Week 1

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to all the members of the school community. In chatting to the students over the past couple of days I know many of you managed to get away or have some relaxing family time. The first term was an unusually long one, so I know many of the students were ready for some downtime to recharge and refresh. The flip side of a long first term is a short second term, after today we only have 8 weeks in which to cover everything we want the children to learn.

The Junior school students will be immersed in learning with a focus on a unit of work called ‘A Bug’s Life' which will include plenty of learning about the natural environment around them. The year 3/4s' unit ‘Flushed Away’ looks at the human impacts on the environment, with a special focus on our local waterways. The 5/6s' unit is ‘Act Local, Think Global’ and focuses on our ability to impact the physical environment in our local area and the impact of global environmental events. Families will be receiving overviews of the term's learning on Monday next week so parents can engage in conversations about what is going on at school. We know that making links to the student's learning at home helps reinforce the learning and make it seem more relevant to their everyday life.

We continue the process of promoting the school as a great learning community by holding a series of ‘Come and Try Prep’ sessions aimed at prospective Prep students for 2024. The first of these is Tuesday 2nd May at 9.00 am for an hour. We will have two more sessions on Wednesday 10th and Tuesday 16th May again both from 9.00-10.00 am. In these sessions, the prospective students will be doing an activity with Mrs Cumming and our current Preps. Any of our current families who have a child starting school next year are encouraged to sign-up for a session and of course, make sure they have completed the enrollment form for next year as well. RSVPs can be made via the school office by phoning 9439 7824 or emailing us using the address school@olhceltham.catholic.edu.au.

Our school leaders James, Mabel and Joe attended the ANZAC dawn service on Tuesday morning and laid a wreath on behalf of the school community during the service. They were great ambassadors for the school and I know they would highly recommend anybody who hasn’t attended a service before going along next year.

As mentioned at the end of last term, the school-based uniform shop and CDFpay application are now closed. The RH Uniform online order portal is now open and can be accessed via

https://www.rhuniforms.com.au/product/school_wear/our_lady_help_of_christians

Please make sure that you take some time to check that all the pieces of uniform are clearly labelled with your child’s name. You would be amazed at how many items turn up in Lost Property.

There will be no Monday morning assembly next week as we are kicking off the week and term with a whole school SWELL day. The students will be involved in a range of activities in multi-age groups across the day with the intent of building links and relationships between students of all levels with each other and with teachers they may not normally engage with.

On Monday the 8th May we will have the Eucharist Parent Faith Formation Night at the SFX church at 7 pm. All families of the Year 5 students making their First Communion this year are expected to attend to formally begin the journey towards receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist. Any families with questions about the process are encouraged to contact the parish office.

As always, please take a moment to read about all the other exciting things happening at OLHC in the different areas of this newsletter.

Regards,

Mark

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Please refer to our School google calendar for events throughout the year.

Links

OSHClub contact - 0432 212 815 ourladyhelpofchristians@oshclub.com.au

Thank You from Big Group Hug