From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers

We wish to inform you of a school closure day that will be happening early in term 2, Monday 24th April. This is the first day of term 2 as well as the day before a public holiday, ANZAC day. We have informed Extend of this intention and you may put forward an expression of interest if you wish to have child minding for this 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.

Caritas Friday

Tomorrow we look forward to seeing our students' Futuristic Hair for Future Generations. At 9am we will hold a parade on the tennis courts so that the students can show off their Futuristic hair designs in their class groups. Parents are welcome to join us for this.

Thank you Rana Ghopur and farewell

We have been so fortunate to have had Rana Ghopur in our school office these past eight months. Rana finishes her time at St Michael's this week to move to Holy Family in Mount Waverley, where she will take on more repsonsibilities. We wish her every happiness in her new role and look forward to keeping in touch with how she is going!

Next week we welcome Ms Josie Ferraro to the St Michael's office. Josie has had extensive experience in school offices with our internal administration system, banking, First Aid with children and with accounts payable. She comes highly recommended to us and we welcome her to our team. 

St Michael's Open Day - School tours

It was most exciting this week to hold our first St Michael's Open Day for 2023. We had a consistent stream of tours for Prep 2024, which was fabulous to see. Our School Leaders, Jess, Olivia, Ava and Holly, did an extraordinary job in leading our visitors through the school! I am so proud of the way in which they welcomed our visitors, walked them through all the buildings, explained our programs and different events that happen at different year levels in their calm and respectful manner. Everyone left complimenting the Leaders on their tours. We look forward to the next four open days as well as the occasional tours that happen throughout the year.  

Next week is Catholic Education Week in Melbourne (12-19 March). In this week each year we celebrate Catholic Schools and our Catholic identity. The theme for Catholic Education week is "Forming Lives of Faith, Hope and Love in the Light of Christ". Our Year Six School Leaders and Social Justice Leaders, along with myself and Eloise Ellis, will be attending mass at St Patrick's Cathedral on Friday 17th March and the following festivities, as part of the celebrations for Catholic Education Week.

St Michael's Enhancement Session

SAVE THE DATE! We have an enhancement session coming up on Saturday 25th March, 9-11am, during which our plan is to undertake some painting in some small areas of the school. Dust off the old drop sheets and get your rollers and paintbrushes ready for this event! Please save the date and a notice will be placed on Operoo next week to ask for your involvement. 

Staff Professional Development / Training

This week the staff underwent CPR training as one part of the overall First Aid training that is required for school staff. Two weeks ago we completed our first Anaphylaxis briefing for the year; another session will be held in Semester 2. All staff are required to complete online learning modules prior to the practical application for which they are assessed on their performance. Thank you to Melanie Clarke (Harlow 5/6) for leading the staff in this professional learning. A special thank you to Harlow and Billy for their assistance as patients for our practice!!

Student Diaries

This week students in Years Three to Six received individual student diaries. These have been personalised for St Michael's School and are to support our students in the organisation of their overall learning. The main purpose of these diaries is to practise recording important dates and information, an essential skill for organisation in school life, personal life and beyond. We ask that students' nightly reading is recorded in the diary and for this to be signed by parents. Students may also wish to record what home tasks they wish to complete on certain nights of the week around their sporting events, chores and personal engagements. Classroom teachers may work with students to enter important school dates into the diaries as well. Many say that we now no longer require physical diaries, however if we consider our daily work lives and organisation, we will notice that many people still physically record their daily / weekly schedules on paper in addition to using an online calendar.

Year Prep to Two students also recently received a Reading Log book as a precursor to a school diary. We hope you are getting into the swing of using these as aids to your organisation.

St Michael's Easter raffle

If you've been through our school office at all today you will notice that the Easter Bunny has made an early and special delivery of some chocolate treasures for us to see in readiness for our annual Easter Raffle. 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.

Division Swimming 

It was a great honour to visit the Monash Aquatic Centre this week to watch our students in action at the Division Swimming Carnival. Thank you to the girls who competed, who gave it their all and did their absolute best for St Michael's School. We are all so proud of you! Thanks to...

• Anna R who competed in the 50m Freestyle
• Olivia S, Lara D, Zoe L and Kristin H who competed in the 50m Medley Relay.

Visit to Salesian College

This week Eloise Ellis and I had the privilege of being invited to visit Salesian Boys College in Chadstone, a 15 minute drive from St Michael's, to meet some of their team and see their excellent facilities. The College Principal, Mr Mark Ashmore, proudly walked us through the extensive Bosco Campus with far-reaching grounds. We had the opportunity to see many of the classes in operation with the variety of subject areas that are offered. It was a great delight to have the opportunity to see a local secondary school to which St Michael's feeds. We were able to discuss the many options for connection with the community at Salesian College and our students.

Year Prep/One/Two Incursion with Captain Eric 

On Friday the third of March, Captain Eric came to visit the 1/2 and Prep Students. He used magic tricks, puppets and stories to teach us about how our bodies and brains work. 

We learnt that it's not our fault when our bodies do strange things like shivering, or when we have emotions. He taught us that when we are babies, our emotions hold us, but when we grow up, we can learn to hold our emotions. This means that we can control what we do when we have emotions instead of letting them control us. We can use strategies like finger breathing, we can splash water on our face and we can tell someone we trust how we feel.

Our favourite part was when Captain Eric poured all of the water from a jug into a cup, and then it magically refilled and he could fill the cup three more times! He said it was just like how when we are kind to other people, we don't lose that kindness, we can be kind again and again

Assemblies

Assembly dates for 2023:

Assembly Awards

Congratulations to Thenuk, Emily, Dina, Mia L, Kartia, Sophie, Clare W, Eva D, Dom J, Mickey, Amy, Inaya, Ashton, Sarah W, MaxP,  Leonardo, Roberta, Sam, Edwards, Emilio, Rafferty, Laila, Eleni, James, Zac and Connor on your assembly awards last week. It's so wonderful to read about the amazing things that you do to show our SMASH expectations. You help to make St Michael's the best it can be!

Open Days