Deputy Principal Update

Dear Families,

Welcome to the beginning of Term Four. It is incredible how quickly the year has flown. I hope the holiday break was a great chance for families to spend time together, either going away or simply relaxing at home and having less structured routines. It is great to see all the children back at school and settling in so quickly to classroom and school routines. For those families who have recently experienced loss or have members currently unwell, you are very much in the thoughts and prayers of our community. 

It is going to be a very busy term with lots of events happening already.

St Luke’s Feast Day – Andrew Chinn visit.

Next Tuesday, 18th October, is the Feast Day of St Luke – the Patron Saint of our school. As a part of celebrating this, we will begin our day at with a Whole School Mass in the Stadium at 9:00am. In the early days of St Luke’s, Andrew Chinn worked with the school to write and produce our beautiful school song, 'Our Hearts Burn Within Us'. Andrew will be visiting our school on Monday 17th October to spend time with each unit and help us celebrate this important occasion. He will finish the school day with a concert for all the children. 

Our Feast Day is an important occasion for our school to acknowledge what makes our community such a special place to belong to, and to reflect on the example of St Luke as a model of faith and devotion.

Book Fair.

Our Scholastic Book Fair is finally here! This is a great chance to purchase some new books that will become treasured stories as well as helping to earn free books for our school library.

The Book Fair will start on Monday 17th October at 8:15am in the new library.

Opening times for the fair will be as follows:

*8:15am-9:15am - Monday to Friday.

 *3:00pm-4:00pm – Monday to Friday.

Cash and EPTPOS facilities will be available for payment.

Alternatively, if you can't make it during these times, students can bring money to school and purchase books during their class library time. 

So come along to find the best new books and help to earn free books for our library!

Swimming Program.

Our school swimming program will begin on Monday 24th October and run for two weeks. (The second week will be for three days as Monday is a Pupil-Free Day and Tuesday a Public Holiday.) 

Each day, classes (two at a time) will travel to and from Aquamoves by bus to participate in a forty-five minute lesson. Classroom teachers and support staff will attend with the children to supervise whilst waiting for lessons and support changing times afterwards. 

Listed below are some important organisational details for the program:

• Children are encouraged to wear their swimming clothes to school under their uniform, especially if they are in the first groups for lessons. If need be, they can change at school before going to the pool. 
• Children need to bring a separate water-proof bag with their towel, change of underwear and thongs/sandals as well. 
• After their lesson, children will change back into their school uniform at Aquamoves. 
• All clothing, underwear and towels, etc need to be named so that mis-placed items can be returned to their owners. If children require goggles for the lesson, they are allowed to bring their own. Again, could these please be labelled with the child’s name.
• Whilst at Aquamoves, children will not have access to the canteen.
• Some classes may send out a request for parent helpers for the program. In order to be a helper, parents need to have completed the Parent Helper Induction Course and have a valid Working with Childrens Check.

A permission form will be sent out via PAM in the coming days. Could you please complete it by next Thursday 20th October as children cannot attend without this being completed. Thank you. 

We look forward to a great two weeks of swimming – getting ourselves ready for the Summer break as well as teaching our children the skills to ensure we are always safe when in and around water.

Permission Slips:

Throughout the year various permission slips are sent home for parents to fill out and return to school. This has always been in the form of a paper copy. There is now a change to this. Permission slips will now be sent via PAM – as a digital copy. It will come up as an alert. Parents can now fill them out and submit them using this. All excursion details, such as items children need to bring with them, are listed on here. Many thanks.

Term Four – Hats to Be Worn.

As a part of our Sunsmart policy, children need to wear their school hat outside during breaks in Term Four. It is important that your child’s hat is clearly named so that it can be returned to

 them if found outside. Classrooms will also have sunscreen provided so children can apply this before going outside. If parents wish to provide your own sunscreen for your child/ren you are more than welcome to. 

Zooper Doopers:  

We have begun selling zooper doopers at school. They are available for sale on both Tuesday and Friday – 50c for one or $1.00 for two. 

Foundation Calendar:

The Foundation Calendar has been a great success over the past two years. It has added 

many smiles to people’s faces, as well as promoted local businesses featuring our fabulous Foundation students in character as a local business. (see attached photos for examples).  

If you own, or know of a business who might be interested in sponsoring a month of the calendar for a fee of $200, please contact myself or the office for more details as soon as possible!! The name and contact details of each business promoted would be included on the photo. 

What a great way to advertise and promote your business. The fee would assist in the printing of the calendar and any other funds raised would go towards purchasing resources for our school.

We hope to start organising this at the beginning of Term 4.

Lost Property:

Our lost property is continuing to dwindle which is great. There are still a number of items including school clothing and assorted food containers. If you are missing any of these items, it might be worth asking your children to check for them here. It has been relocated in the passage way outside the office so that the children can check for missing belongings. 

I think that’s it for the moment. I hope everyone has a great fortnight ahead.

Kind regards.

Tony Mc.