From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers

It was beautiful to share some time with our students and parents who were able to attend at yesterday's Holy Week liturgy. We were able to spend some time reflecting on the special events that take place during Holy Week and pray and sing together as one. Thank you to the staff who have worked so positively with our students in helping them understand this critical time in our liturgical year. We take this opportunity to wish all our families a happy, holy Easter.

Lord, 

as we prepare to enter the mystery of these three most holy days, 

we ask you to illumine our minds and hearts 

with the hope and promise of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. 

Give us eyes to see Him in the breaking of the bread 

and hearts that reach out to Him in service to one another. 

We ask you to be with us and guide us in this special time.

St Michael's Parish 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.

Term 1 at St Michael’s - A great term of learning & celebration! 

Thank you to all members of our community for the successful completion of a wonderful 11 weeks at St Michael’s School. In the ‘busyness’ of life in a school it is positive to take time to reflect on the multitude of activities and learning experiences that we engaged in.   We’re well and truly back from COVID days and enjoying a term full of learning with children immersed in engaging learning and fun activities.    

Listed below are some of the highlights of Term 1:

• Welcoming our wonderful 2023 Prep children, along with new students in other year levels and all new families to our community.  
• Welcoming new staff to St Michael's community
• Year 6 students receive rugby tops
• Weekly Running Club
• Starting the year off with SMASH weeks
• Year 6 Leadership groups established and projects underway
• Parish - School Enhancement Session
• School assemblies
• New Science specialist lessons
• Parent Helpers in Classrooms training
• PFA meetings organising community events
• Inform & Empower Cybersafety Presentations for staff, parents and students
• Year 3-6 Swimming program
• Senior Interschool Sports days
• Pancake Tuesday breakfast
• Ashburton festival - cake stall and snow cones
• Catholic Education Week - Leaders attending the celebrations
• Blessing of prayer cloths by Deacon Malcolm
• Harmony Day Incursion
• Caritas Friday celebrations and fundraising
• Celebration of Reconciliation 
• School Open Days
• Year 5/6 Camp preparations 
• And lots of fun learning to boot!

Performing Arts program

As has been notified earlier this term, Mrs Josie Sproule-Carroll finishes this week as she is almost due to have her second child. St Michael's has advertised for a replacement for this position, and also sought out contacts we know in our system throughout the term, however we have not been able to secure a suitable person for our unique program at this time.

The St Michael's biennial performance is a much anticipated event in the calendar and one in which many of our senior students await the opportunity to be involved. It's a key feature of the St Michael's Performing Arts curriculum; one which permeates other areas of student learning and development. The Performing Arts have the ability to engage and motivate students in unique ways, some students finding their voice and creativity for the first time within these experiences. With this in mind, the right approach and personnel are required in this curriculum area.

As a result, after consultation with experienced people in this field as well as discussions with our staff, we strongly believe the right choice for St Michael's in 2023 is to engage an external provider to assist us in reaching our goals. We are looking to engage a company who deals exclusively with working alongside school staff to produce performances in their own settings. With trained educators they help to develop skills in delivering Performing Arts outcomes.

The development of Drama skills has been the focus in Performing Arts lessons during term 1. Students will revisit and hone these skills further, and also engage in the Music and Performance areas of the Arts when we engage in this process. It is our intention that Term 3 will be the focus term for this program to occur, with a view to our performance going to stage late term 3 / early term 4. Details will be made available to parents as soon as these are finalised.

In these past two weeks while planning Inquiry units for Term 2, the staff have been exploring ways in which we can incorporate the Media Arts into the learning. Our Inquiry focus for Term 2 is History and we are investigating ways we can retell stories from our history with the use of modern technology. In Media Arts, students create visual representations that communicate, challenge and express their own and others’ ideas, as both artist and audience. We will investigate various techniques, processes and technologies in order that we can portray our understandings of past events. We will be able to make excellent use of our very own Black Box Theatre and the capabilities of the green screen within it and the digital technologies used for this purpose.

Teachers will also be incorporating Music as part of the Arts, into their inquiry units in term 2, with a focus on Responding to and Interpreting the music of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I urge any parent wishing to ask questions or clarify any of this information to make contact with me and I am happy to discuss it further. As mentioned, more information will become available to you early in the new term. Thank you for your trust in us as we continue to make the best decisions for your child's education.

Staff Retreat & Professional Learning - Closure Days Term 2 

Tuesday 13th June & Wednesday 14th June (after King's Birthday Long Weekend)

As you would no doubt be aware, Catholic Schools are given four days of the school year during which they undertaken Professional Learning for the staff. These days are vital in that we are continually able to keep abreast of the latest research and developments in Education, in order that we can offer our students the best possible learning. 

Next term, St Michael's Staff will undertake two days of Spiritual Development and Professional Learning in the area of Religious Education. These days will be held on Tuesday 13th June & Wednesday 14th June.  We will be taking time to unpack some of the Gospels, delving deeper into how we can work with our students in making connections with these Gospels and our daily living. We will also take some time for our own spirituality, aligning our beliefs with the Eucharist, again making connections with this Sacred Sacrament and our daily lives. 

We hope that selecting the two days following the King's birthday this year, enables families to enjoy some time together over the long weekend and possibly have the chance to lengthen your long weekend if possible.

We have informed Extend of these dates and will inform parents about the availability for child minding onsite.

We thank you in anticipation of your support for the staff development programs along with your continued support for the St Michael's school community. 

Staffing

As Louise Story now works three days per week in the school office, we have employed a new Learning Support Officer to commence work at St Michael's School in Term 2. Mrs Sue Carmichael has had extensive experience in preschool education and has worked with a wide range of student needs. Sue has worked alongside educators to plan and implement programs to meet individual needs of students. She comes to us with a great deal of knowledge and experience and we look forward to Sue joining our team. Sue will work across classes on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and we look forward to welcoming her.

School Fees

Thank you to all families who have paid school fees to date and those who continue with their scheduled payment plans. Reminder notices have been sent out this week. If you have any queries regarding your account or wish to start a payment plan, please contact Kathy Muhllechner in the school office at kathym@smashburton.catholic.edu.au 

Crossing High Street Safely

This week our High Street crossing staff member let us know that a number of families/children have been crossing High Street and not waiting for the whistle. As a number of cars on this day had continued through a red light we would like to remind our families of how dangerous this can be. We ask families to please remind children about crossing safety and to also set this example when we as adults cross with children. The reason for the whistle is to indicate that it's fully safe to cross the road.

Enhancing Catholic SchooI Identity (ECSI) surveys

Every four years our staff, parents and students are asked to complete surveys around how our Catholic identity is viewed in the community. As part of our School Improvement Review process, these surveys assist us in accomplishing the goal of understanding our current Catholic identity and where the school community might like to see itself in the future. Your thoughts in this area are essential in helping us understand what we are currently doing to promote our Catholic Identity at St Michael's and will support and guide us in our future actions. Can I please ask parents to consider completing the survey when you have the opportunity before Friday 28th April (after the school holidays). Thank you

Anyone who is available, we have a coffee cart coming next Thursday 6th April, from 2pm, before the Easter Egg raffle, and will have computers available in the library if you'd like to take this time to complete the survey. Your time would be greatly appreciated. 

Survey Access Code: v53S54 (case sensitive)

Soccer Clinics for students with LIVERPOOL FC

Term 2 - Salesian College is offering after school soccer clinics for ALL students, aged 6-16 years. Check it out in our community section

Change of Year 6 Assembly

Please note that we have needed to make a change of dates for our Year 6 Assembly that is happening in December. It was scheduled and advertised for Friday 8th December, but will now take place on Thursday 7th December. Please make this change in your home calendars.

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

Nude Food at St Michael's

For the last week of term, our Year 6 Sustainability Leaders have continued to encourage the students at St Michael's to remember Nude Food Days. They have used their mathematical thinking to calculate percentages of the school population that remembered to bring nude food for the week. They also presented their dats as bar graphs. We are excited to see this continue into term 2. 

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.

Open Days