Deputy Principal / Religious Education

Dear Parents and Families

Thank you to all in our community who were able to attend our Opening School Mass yesterday. It was a wonderful celebration to officially begin the school year and welcome our new students, families and teachers to St Luke’s.

Congratulations to our 6 school leaders who were Commissioned at mass. Reece Opie, Rhys Cowen, Flynn Gemmill, Gusti Feldtmann, Taqweer Bhatti and Ewa Patel will be great ambassadors and leaders for our school.

Congratulations to all of our grade six students who were commissioned and presented with their school badges. Our year sixes are proving to be great role models and are taking their leadership responsibilities and roles very seriously.

Thank you to the many students who took an active part in our opening school mass and we thank Fr Adi for celebrating with us.

Enhancing Catholic School Identity Survey (ECSI)

Thank you to the many parents who have completed the survey. There's still time to provide your feedback and whilst it's a voluntary and anonymous, we would appreciate as many families as possible to participate. The survey takes approximately 50mins to complete and can be completed over numerous sittings. All staff and students in grades 5/6 will also participate taking the survey to gain a full community perspective.

The ESCI survey period closes on Friday 28th March.

Please follow the attached instructions and use the follow access code to commence the survey.

ECSI Survey LINK

St Luke's SURVEY ACCESS CODE: Mm666e

We appreciate your time and value your feedback to help us improve every aspect of school life especially our Catholic Identity.

Shrove Tuesday

Thank you to Sheena and our wonderful Parents and Friends committee for cookingpancakes for our students and staff on Tuesday.

Shrove Tuesday background information

Shrove Tuesday is a Christian tradition celebrated in many countries around the world. It falls on the Tuesday before the beginning of Lent (the day before Ash Wednesday) – a period of around six weeks leading up to Easter.

The name ‘Shrove' comes from the old word ‘shriving’, which means to listen to someone’s sins and forgive them.

In the past, Christians would go to church on Shrove Tuesday to participate in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Traditionally during Lent, Christians would give up rich, tasty foods such as butter, eggs, sugar and fat. Shrove Tuesday was the last chance to eat them – and what better way to do so than with a delicious pancake!

Does your family have a special Shrove Tuesday tradition?

Ash Wednesday & Lent

We celebrated the start of Lent with a whole school Ash Wednesday liturgy. It was lovely to gather as a school community. The season of Lent is a time to prepare for Jesus’ death and resurrection at Easter. To make a difference to the lives of others, students will begin donating to Project Compassion and will take home their own Project Compassion money boxes. Students are making a conscious effort to look at ways they can give more of themselves throughout Lent.

Raising awareness is a significant part of Caritas’ Project Compassion Campaign and there are a number of ways we can all work together for justice and dignity and build a better future for all. Students will gain awareness that there are many people in our world and local community who are less fortunate than us and who are in need of support. This years theme is 'Unite against Poverty this Lent'. A good question to ask yourselves… What can you do this Lent to make a difference?

(Lent explained in 3 minutes)

Have a wonderful fortnight ahead.

Chris Summers

Deputy Principal ~ Catholic Identity & Wellbeing Leader

~ YOUTH MASS ~

Saturday 15th March 6pm Mass. St Brendans.

Mass: 6pm

Food, Games & activities: 7pm-8pm

NAPLAN ~ Best wishes to our grade 3s and 5s.

Next week our grade 3 and 5 students commence Naplan online.

As children progress through their school years, it is very important that checks are made along the way to see how well they are learning the essential skills of reading, writing and mathematics – skills that will set them upon the path to success as adults.

NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents and carers to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard and compared with their peers throughout Australia. At the classroom level, NAPLAN provides additional information to support teachers’ professional judgement about student progress.

NAPLAN online is a tailored test that adapts to student responses, providing better assessment and more precise results.

Read the NAPLAN information brochure for parents and carers (PDF 133 kb), also available in Simple English (PDF 1 mb).

To see the types of questions and functionalities in the online tests, visit the public demonstration site page.

Staff Message for years 3 & 5 Students sitting Naplan next week

Dear year 3 and 5 students,

Next week, you will sit the NAPLAN test. Before you take this test there is something very important for you to know.

This test does not assess all of what makes each of you exceptional and unique. The people who score these tests don't know that some of you love to sing, are good at drawing or can teach others how to use a computer program. They have not seen the way that some of you can dance with grace or speak confidently to a large group. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them when they are sad. They don't know that you participate in sports, help your Mum and Dad or that you play with your little brother, sister or cousins. They do not know that you are caring, thoughtful and that every day you do your best and work hard. Because these attributes cannot be tested.

The scores you get from this test will tell you how you did on that day, but they will not tell you everything. They can't tell you that you have improved on something you once found difficult. They can't tell you that you brighten up your teacher's day. They can't tell you how amazingly special you are.

So come to school ready to do your best for the NAPLAN next week and remember there is no one way to 'test' all of the wonderful things that make you, YOU! YOU are uniquely special and that's what we love about YOU.

Do your best, be your best and be proud of who YOU are.

Kind regards

St Luke's Staff