From the Acting Principal

Term 4 Week 10

Hi all Parents and Carers,

Christmas Carols 

An absolute highlight of this week was our fantastic Christmas Carols on Wednesday evening! It was wonderful to see so many families in attendance. Your support of community events like this are what takes an event from a good night to a truly memorable one. The awesome cake and market stalls turned it from a Christmas Carols to a Community Christmas festival.

Thanks to Barbara, Sue and the FIRE Carrier Leaders for all the organisation and preparation of the cake stall, which couldn’t have gone ahead without the support of all our family bakers out there. After all their efforts we raised $644 to support the Opening the Doors Foundation.

Thanks also to Anne, Anita and Emily for all their work with the students to create the marketplace, which emerged from the 5/6 Economics Inquiry unit this term, “Do you really need that?" Taking the learning into the real world by engaging the students in all aspects of the process, really enforces the concepts being taught. The sales from the market stalls raised $860 to share between the Bahay Tuluyan and Caritas charities.

For those that didn’t get a chance to buy from the market on the night the Year 5 and 6s’ will be having an end of stock sale on Tuesday 12th of December at the end of the day around dismissal time, so bring along some more gold coins and snap up a few extra Christmas Gifts.

The night was all about the children and they truly shone on stage. Sometimes during rehearsals teachers worry about how things will go on the night, but we need not as they were fantastic. We have had so much positive feedback and I thought I would share some of this email...

“I feel the night was a huge success, the sense of community spirit was palpable...”  

“It was clear the children had certainly been practising and rehearsing for many weeks. It was so lovely to see them all perform up on stage and clearly be very proud of their efforts. Can you please pass on congratulations to all the teachers and staff at OLHC for such a truly beautiful evening.”

Thanks to the PFOL team and all their helpers for the BBQ which raised $650 and an extra huge thanks to all the parents who hopped in and helped with the clean-up at the end, to get that level of support at the end of a long day was wonderful.

Staffing News

On Tuesday next week the students will be meeting their 2024 class groups. We have held off announcing teachers in the hope that we would have everything locked away but we still have one vacancy to fill. The classroom teachers for next year are:

Prep/1 - Mrs Maria Wise 

Year 2 - Mrs Clare Bisby and Mrs Emily Ashworth

Year 3/4 - Mrs Susie Camilleri and Mr Mark Pinkerton

Year 4/5 - TBA

Year 5/6 - Mrs Anne Askew

Pat Cronin - Be Wise Launch 

We are extremely proud to have been asked to host the launch of Pat Cronin Foundation Primary School Presentation – Violence is never OK. We have a long association with the Cronin family and know that the work the Foundation is doing with young people is vital to spreading the message that violence is never ok.

On Tuesday 12 December, our Year 5 and 6 students will be the first trial audience for some of the material that will be offered to schools in 2024 to be presented to senior primary students. The foundation will be filming some of the session and has invited members of the state and federal politics and the media to come along and watch their presenter working with our students. 

Semester Two reports will be available online via the nForma Parent Portal. Instructions on how to access the nForma Parent Portal will be sent out to the email addresses that have been previously supplied to the school. These emails will be sent out on Tuesday December 12th. click here for further information). 

Information about the first week back next year will be sent home via email next week.

Last day of term 4 and end of the 2023 school year

Just a reminder to all families that next Friday 15th of December is the last day for students for 2023. We will have a whole school mass at 9.30 in the Church which will be immediately followed by our end of year assembly in the church. We invite all parents to attend the mass and assembly, which is our opportunity to thank various members of the community for their assistance this year. We will farewell the Year 6s and leaving families as well as departing staff and announce the 2024 school leaders.  

The students will then have recess and one last session with their 2023 class group before coming together at 12.50 pm in the yard to farewell the year sixes and everyone else at 1.00 pm.

There are a number of class and year level celebrations going on over the next week so please keep your eyes on communications from the school.

While there are a lot of school celebrations going on, Christmas is all about connections with Jesus and the Church, so don’t forget to plan Christmas Mass into your busy schedules.   See below for Mass times.

As always, I leave you with the message that if you have any questions or concerns my door is always open 

Regards,

Mark Pinkerton

Acting Principal

Canteen window for (Friday) recess sales.  

Available for sale will be snack packets of Red Rock chips, Grain Wave whole grain chips, Pringles, Raspberry Twisters, Snakes, Smarties (Small 16g pkts), Yoghurt Frogs and Juicies. 

These items can be purchased through CDFPAY (and will be ready to pick up at recess) or can be bought directly from the window. 

If you are interested in helping our PFOL as a recess helper, please let us know. 

Friday Recess Orders

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ourladyhelpofchristianseltham/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OurLadyHelpElth  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourladyhelpofchristians/

Please refer to our School google calendar for events throughout the year.  

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