Head of Junior School 

We hope you all had an enjoyable Easter break. We hope this time presented families with an opportunity to spend some quality time together, attend an Easter service and indulge (but not overindulge) in some chocolate. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your very generous donations of Easter eggs for our Easter Raffle and donation to Bethlehem House. Our Junior School Community raised a very generous $1730.50 which will be donated directly to Caritas.

Miss Stacey King will be celebrating her forthcoming wedding this weekend. I am sure you will all join me in wishing her all the best. Miss King will be back at school on Tuesday 9 April, when she will be known as Mrs Pyecroft.

This will be the last edition of the newsletter before the school holidays. As I reflect on the term, I think about what has been achieved thus far. Most notably, we are welcoming our newest Kindergarten students to the College, who will all have the history-making opportunity to continue their education through to Year 12. We also had many new students throughout the rest of the Junior School from Prep to Year 6 who also joined us here at SVC and who have all settled in so well.

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences

Junior School Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday 29 April before Term 2 commences. I encourage you all to book a time to come and discuss your son’s progress thus far. Booking times are 10 minutes. Teachers will be available from 8.30am to 6.00pm. Bookings will be open on PAM (Parent Access Module) from 4.00pm on Wednesday 10 April. If you have forgotten or are unsure how to log in to PAM, please contact the Junior School Office.

Year 5 Camp

Next week, Miss Lack, Mr Beard, Mr Hine and Mrs Graves will be taking our Year 5 class on their annual class camp to Port Arthur. They have many adventures planned and we eagerly await to hear all about them on their return. Miss Daun and I will be heading down to camp for a night each. I would like to thank Miss Lack in advance for her preparation for the camp. I encourage you to take the time, on their return, to thank Miss Lack and all staff members for looking after your son over the three days.

Plate with a Mate

Next Tuesday, we will be hosting the second Plate with a Mate between SVC, SMC’s Murphy’s Cafe and Eat Well Tasmania.

The Plate with a Mate campaign encourages all Tasmanians to connect with mates and consider a healthier meal alternative, with the aim of ‘Bringing people together, one meal at a time.’

Students in Years 1-4 will sit together to eat a meal prepared by Phil Shanny from Murphy’s Café and Mr Carl Saunder from Eat Well Tasmania. Before lunch, Mr Carl Saunder and Mrs Peta Fletcher will discuss with the students in their classrooms the benefits of and why we are participating in Plate with a Mate. The menu for lunch will consist of garlic bread, pasta with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese, a tossed green salad, and platters of fruit.

The objectives of the day are:  

• To support the relationships and promote conversations between our students
• Promote the impact food has on wellbeing by fostering social connection
• Support Tasmanians to eat well
• Champion local food—hospitality and producer businesses
• Create resources that help people enjoy healthier, delicious local food

Sports

Thank you to Mrs McCullagh for her organisation of all sports teams this term. Thank you also to all parents/carers and staff members who volunteered in some capacity as a coach or manager for a team. We cannot enter teams without the support of volunteers.

We were fortunate to be granted a Sporting Schools Grant this term. With this grant money, we utilised the services of Hockey Tasmania, who worked with the students in Years 3-6 in their PE lessons to improve their hockey skills.

STCPSSA Swimming Carnival

Today our swimming team will be heading to the Doone Kennedy Aquatic Centre again, participating in the Southern Tasmania Catholic Primary School Swimming Carnival. We wish them luck in their races.

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday was a very busy day at the Junior School. We started the morning with a beautiful presentation of the Stations of the Cross, performed by Years 5 and 6 students. The students showed us the story of what happened when Jesus died and read some heartfelt prayers about how we can walk with Jesus through the Easter story.

In the middle of the day, we had our annual Caritas Cup. The students participated in a water relay, a tyre relay, newspaper soccer, and a target game. Most of these games are designed to help us reflect on the people we are helping through Caritas, who are less fortunate than us and do not have access to toys, games, and clean water. It was an exciting competition! Congratulations to the winning house:

1st - 80 points - Doyle

2nd - 74 points - Dwyer

3rd - 50 points - Joyce

4th - 48 points - Hessian

This afternoon, we had an exciting assembly. We poured our Project Compassion money boxes to see which house could fill our fundraising tubes the highest. For the competition to see which house had raised the most money in the tubes:

1st - Joyce

2nd - Dwyer

3rd - Hessian

4th - Doyle

We made a special presentation of an Easter hamper to Jeff and Hannah from Bethlehem House. Jeff told us that many of the men who live at Bethlehem House do not have family connections to buy them Easter presents, so our gifts will be gratefully received.

We had four winners of our 'Guess how many eggs in the jar', we spun a chocolate wheel on Miss Daun's iPad to determine who got the jar of eggs and the other three people got a consolation chocolate prize. Congratulations to Emily Cubit, Patrick Hughes, Hunter Rolls and Scott Bowman.

It was very exciting to draw our Easter raffle prizes. A big thank you to all the families who donated prizes for our raffle. We were able to award twenty prizes. Congratulations to our winners!

1st - Vance Hall

2nd - Lucas Wickham

3rd - Eden Britten

4th - Alexander Pritchard

5th - Miss Daun

6th - The Facer family

7th - Eddie Pigden

8th - Jack Kilgour

9th - Henry Joyes

10th - Judd Spotswood

11th - Ms Stary

12th - Samuel Young

13th - Patrick Moloney

14th - Charles Trengove

15th - Wes Robinson

16th - Liam Hazi

17th - Archie Pringle

18th - Mrs Moate

19th - Oliver Chapple

20th - Callum Spangler