Dear Parents,

Lent

Our Lenten season starts next week with Ash Wednesday. All children will attend a liturgy on Wednesday and receive the ashes.

During Lent we focus on

Prayer

Fasting or going without something and

Alms Giving. Giving to others

Shrove Tuesday

Next Tuesday 13th February is Shrove Tuesday - many call it Pancake Tuesday. It is the day before Ash Wednesday, which signals the beginning of Lent. Lent is a 40 day period of time in the church where we pray, fast (which means to go without eating something) and give to others.

As the day before Ash Wednesday, Shrove Tuesday has always been a day of getting ready.

We get our minds ready and think about the times we haven’t been our best self and decide on what we are going to work on during Lent so that we are our best self.

A tradition at St. Bernard’s is to have a shared breakfast of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

The serving of pancakes will begin at 8.15am. Pancakes will be $2.00 and all proceeds will go to Caritas. We hope you can join us.

Project Compassion - Raising funds for the vulnerable Each year Caritas, through Project Compassion, asks thousands of Australian schools, parishes and supporters to raise funds for people living in some of the most vulnerable communities across the world.

You can read about their work on their website - https://www.caritas.org.au/

Safe on Social Media

We were delighted with your presence at our parent meeting last week. The support you gave to your children and teachers in partnering with us to ensure the safe use of social media by our children was reassuring.

Attached to the newsletter is the welcome letter regarding Safe On Social eReady Kids Program. This program is complimentary from Kirra for every family in our school. We hope you find it useful to work through with your children over time.

Parents and children who were unable to attend the session last week are required to work through two modules from the Safe On Social eReady Kids Program of their choice with their children and send through the certificates of completion to

principal@sbwangaratta.catholic.edu.au

Once these have been received the digital user agreement will be sent home to be signed and the children will have access to their device at school.

Carpark and Drop Off Protocols - Reminder

We encourage parents to drop off or pick up their children at the internal drop off / pick up zone near the hall or the drop off / pick up point at the front of the school.

The carpark is entered from Skehan Ave. Cars travel at 5 kms an hour and either :-

1. Drive into the car park, where parents park their car then walk to the crossing point with their child and cross at the crossing point. At no time should children cross into the carpark, except at the designated crossing point with their parents. A teacher will be on duty at this crossing point.

Or

2. Choose to drive into the drop off zone where children will get out of their parent’s car on the left side of the car and walk up onto the footpath and into school. Parents will then continue to drive out of the school by entering back onto the driveway out of the school. The exit gate is automated to open.

At pick up time, a teacher will be at the drop off bay to direct children to their parent’s cars. The children will wait under the verandah of the hall and be directed by the teacher on duty to their parent’s car at the drop off point.

Parents cannot park their cars in the drop off zone and leave them. We ask parents to inform grandparents of this also.

It is important that students are waiting for pick up at the end of the day in either the hall drop off zone or the pick up zone at the front of the office. Students cannot play on the playground unsupervised, while waiting for a parent to pick them up.

There are teachers on duty at both of those zones to supervise our students.

Gates locked

All of our school gates are locked each day at 9.15am and then opened at 3.00pm each afternoon, due to child safety regulations.

Reminders:

* Pupil free day Monday 12th of February

* HATS AND DRINK BOTTLES ARE ESSENTIAL EVERY DAY!

* If you have changed your contact details since last year, please update your details on PAM This is important for medical emergencies!

* If your child has new medical information or you need to update your child's medical information, please do this on the SIMON Everywhere APP and contact our Office Admin team.

School Photos

School photos will be taken on Tuesday 12th of March. It is important that full summer uniform is worn on this day. Grade 6 students need to bring their special Grade 6 top for a group photo. Students can bring their runners in their bag if they have sports sessions on this day.

Have a great week everyone

Patricia Boak

Principal