement of their children for the forthcoming year. Should there be numerous requests from parents then the ability for staff to make positive and professional judgements for the best learning environments for our classes is compromised.  Given this, if parents have any relevant information that you believe is essential to the grade placement process, I invite you to make contact with Eloise Ellis eelliss@smashburton.catholic.edu.au or myself, Annie Herbison aherbison@smashburton.catholic.edu.au to share your thoughts for the 2024 year.  We will evaluate all requests and make a professional judgement on the placement of the child in question. Please note that the final decision must rest with the school in the interests of providing the best scenario for all students. 

‘Teacher Requests’ -  One thing I ask of parents at this time of year is to please be mindful of making requests based on teachers they would like their child to have. We are blessed at St Michael's to have a highly skilled and enthusiastic staff team and we are confident that all teachers will meet the needs of your children. This makes an already complicated process even more challenging. As a staff, making the decision about the right teacher and his / her style for your child is already a part of the process. We will do our best to create a complete learning environment that best suits the needs of your child.

Students Departures/Future Numbers:

If your child/children (Grade Prep-5) will not be returning to St Michael’s in 2024 I ask that you please email me to let me know. This information is essential as we plan for 2024 class structures.

School Closure day- Monday 6th November

We wish to advise our school community that Monday 6th November will be a school closure day.  This day is allocated for staff, in consultation with Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) to undertake assessment and reporting obligations and also meets the schools obligation to provide staff with time in lieu, a requirement under the new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.  The introduction of time in lieu allocation for staff is now in place for all Catholic Schools throughout the Melbourne Archdiocese. Please note that the following day, Tuesday 7th November, is the Melbourne Cup Day public holiday. 

Extend has been made aware of this date, if you wish to book your children in for care.

Lecky, the Therapy Dog

It was great to have another visit this week from Lecky, the Therapy Dog. Lecky's owner, Lee, dropped by one morning to the school to ask if she could come for a few visits after just finishing her training. It has been a pleasure to have her company in our classes and this week she also spent some time with the students on the playground. We are hoping to have Lecky return for more visits next term. 

Year Three / Four Learning Expo

What a magnificent afternoon we had yesterday in the Hub with students sharing their Term 3 learning through their EXPO. Students created dioramas and brochures about their chosen animal from either South America or South Africa. They investigated their natural habitats, what foods they eat and what predators they have and created a mini environment to show their understanding. The students were eloquent in their presentations and showed their knowledge about their nominated animal. Thank you to the many parents who were able to visit the Expo yesterday to support the students in this endeavour! Thank you to the Year Three/Four staff for preparing the students for this event.

Race3000

On Tuesday 12th September, Mr Lo Ricco visited the City of Melbourne with Darcy, 

Olivia B, Mali, Chloe and Alyssa to take part in the Race 3000 event.

The event required deductive thinking and group problem solving abilities. The students were required to race to various locations using the Actionbound App. 

The wonderful sunny day added to a fun day for both students and staff!

School hats

As the weather is warming up and we get closer to the warmer months, it is worth noting that the UV rays on some days will be higher. We strongly encourage students to be wearing school hats on these higher UV days. Please note, school hats will be compulsory during playtimes in Term 4. 

MACSSIS Surveys

Thank you to the families who have received and completed the MACSSIS survey. Only selected families would have received the survey by email. The survey assists us in allowing the community to have a voice to enable positive changes to our school. 

2023 School Fees

This week we sendt home Overdue Fee and Levy statements to those families who have not paid these yet. Please keep in mind there is just over one term remaining for 2023. Please contact Kathy to arrange payment or put a payment plan in place.  We thank you for your understanding and commitment to keeping up to date with payments.

Jump Rope for Heart at St Michael’s!

We’re skipping through the term!

Jump Rope for Heart is well underway and it’s great to see so many children out in the playground skipping with smiles on their faces. 

We have already raised $218 of our $500 goal.

It’s not long until our Jump Off Day in Term 4 so keep on practicing those tricks! And don’t forget to share your online fundraising page with friends and family to raise money for a great cause!

Still need to sign up online? It’s easy just follow this link and enter your details. www.jumprope.org.au/parents

Parking on Top Courts

We remind families that the top courts are not for parking when dropping off or collecting students. Many of our students walk through the courts on their journey home and in order to keep them safe, we ask that you do not park there after school. Thank you for your cooperation.