From the Principal

Please note that weekly Parish mass times will now be located each week on our School Hours / Timetable page in our newsletter. 

Prayer 

God of the Dreaming, 

you show yourself to us in dreamers, seers, and prophets.

We thank you for all those who, like Mary MacKillop, have helped us to see the possibilities for our country and its people.

As we struggle to realise our dreams for a just, compassionate world, may we witness to our world the true meaning of fair play and care for the oppressed.

Help us to uphold the importance of spiritual realities.

We pray that we will cherish particularly, the gifts of the indigenous peoples of our lands, and those new to our shores.

Teach us that, in the richness and strength of our diversity, lie our possibilities for becoming one. 

Amen

100 days of Prep Celebration

It was a hugely exciting day for our Prep students last Friday as we acknowledged and celebrated 100 days of our Preps being at school. The students came dressed in their 100 year old clothes, they made headbands and necklaces showing the number 100 and practised counting things in our environment up to 100. Such a great way for our children to engage and grow in their number sense and celebrate a wonderful achievement. Thank you to Ally Panas and Erica Cremer for their amazing work with our Prep children this year and for making it a year to remember.

Year Five/Six Incursion - Maps & Mayhem

As part of their Inquiry Learning, our Year Five/Six level had an incursion this week which  focused on reading maps and working through clues as a team to solve a problem. The squeals of the students as they traversed the school yard gave fair indication as to their engagement. Thank you Kartia and Tyesha for their account of the experience!

St Michael's Multicultural Colours Day

Yesterday we celebrated Cultural Colours Day, where students were invited to come to school in colours that reflect their cultures. As we have been following the Olympics and seeing the representation of many nations around our world, we found this a perfect opportunity for our students to identify their diversity and celebrate this. Whilst for many of us it was our grandparents and great grandparents who migrated to Australia, some of our current families migrated to Australia and have newly made it their home. It is vital for our children to recognise and appreciate our diverse nationalities as well as the wonderful things that make each individual unique. Thank you to all for your efforts. Keep enjoying the Olympics!!

St Michael's Front Door

We inform parents that from now on we will keep the front door to the office locked throughout the day, as was the intention of it's design. The reason for this is to increase the security measures for our staff and students, especially given we face busy High Street. We understand the frustration of having to wait for the door to be opened, and we endeavour to open it as soon as possible, but we feel this is the right choice for all of our safety. Thank you for your understanding.

School Enhancement session

Thank you to the parents who were able to attend last Saturday's school enhancement session. Our goal for this session was a clean up of the grounds and all were fully committed to the task. We managed the levelling of soft fall around the biggie, weeding and clearing the garden areas and tidying of the sandpit, with a clean up of the quadrangle. Our next enhancement session will take place on Friday 15th November, 5.00-7.00pm. Please take note of the change of day and time.

St Michael's Disco

Oh what a night!! The annual St Michael's Disco was welcomed with great anticipation and excitement after our favourite songs were submitted to the song list. Our students took the opportunity to don their disco digs and dancing shoes and came to dance the night away.  Bop Til You Drop, the DJ, was on fire with all our songs ready to go. Some students even braved the audience and unleashed their best karaoke! A huge thank you to Jasmine Perera and Chaitanya Nuvvala who made all the arrangements for the night and also to the many parents who assisted with set up, pack up and clean up. 

St Michael's School Advisory Council

The School Advisory Council continues to seek one or two more members to join us in 2025. If this is something you are interested in and would like to ask more about it, please check in with any of the SAC members this year (listed in previous newsletters) or with myself. Please consider joining this vital committee!

Online Safety forums for students

Once again we are holding online safety forums for our students, arranged through Inform & Empower, during which children are reminded and updated about ways to stay safe online and what actions they can take if something happens that makes them feel unsafe. It's the perfect time to have conversations with your child now about your processes at home too. Classroom sessions are listed here below.

Father's Day Breakfast

Once again we are holding a breakfast for our Dads and Special Friends to celebrate Father's Day with the children. This will be held on Friday 30th August from 7.30am. Please keep this free and more details will come soon!

Boroondara Community Plan~Have your say

The 10-year Boroondara Community Plan 2021–2031 includes the Community Vision, 4-year Council Plan and 4-year Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan. The Plan sets the strategic direction for the City of Boroondara and shows how the council will deliver the community’s aspirations. It also shows how the will protect, improve and promote the community’s health and wellbeing.

If you would like to give input into the plan, please share what you think Council should focus on over the next 10 years and what is most important to you, your family, your community and local area. What you say will help shape our Boroondara Community Plan for 2025-2035 and pave the way for our future priorities.

A short survey is now open until 5 pm Friday 16 August.

Parent Information from Advanced Psychology

Just so parents are aware, from time to time, Advanced Psychology offers online sessions for parents around a range of needs. Last term we were notified of a session about Neurodivergence; Understanding Autism & ADHD, which we advertised in our newsletter.  For interested parents, you can go to the Advanced Psychology website, to the Blogssection, for the recording of this session as well as other sessions they have offered.

Term 3 Events - reminder

Over the next few weeks St Michael's will be engaging in a range of special events and celebrations. For many of these events we invite our children to dress up as part of the celebrations and to aid in their memory and understanding of the events. We understand that for some families this can be an added, anxiety-provoking experience, so we ask that you please keep things simple, no-fuss. Dress ups that are designed with what you have at home is all we ask as a way of your child participating. Please note the following on your calendar:

• Wednesday 14th August - Bullying NO WAY, National Week of Action - Dress up as a Superhero - this can be as simple as a cape and / or a mask.
• Friday 23rd August - Book Week Dress Up Parade - This year's theme is Reading is Magicso anything relating to magic for this day is suitable. For ideas, google "book week 2024 dress up ideas" and remember, you can use things you already have at home to create a costume. Friday 23 August is also a Kinder Kids day - we invite any visitors to wear a "Magic" costume.

St Michael's Art Show

The Art Room has been a hive of busy artists over the past 2 terms and now the wait is finally over. I am thrilled to announce that Term 3 is here and that means the St Michael’s 2024 Art Show is nearly HERE!!!

Every student has worked extremely hard so far this year on preparing a variety of pieces for the Art Show. We can’t wait to share it all with you.

Each week we will be sharing with you one of the advertisements designed by some of our Year Five/Six students:

Brayden F