From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers

We pray for our wonderful diverse community

Creator of all races and ethnicities,

Give us strength so that we can build places of love and belonging.

Help us build a community for all to share their gifts, to know that each person is loved.

Let us remember that each of us is loved, each of us is will and each of us in necessary. 

St Patrick's Day

Last week it was a great privilege to attend the St Patrick's Day Mass and celebrations with our School and Social Justice Leaders. To read more about our day, please go the the Deputy Principal page.

St Michael's Holy Week Liturgies

We invite all our families to attend the Holy Week Liturgies at St Michael's Church. Attendance at these will help to cement our children's understanding of these special events in our Catholic calendar, which is a focus in their Religious Education learning during Lent.

Class Teachers Term 2 Level Planning Days

We ask that parents please be aware that next week our teaching teams will be given time for a day of planning, released by our specialist staff. This day will be to meet and plan the structure of the Term 2 curriculum. In their teams, staff will meet with Eloise Ellis, our Deputy Principal / Learning and Teaching Leader to plan the structure of the curriculum presented to our children for the 9 weeks of Term 2. Time is also scheduled with Elise Rimington - Literacy Leader, Emma Quinless - Learning Diversity, Rachael LoRicco - Maths and Religious Education Leader and Sam Isaacson - Wellbeing Leader, for curriculum planning.

The forward planning of the staff team ensures that our class teachers enter Term 2 with consistency of curriculum delivery across all classes. This ensures that teachers have given full consideration to planning the curriculum based on the specific entry skills and needs of our children.  The teachers will exit their planning days with a structure of what each curriculum area will look like in Term 2. From there they will further develop their planning into a more specific outline in their daily curriculum planners. Further planning and organisation will also be done over the holiday period where teachers look at their student data and differentiate the curriculum accordingly.

Planning days next week will be as follows:

Tuesday 28th March - Years Prep / One and Two staff

Wednesday 29th March - Years Three / Four / Five and Six staff

Harmony Day

Tomorrow we look forward to growing in our understanding and celebrating the Spanish and Latin American Culture as part of our Harmony Day celebrations. Please read more about Harmony day in our Wellbeing Section of the newsletter.

St Michael's Enhancement Session

THIS SATURDAY, 25TH MARCH, 9-11AM

Please inform us on Operoo if you are able to attend. Please bring paint brushes, rollers, drop sheets and rags for cleaning.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Class Contact Lists

Yesterday we sent home class contact lists in hard copy form to all families who gave permission through the Google form sent via Operoo. These lists are issued to support families to connect with each other. We would encourage you to take the opportunity of these upcoming holidays to meet with other families at the local park or arrange playdates at home to facilitate friendships between your children and also amongst yourselves. These connections help children strengthen friendships which begin in the classroom or playground. Many times I have overheard parents say that the friendships they forged with families through their children's Primary School have been friends for life.

Year Five / Six Camp Information

Our Senior School camp will be taking place from Monday 8th May to Wednesday 10th May. This year students will be heading to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat for camp. In order that the staff can give detailed information about the camp and hopefully answer any questions you may have, parents are invited to an information session occurring next Tuesday 28th March from 6.30pm in the Hub. We envisage the session will go for approximately 45 minutes. See you there!

Building Resilience in our Young People

No doubt as parents you are aware of the need to build resilience in our children from a young age. Avila College is holding a very important information session about how we can do this in young adults. This session is being led by Maria Ruberto, a psychologist with over 30 years experience. I have had the privilege of hearing Maria Ruberto talk about brain development and the effects of various events and experiences on children's brains. I can attest that she is highly knowledgeable and very interesting to listen to. Please see our Community News in this newsletter to find out the details of this session.

2024 Prep Enrolments

HAVE YOU ENROLLED YOUR CHILD FOR PREP 2024? If you have a child ready for Prep 2024, we encourage you to please put in an enrolment form as soon as you are able. This will help us with organisation purposes. To access an enrolment form:

• Drop into the school office to collect one
• Email office@smashburton.catholic.edu.au and ask for a form to be sent home
• Visit the Enrolment section of our school website and download a form

Calendar Dates for 2023 School Year

We have now updated all the main dates for the school year on our School Website in the Community Section under "School Calendar". These dates will also be found in the newsletter. You can use these dates for any future planning for your year level and family planning. We will endeavour to keep these updated regularly and notify you of any additions or changes to dates through the school newsletter. 

School Closure - Monday 24th April

As notified last week, Monday 24th April will be a closure day for St Michael's School. This is the first day of term 2 as well as the day before a public holiday, ANZAC day. Our Professional Learning focus for this day will be around the Mathematics curriculum. We have been given a grant through Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools this year to spend on professional learning and resources in this curriculum area. More details about this will be shared in future newsletters.

Unfortunately Extend has notified me that they are unable to provide childcare on this date. We apologise for any inconvenience and will inform parents if there are any local services operating on this date.

St Michael's Easter raffle

The Easter Bunny's treats left in the office are a huge temptation for Mrs Herbison every day. I hope they're still there on 6th April!!

 We welcome all families to be present for our special assembly on Thursday 6th April (final day of term 1) at 2.45pm in the Hub where the PFA will lead us to draw the Easter Raffle. We have a special visitor hopping in to visit on that afternoon too. See here for more details.

Nude Food at St Michael's

Thank you to the Sustainability student leaders who were eager to get started on encouraging children to have Nude Food lunches. They proudly explained why we are doing this at Monday's assembly and then dutifully followed this up on Wednesday in the classrooms. We encourage families to consider nude lunch boxes on at least one day each week at this stage. It's all the small things that can help keep our world healthy.

Holiday fun

Are you looking for something fun to do over the holidays with the children? Check out what Salesian College has on offer for both girls and boys at their Bosco campus in our Community Section.

Assemblies

Assembly dates for 2023:

Open Days