Dear Families,

The term is flying by very quickly – before we know it, we will be getting ready for school holidays again. It has been a busy fortnight since the last newsletter – lots of fun learning and activities happening here at St Luke’s.

For families managing illness, or have recently experienced a bereavement with the loss of a loved one, please know you are very much in our thoughts and prayers.

Congratulations also to families who have recently welcomed a new addition to their families with the birth of a child. We wish you every happiness and joy at this special time.

End of Term Sport Colours Day:

A reminder that the last day of term, Friday 15th September, is Sports Colours day. Children can wear the uniform of a sporting team they are involved in or the colours of a favourite sporting team. (Hopefully a few Matildas in the mix this year!!) The Community Group will provide a hot dog lunch and as a tradition, a staff versus students sporting match will take place. We look forward to a fun day to finish the term. A reminder that this day is a 2:15 pm finish.

ICAS Assessment Tasks 2023.

The last round of ICAS Assessment tasks are taking place for those children enrolled by their parents.

Next week, those enrolled in the Mathematics Assessment tasks will complete these. This will take place on Thursday 31st August.

If a child is absent on the day of a task, I will try to arrange another time for them if practical, however each task has to be completed in the allocated week they occur. Eg: If a child is absent for the English task, a follow up can only happen in that same week for that task – it can’t be arranged for the following weeks.

If you require any further information, please feel free to contact me at school.

Book Week 2023:

Book Week Parade – Monday 21st August.

What a fantastic start to the week our Book Week parade and dress up day was. The school was a colourful array of prince and princesses, Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter characters, sports stars, Willy Wonkas, dragons, Where’s Wally’s………… the list goes on!!!! It certainly was a special way of starting an important celebration of the joy of reading. Throughout the week, there has also been a chance for staff members to share their favourite picture story books with classes as well as other activities linked to the short-listed books.

A huge thank you to our fantastic parent community for organising costumes for your children to wear on the day. The children looked fantastic and we really appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you also to Mrs Keenan for her beautiful displays in the library to celebrate Book Week. Every time I walk into the library I just want to relax, get comfortable and enjoy one of the many great books on the shelves.

Book Fair:

Our Book Fair will be taking place this year from Monday 16th October till Friday 20th October. More information regarding this will appear in upcoming newsletters.

Alpha Show:

On Friday 18th August, the Alpha Shows Theatre Group visited St Luke’s and presented Beauty and the Beast for our school. This was also a great lead-in to Book Week as well.

Alpha's Beauty and the Beast combines all that is loved about any version of the classic fairy tale you could imagine. The show helps the audience believe in themselves through a process of letting go of negative emotions by feeling them fully, so they can feel happy easily, treat others with love and have fun.

We were lucky enough to have Mrs Findlay and the teachers and students from St Joseph’s Nagambie join us for this performance. It was a great morning and the children certainly enjoyed watching and participating in the performance.

Grade 5/6 Story Writing competition:

The Greater Shepparton Book Bag Story Writing Competition is happening again this year. This writing competition is open to students in Grade’s Five and Six to enter. Students wishing to enter are asked to write and illustrate an original picture story book. The winning story will be professionally printed and included book bags for the next twelve months. Entries for the competition are to be in by Monday 11th September by 5pm. All conditions for the competition are as below:

All entries need to be given to Mr Mac at school by the end of August. As a school, we select three entries to be entered into the competition.
The target age group (audience) for the story is 3-5 years old.
The word limit is 200 words and it can be either handwritten (using a dark coloured pen or pencil) or typed.
All stories need to be illustrated with original pictures (using pencil, crayon or paint,) not with downloads from programs like CLIPART or the internet.
No pop-up or lift-up style illustrations.
For printing purposes, the pages for the story need to be in multiples of four (eg: 4 pages, 8 pages, 12 pages) with a maximum of 16 pages. This number includes the front and back cover of the book.
The front cover needs to include a title, name/s of the author/s and illustrations. Students are encouraged to include illustrations on both the front and back cover of their book.
Students can partner up with a friend to co-author a book.
Entries need to be submitted in hard copy on unstapled single sided A4 sheets of paper.
The winning illustrated story will be professionally printed and included in the 3 1⁄2 year Best Start book bag for 12 months, from October 2023 to September 2024. A book voucher to the value of $200 will be awarded to the school of the winning student, along with a certificate for the student/s.

So, to all our budding authors in the Senior school, if you’d like to enter the competition, start thinking of an imaginative idea for a story you think a younger child would love to read and treasure. If you need any further information, please see Mr Mac.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy fortnight ahead.

Kind regards.

Tony.

Library News

BOOK CLUB REMINDER - LAST CHANCE TO ORDER FROM ISSUE #6 IS NEXT FRIDAY 1st SEPTEMBER. Books are available to purchase from as low as $3 Posters and colouring books from $1 For every Book club order that you place, Scholastic gives back 15% of the total order to our school to purchase new resources for our Library and classrooms. REMEMBER that all payments are to be made online via Loop. To make payments visit scholastic.com.au/LOOP or download the LOOP app. If assistance is required with this please let us know so we can help you.

Religious Education

St Brendan's Parish Bulletin - 27th August 2023