From the Principal

Dear St Anthony's Families,

Tomorrow is the feast day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Born in Melbourne, Australia's first saint dedicated her life to providing a free education to children in rural and impoverished areas. Central to this is her famous motto: "Never see a need without doing something about it"

God of all blessings, you revealed in Mary MacKillop a sensitivity to the rights and dignity of every person, regardless of race or creed.

May we learn from her to overcome the obstacles of prejudice and fear. Help us to value the goodness of each person and all the blessings of unity in diversity.

We ask this through the depth and unity of you, our bountiful God, who hold all things in being.

Amen

First Eucharist

We congratulate Tim, Leo, Sophie, Xavier, Julian, Molly, Peter and Noah for making their First Eucharist at 11am Mass on Sunday (9th of August). We feel very privileged to be part of this important step in your faith journey. All families are welcome to come along and support our Year Fours on Sunday at 11am Mass.

Curriculum Day on Monday

A friendly reminder that next Monday, the 10th of August, is a curriculum day. This is an opportunity for staff to work on their professional development.

Care is available for those who need it is available through YLV.

Focus on Learning

We continue to develop our understanding and skill of responsive teaching. This is part of our journey in explicit instruction. Responsive teaching follows cycles of Teach - Track - Respond. These come in long, medium and short cycle where long and medium cycles are measures of learning and short cycles enhance learning. The short cycle can happen multiple times in a lesson and is moment to moment, routine and regular, and encourages better-informed decisions from both students and teachers. Our current work is really revolving around giving our students plenty opportunities to respond during a lesson and making sure that students know whether they are correct or not correct (error correction) and how we can encourage thinking and engagement.

Prep Firefighter Visit

What a wonderful opportunity for our Preps to meet our local firefighters the other day. Our annual firefighter visit gave them the opportunity to use the hoses, sit in the truck, ask questions and learn about fire safety. At St Anthony's every student has opportunity to be really involved and all preps had multiple goes at everything.

Miss Jessica Davies

This week we welcomed Miss Jess in 3/4. She is completing her studies in education at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and this is her last placement. She has settled into the class really well and has already shown her great expertise and skill in many areas of the curriculum. We are very lucky to have her join us for the rest of Term three and to have such a strong connection with ACU.

Open Days and Tours

We are continuing our Open Days and school tours for families who are considering enrolment 2027 and 2028. Our next open afternoon is next week, on Wednesday 12 August at 2.30pm.

Bakesale next Friday

Molly and Sophie in Year Four are raising money for Tony's Cafe. A charity very close to our hearts and frequently supported by our Year Five and Six students.

The Bake stall is happening next Friday (14th of August) after school. They would love your help!! We look forward to all your support and especially all the yummy cakes and biscuits.

National Science Week - Junior Scientists @ St Anthony's

From 17 to 21 August it is National Science Week and we are very excited about this. On Thursday the 20th of August, we have a 'dress like a scientist' day, and in the middle block, we will break into small, multi age groups and rotate through some very cool science learning and experiments. We look forward to having a great day.

2 x Save the Date!

Please see our Parents and Friends Association Page for the Father's Day Breakfast
Our SRC Movie Afternoon / Evening is on Wed 19 August from 4.30 to 7pm - More information will follow next week.

We hope to see many of you on Sunday.

In partnership,