From the Acting Principal

Term 3 Week 5

Dear Parents & Carers, 

We hosted a Kids View Conference on Tuesday. Our senior school students were joined by student leaders from St Dominics, St Mary of Hearts and St Joseph’s . This was part of an annual series of social justice conferences and incursions designed to provide opportunities for Australians to make lasting change towards a socially just world. It was a great opportunity for our students to share their thoughts and hear ideas with students from outside the Eltham area. I was especially pleased when I went outside at recess and lunch to see sports bringing the students together with students from a variety of schools playing together with footballs, basketballs and soccer balls.

The parents of our Year 6 Confirmation candidates heard from Father Michael at the Confirmation Parent Faith Formation and Information Evening. As always he gave us a thought provoking explanation of the history of the sacrament of Confirmation and some information about the modern day approach and local context. Thanks to Anne Askew and Clare Bisby for coming along to support the families. As mentioned previously Confirmation will be at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday October 15th.

We look forward to welcoming Caitlin Richardson into the Our Lady Help of Christians School Community. She is completing her final professional placement while working towards her Masters of Teaching (Primary) at Australian Catholic University. She has been in for a couple of visit days and will be back with the Preps and Barbara Cumming from the 21st of August until the 16th of September. We are thrilled to have her with us and know that she is in for some exciting times with events like Book Week, Italian day and Footy Day coming up. 

In our continued focus on wellbeing and resilience we had a wonderful performance last week from the NED organisation. N for Never give up, E for Encourage others and D for Do your best. The children responded really well to the performance and some have taken up the yo-yo. The organisation does not charge to come to the school but asks that we offer the yo-yos for sale afterwards and whatever is made from the sales goes towards keeping the program running. There is no compulsion to buy yo-yos. Monday 14/08 will be the last day of sales and as always a huge thanks to Liz who has become quite the expert on yo-yos but will probably be happy to not see them again for quite awhile.

Next week we have National Science Week which fits in well with our Term 3 units of work. The Prep unit ‘It’s a Material World’ is focusing on the properties of matter, while the Year 1/2 students’ unit, ‘Look Listen and Shine,’ is about sources of light and sound. The 3/4 students unit,  ‘Move It’ focuses on how forces make things move and the 5/6 students are exploring 'Why Is It So?’, looking at Biological, Chemical, Physical and Earth/Space Sciences. I know the class teachers are gearing up for extra science sessions which are always a highlight of the learning.

We also have the arrival of our Annual Book Bazaar in the Library as we gear up for Book Week the following week. I know the teachers have been looking at this year's book of the Year contenders with their classes, I have seen the year 5’s working on their Book Week posters and there has been plenty of talk in the yard about Book Week Parade costumes. If you haven’t started working on them yet parents, it’s like the students' homework, don’t leave it till the last minute.

To finish off next week We will be having a performance of Zanna and The Lost Code, for the whole school on Friday 18th of August which is the National Day of Action Against Bullying. The aim of the performance is to engage students in conversations about values, respect and responsibility, and inspire them to build safer and more positive online experiences. Hopefully for some of the parents it can be an opportunity to spark or continue the all important home conversations around the online issues facing our children today.

In sporting news, we were away at Eltham North Primary School to compete in the weekly Inter School Sports of basketball, volleyball, finska and rounders. 

Regards

Mark Pinkerton

Acting Principal

Canteen window for recess sales has started and was very popular today.  

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. 

PFOL Pie Drive orders close August 15 (See Page 12) 

Italian Day orders - Lunch Pizza

Disco

Trivia Night

Friday Recess Orders

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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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