From The Principal

Dear parents, students, families and friends,

Wednesday night I attended the First Reconciliation Family Night. It was a beautiful evening facilitated by Denise Arnell, a former teacher and Religious Education Advisor for Catholic Education. It was wonderful to see all of our families attending and participating in the workshop. The main message from the workshop is that First Reconciliation is a special and wonderful sacrament that needs to be approached is a positive way and celebrated. We all make mistakes. We all make deliberate bad choices. We all need to be forgiven. We all need to forgive. In His earthly ministry Jesus continually forgave others for the wrong things that they did. He did this because He loved everyone and wanted to bring peace and happiness into the world. He also did this to show the people that God loves them and that God is a God of love, and peace, and welcome and forgiveness. We will pray for the students in our school and parish as they prepare to receive this special sacrament for the first time on the 4th June.

You have no doubt heard about the recent  measures announced yesterday by the Allan Labor Government in the 2024-25 State budget. A $400 School Saving Bonus was announced for all government school students. However, only Health Care Card holders will be eligible for the payment in Catholic schools. As you know from first-hand experience, we are all feeling cost of living pressures and for Catholic school families to be discriminated against in this manner is deeply unfair. We believe there should be equality for all school children in Victoria. Either the payment should apply to all students, or it should be means tested for all students, regardless of whether they attended government, catholic or private schools.

More information will be provided shortly. I will be writing to our local MPs to expression my concern and dissappointment at this decision and to request their support is taking this to parliament. I will also provide you with a template letter to forward to our local MPs to put the pressure on them to ensure that they are representing all of us and not discriminating between government and catholic schools.

After a long time of planning, our new Gaga Pit was installed yesterday afternoon. Thank you to OSHClub for providing the funding towards the Gaga Pit as part of their ongoing support of our school community. Some of our older students have played Gaga Ball while on camp. As you can see it is played inside of a hexagon pit. Six competitors enter the pit at a time, hitting a ball with their hands and aiming to strike the other competitors from foot to hip to eliminate them. The last person remaining is the winner. It is a game that involves gross motor skills, agility and great hand eye coordination.

This morning we held our annual Mother's day Breakfast to celebrate Mother's Day. The hall was full with mums, grandmas, dads, kids and other family members. The catering was prepared and served by our Year 5/6 students, lead by Ms Scimone as part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program. The menu consisted of hot pancakes, cupcakes, heart shaped biscuits, fruit cups with yoghurt and granola, chocolate cake and orange cake slices.

There was a raffle with 6 prize draws, fresh flowers for all mums, jewellery stall and a selfie station. A very thank you to everyone who helped organise and prepare for the day.

Our school uniform is important. It forms our identity as a school and unites us as a collective, just as wearing our team colours when we go to the footy. Our school uniform is a visual symbol that we belong together, that we all belong to St. Augustine's school. To the wider community, our uniform identifies us as who we are and what we stand for. People, apon seeing a student or students in a St. Augustine's uniform, hopefully associate this with a catholic school where the students are calm, respectful, happy and friendly. This is a long way of saying that the new school beanie is nearly ready and should be available in the next two weeks or so, just in time for winter. Keep an eye out on the Academy Uniform website. I will also send out a notification once I know the beanies are available. I know that I will purchase one to keep my ears warm while doing yard duty during the cold months to come.

NCCD Information for Parents

A reminder about the Farmer's Pick fresh produce boxes initiative available through our school. All subscriptions support local and independent farmers as well as supporting the school with a percontage of sales being donated towards supporting the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Sam will be presenting next week at assembly so feel free to drop by and ask him any questions you may have.

A very Happy Mother's Day to all our school mums!!

Kind regards,

Matthew Stead