Dear Families

This week we celebrate the feast day of St Anne. St Anne and her husband Joachim were Mary’s parents and the grandparents to Jesus. We know about Anne from the canonical gospel of James. Anne dedicated Mary, her daughter to God who was raised and educated in the Temple. Anne is the most significant grandmother in history.

The painting by Bartolome Esteban Murillo shows St Anne teaching Mary to read. I am sure she would have been a dedicated grandmother to Jesus, caring for him and passing on her stories, just as grandmothers do today.

Our school motto of ‘Love, Wisdom and Growth’ sums up the importance of grandparents in our lives and the impact they make ensuring their grandchildren are loved and cared for.

Love - the love a grandparent has for their children and grandchildren

Wisdom - wisdom of grandparents to impart knowledge to their grandchildren

Growth - the nurturing role of grandparents towards their children and grandchildren.

Pope Francis dedicated last Sunday as World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly. He hoped that by announcing this special day that we would all show gratitude and respect for the elderly and make them a living part of our community. We will have a special morning for our grandparents in Term Four when the weather is warmer.

Our children celebrated our feast day with mass on Wednesday and tomorrow we have Footsteps Dance Company running dance sessions with our children followed by a sausage sizzle for lunch. I am sure our children will enjoy our Feast Day activities.

Congratulations to our football team who played extremely well but were unlucky not to win the divisional championships last week. Although we won 3 games, we lost to West Meadows Primary school. I would like to thank our team for their sportsmanship and the way they supported one another throughout every game. Thanks to Greg Lane for coaching the team and to our parents who came along and were a great support.

We wish our soccer team all the best as they represent St Anne’s in the divisional championships on Thursday.

Parish News - BAPTISM, the new beginning. Deciding about your child’s Baptism

The first step of your child’s Sacramental Journey is Baptism, followed by Reconciliation (Year 3), First Eucharist (Year 4) and Confirmation (Year 6).

Therefore, if you and your child choose to be part of that journey, your child will need to have been baptised into the Catholic Church.

The Parish Office will need to be contacted asap, to arrange the celebration of your child’s Baptism

Please call (leave a message, if necessary) the Office on 9744 1060 to receive a follow-up call.

Curriculum resource materials to better support our teachers and learning

I am pleased to advise that Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) will shortly commence working with schools to develop high-quality, comprehensive curriculum resource materials to better support our teachers to deliver the F–6 Victorian Curriculum.

This follows overwhelming endorsement of this approach by teachers across the Catholic sector in a survey conducted last year. Research also shows that high-quality curriculum resources will create more sustainable workloads for our teachers and allow them to focus more on teaching and student engagement, where their time and energy counts the most.

In addition, this approach will promote equity and excellence across MACS schools, ensuring all students have access to evidence-based, quality-assured, sequenced learning materials that will help lift their outcomes over time.

We anticipate the rollout of the F–6 resource materials will be a three-year project. The initial phase will focus on F–2 Mathematics. These materials will be made available to us in Term 4 this year for review and planning purposes, with implementation in Term 1, 2024.

Importantly, our teachers will retain autonomy to tailor curriculum implementation to meet the individual and local needs of our students. Teachers will also have opportunities to participate in the development and quality assurance of the materials.

This is an exciting development for our school community and clearly demonstrates the commitment all Catholic schools share to supporting every student to fully flourish in their learning. We will keep you informed as this important work continues.

Positive Behaviour For Learning

Our focus for Term 3 continues to encourage our children to be safe. Our goal is for all our children to use their feet, hands and objects safely. We also want our children to be aware of others when playing and to be aware of how they can ensure others are safe around them.

It is important that our children have a strong awareness about being safe, especially when they are exposed to a risky situation.

To support us you can talk to your children about being safe and taking positive risks. The following advice comes from Child’s Play;

As your child develops risk perception, it is important that we talk to them about the benefits and consequences of the risk they are taking. We recommend talking about risks separate from when they are playing or partaking in risks so that your child understands your concerns. When they are partaking in risks, ask them supporting questions such as “What are you doing with the bat?” and provide them with praise when they handle a risk well; “Good hitting the ball with the bat.”

If we work together then our children will be well supported to meet our expectations at home and school.

God Bless

Ms Noelene Hussey

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