Dear Parents and Guardians,

We began the year with all the joys of renewing friendships and finding our way in the new year. The storm made us all pause and stop and, focus on safety and the care of each other. The last two weeks have definitely just been business and busyness as usual.

Our beautiful Preps have settled in wonderfully and it is very evident that they and their families belong are now such an important part of the COHR community. We are blessed to have you with us and we are looking forward to the many gifts you have to share with us all.

Our Year 3 students have really been living out the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as they have been learning about how God's forgiveness is so important to our life journey. As well as how we can celebrate our relationships with God and others by sharing love and forgiveness with all we meet. Their Family Workshop and Reflection Day have been key events as we linked with families and the children of Sacred Heart Primary.

Our Year 6 leaders had an amazing day yesterday at Salesian College with a day focused on Public Speaking and Debating Workshop. Teaching students Public Speaking skills is a major step towards ensuring that a generation of leaders can confidently and persuasively articulate their thoughts and present them accordingly. An amazing day which they reflect on later in this newsletter.

Our parent community has been very busy this week too. We held our first Fete meeting on Monday. Our Fete is held every 2 years and is quite simply a highlight of COHR. We will need many hands to make this a success. So there will be many shout outs over this year for helpers. Please do respond, especially our new families. It is a great way to get to know other parents and families.

At this stage we will be holding a Plant Stall - so start organising your seedlings (if unlike Jo you can keep plants alive!). Also there will be a White Elephant Stall. We will collect items from the start of Term 3. And lots of more to come!

If you think you can help in any way please contact us, so we can add you into the planning.

Our School Advisory Council also met this week. The parameters of the SAC is set by MACS through a document called the Terms of Reference. Over the last few years we have slowly been transitioning to being completely compliant with this document, in terms of number of members, meeting structures, number of meetings, etc. This has meant we now have the correct number of members. The focus of this Term 1 meeting was in electing our new chair and secretary. We welcome Irna Kostic (Rafael 1/2H, Madeline 5/6C) as our new chair, Oliver Kelly (Amelia 5/6G, Liana 3/4G) as our Secretary, Mel Nigro (Sebi 5/6C) as a general member and Jess Brown (Jasper 3/4G ) as the Parent's Association Representative. We discussed the School Review, Child Safety and the year so far. We are very grateful for this team's contribution to our school.

NAPLAN

The Naplan assessments will be held from Wednesday March 13th until Monday March 25th, for students from Year 3 and Year 5. Please find attached the Naplan Information Brouchure for Parents, published by ACARA (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority) who oversee these assessments across Australia. For COHR Naplan results enable us to have data which is added to the many other forms of data we collect and share with you about your child.

Working With Children Check

In the last newsletter we had a reminder to ensure your WWCC is linked to COHR. Rachel has been emailing parents whose WWCC has either not been linked or is no longer valid. Please do check and respond to these emails. We need to maintain our WWC register in all ordr keep all the children safe in our school.

Hot Dog Day

Hot Dog Day next Tuesday ! Please make sure your order is in by tomorrow.

Parent's Association

AGM next Wednesday at 7:30pm in the Staffroom. Please come along we would love to see you!

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Program

We have added a make-up date (from the storms) to our Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Program. 5/6C & 5/6G will now be having their kitchen program on Friday 22nd March. 5/6G will be at 9.25am and 5/6C will be at 11.30am. If you are able to volunteer some time to help on the day, please make a booking via school interview using the code: r8ktq

Parent Reps

Our Parent's Association is still looking for Parent Reps in 1/2G, 3/4G and 5/6C. The role does not involve a lot, basically communicating with families and sharing communications, including asking for helpers. This communication is going to be more important this year as a Fete year. Thanks in anticipation for those who have volunteered and those who answer this call out. Please contact the office, or our parents Jess & Elena if you can help.

Hopefully you can avoid or enjoy the promised heat over the long weekend and find time to pause and relax.

Regards

Jo Cowan (Deputy Principal) &

Brian Martin (Lead Principal)

Community News

Oakleigh Dragons Football Club

Softball Victoria's School Holiday Program

International Sports Camp

Elena's Piano Studio