Newsletter No. 4 | Term 1 Week 4 | Thursday 24th February 2022
Prayer
This Sunday at 5pm we will be celebrating our beginning of year Mass with our Parish community. Together we will join together to especially pray for our children, our teachers, our Parish and our school.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for where you have placed me at
this time. Where I live and work is no accident.
Unite all who live and work in our school community.
Neighbour will embrace neighbour,
The strong will stand for the weak.
The young will respect the old.
The capable will assist the unable.
May our school and homes be safe havens of friendship,
Kindness and compassion.
Amen!
Principal's Message
Dear Families and Friends,
On Wednesday, it was lovely to be able to host a morning tea for parents in the school, our first parent get together for the year. Thank you to everyone who was able to make it, we understand that 9am on a weekday morning does not suit everyone. If you were unable to make it, keep an eye on the Newsletter, there will hopefully be many more opportunities for you to gather with other parents and families throughout the year. It is starting to feel a bit closer to normality again!
At the morning tea, I mentioned to parents that they were not the only ones to benefit from their attendance at the morning tea. Research shows that when parents participate in the communities/organisations that their children belong to, it is not only beneficial to the parents, but also their children. It increases a child’s sense of belonging, connection to others, ability to build relationships, and their overall wellbeing. We are fortunate to have an inclusive, vibrant community at St. Brendan’s, and encourage everyone to become involved .
CLEARING SALE
The clearance sale was a great success! Thank you to Donna for organising and to everyone else for getting on board and helping out, just over $700 was raised in a fantastic effort by all.
THANK YOU THOMAS CARR
We would like to sincerely thank Vanessa and Thomas Carr College for the donation of lovely fresh fruit and vegetables this week. Unfortunately due to COVID restrictions Thomas Carr is unable to have students visit for the remainder of this term, as a result they were left with an abundance of fresh produce that they kindly shared with our students and families.
BEGINNING OF YEAR MASS - THIS SUNDAY
Please join us to celebrate our beginning of year Mass this Sunday at 5pm. The beginning of year Mass is an important event on our school calendar. It is a time when we come together with hope and excitement to pray for our school community in the year ahead.
Our Year Six students will be presented with their leadership badges and will also have the opportunity to make individual pledges to their leadership roles. Staff will also pledge their commitment to the school. We hope to see you there!
PRINCIPAL NETWORK
Last Friday I attended a Principal Southern Zone Meeting in Warrnambool. The Zone includes Principals from areas such as Colac, Camperdown, Terang, Koroit, Warrnambool, Mortlake. Portland, Casterton, Coleraine, Hamilton, Edenhope, Penshurst and Port Fairy. These meetings provide us with the opportunity to share ideas and experiences, learn from one another and increase our knowledge and leadership skills. We all have the common goal of wanting to lead our schools in a way that provides the best possible education for each child. It is an extremely supportive group and I always come away invigorated and armed with ways to improve my practice.
We discussed the article below which focuses on the differences between habits and goals. It is an interesting read and can pertain to all areas of our lives.
One benefit of a meeting in Warrnambool is walking at sunrise and seeing the horses doing their recovery sessions in the water. I thought I would share some pics for the horse lovers out there.
KANA IS BACK!
The 62nd Colac Kana Festival will be held on Saturday, 19th March. Kana has not been held in the last couple of years so this will be a wonderful opportunity for the community of Colac and surrounding areas to get together.
We are hoping to enter the school in the street parade. In order for this to go ahead, we will need strong support from the parents, carers and families.
If there is anybody out there who would like to help organise the event it would be appreciated. We will need access to a truck, a team to decorate the truck and strong participation from families on the day. Children, as well as some staff and parents, ride in the back of the truck.
The theme of the parade is “Heroes and Villains”. Children will have lots of fun dressing up to this theme!
Please see Leanne by next Wednesday if you are interested in helping to coordinate this event.
Warm Regards,
Leanne Eastman
PRINCIPAL
principal@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au
Student News
SRC Our first SRC Meeting will be held THIS Friday at 11.20. Morning Tea will be provided so there will be no need for children to bring play lunch on this day.
I am really looking forward to working with our students to develop their leadership skills and hear their ideas for our school.
YEAR SIX LEADERSHIP EXCURSION On Monday, 28th February, our Year Six students are heading to Melbourne to join other young leaders around the State, in attending the Melbourne Dream and Lead Conference 2022.
Children will be leaving at 6.30am (yes you read that correctly) and will be returning to school by 4.30pm. We are excited to provide this opportunity for our students and look forward to seeing what they learn from the experience. Tahlia and Leanne will be joining the students on the day.
TABLE TENNIS All of Ken’s hard work with putting the table tennis table together is paying off. It is a BIG hit! Children are out there daily, having lots of fun and building their skills. Feel free to come down and have a hit!
FRIENDS IN THE PLAYGROUND Jimmy found this little fella in the sports shed the other day. We quite often discover blue-tongue lizards around the school. They seem to like St. Brendan’s and the kids like them!
LUCA proudly showed us his GIANT zucchini at line up this morning.
"Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for the day. Teach him to garden, and the whole neighborhood gets a zucchini."
JOKE: What kind of vegetable likes to look at animals?
A. A Zoo-chini !
OUR BEES have been very busy making honey and the hive is ready to be robbed. Some of our children will suit up and head down to the hive with Gayle and Graham to rob the bees. They will then bring the frames back to school to extract the honey using the spinner.
For a lesson on a how to rob a beehive click on the link below. It is very interesting!
IN ART yesterday the students created mosaic designs. They look fabulous! Thank you to Miss Alice for sourcing all the tiles and providing another opportunity for students to learn different ways that we create beautiful Art out of recycled materials.
AUSLAN
After school on Tuesday, Staff participated in Deaf Awareness training. The session was presented by Darren who, along with his wife Briana, are both deaf and ar both Deaf and Auslan teachers.
From Darren: Our kids are hearing and bilingual, and their first language is Auslan. Auslan in the West provides the community the enrichment of Australian Sign Language in the Western Region of Victoria. It is a great benefit for everyone to learn a visual language in everyday life.
We are both very excited to teach you our beautiful language throughout our Deaf Awareness Training.
Darren provided us with an overview of what it means to be deaf and ahrd of hearing and how we can interact with one another. At the end of the session, we learnt how to sign the alphabet. We are looking forward to sharing this with the children.
COVID-19 Update
The Victorian Government announced on Tuesday, 22 February an easing of some COVID Safe rules as follows.
Effective from 11.59pm Friday, 25 February 2022, in education settings face masks will only be required indoors in limited circumstances.
This includes:
- students in year three and above at primary school.
- workers at early childhood centers and primary schools; and
- for anyone on public transport, in taxis or rideshare services.
Premier Andrews has said that masks are still required for primary school children in grades three to six because the vaccination rate is still too low.
Masks are no longer mandatory in secondary schools or workplace settings such as Catholic Education Ballarat offices.
The public health recommendation for Victorians to work or study from home will be removed.
Rapid Antigen Testing
Thank you to our families and students for participating in the RAT program. The government have extended the RAT testing time frame until the end of Term 1 and will be regularly supplying schools with more tests. If you need more tests, they can be collected from the office.
Catholic Culture
THIS SUNDAY 27th February we celebrate our beginning of year Mass in St Brendan's Church at 5pm. Many students have been given roles to complete throughout the Mass and have been working hard to prepare, we encourage all families to attend and ask that students please wear their full and correct school uniform.
NEXT TUESDAY we celebrate Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Tuesday). It falls on the Tuesday before the beginning of Lent – a period of around six weeks leading up to Easter. During Lent, Christians give up luxuries to remember when Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to fast and pray.
ASH WEDNESDAY MASS will also be held at St Brendan's Church this year on Wednesday 2nd March at 12pm. Mass will be led by Fr. Michael and members of our Parish. All parents, families and community members are welcome to come along.
Ash Wednesday is the first day in the season of Lent. Lent can be observed by all Christians, and it is a beautiful way to remember Jesus’ sacrifice for us and prepare us for the Easter season.
PROJECT COMPASSION As a Catholic school we use the time of Lent to raise funds for Project Compassion, a Catholic based charity ran by Caritas Australia. This charity works to promote justice and uphold dignity for people living in less fortunate countries. Over the coming weeks we will share information about Project Compassion with you. In the meantime, your child will be bringing home a donation box for you to start thinking about how you can support others less fortunate. Your child may like to forgo an icy-pole one day and instead donate their 50 cents to the family donation box.
Sustainability
This Term we are going to increase our recycling practice by recycling soft plastics. Soft plastics include:
- Plastic bags
- Cling wrap
- Bread bags
- Pasta packaging
- Frozen food packets
- Cereal box liners
- Biscuit packs (not including trays
- Lolly packets
Did you know….. Soft plastic can be recycled via physical recycling, which turns it into other items such as heavy-duty outdoor plastic furniture and roads; and chemical recycling, which turns it back into oil, that can be used for making new plastic resins for fuel and other purposes.
Click on the link below to read the article from Clean-Up Australia. It is a really interesting read. Only 22% of Australians know that we can recycle soft plastics. Let’s help to increase that number by being informed and taking action.
Prep/1 Classroom News
Week 4 has come around so quickly! Hope everyone has enjoyed the first few weeks. We’ve certainly had lots of things happening at school. There has been quite a buzz!
Literacy: This week, the Preps have been introduced to the letters s, a, t, i, m. They are doing an excellent job of learning the most common sound that each of these represents and using their knowledge to sound-out words eg. mat, sit, sat.
The Grade 1’s have discovered that sometimes two letters can represent one sound eg. sh, ch and th. They have had lots of practise reading words containing these spellings.
Home reading: A friendly reminder to send reader folders to school each week (at least on a Monday) so I can sign diaries, changes readers and add a new list of words for home practise.
Maths: We have begun a learning cycle on Place Value in Maths. The Preps have learnt how to read, write and represent the numbers 1-5, whilst the Grade 1’s are reviewing their tricky teen numbers. Teen numbers can be a bit confusing. Eg. Fifteen often gets confused with fifty, so we have been focusing on the fact that teen numbers always begin with a 1. We also learnt that in the number 15, the 1 represents 1 group of ten and the 5 represents 5 ones.
Religion: This week we have been investigating the idea that our school uniforms are a symbol that we belong to St.Brendan’s Primary School. The students created an artwork of themselves wearing their school uniform - the results were very impressive!
Integrated Curriculum: In History, we have been exploring our own family histories and what people might make up a family eg. Mum, Dad, Grandma, Uncle, Cousin. Over the next few weeks, we will be learning about where people in our families came from and the origin of our name.
Highlight of the week: A big thankyou to Damian Lettieri who brought in a surplus of excess veggies this week. The children had a wonderful time creating little dishes for the guinea pigs using the lettuce, cucumber and zucchini. It was a great learning experience!
Allira Kluver
akluver@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au
2/3/4 Classroom News
I hope everyone has been enjoying our beautiful weather!
Some of our staff participated in a Deaf Awareness seminar this week focused on Auslan. It was very informative and we look forward to implementing it in the school soon.
This week in Literacy we are looking at Little Hotchpotch. The book is about a shy little creature who looks at its reflection in a frozen pond. All it could see were its eyes—and they were as big and bright as the moon! But the little creature doesn’t know who it is! And so starts an important quest for identity and belonging. The text ties in nicely with our R.E. concept of belonging. In Writing we have been working on our recounts and will start narratives today.
In Maths we are still investigating Place Value. We are identifying and representing numbers in expanded form.
Homework has been sent home with a contract to complete. The spelling words from last week will be tested by Friday and new words given out next week to learn. Homework is due back on Friday.
In I.C. we have been brainstorming and discussing laws that apply in our community. We are presenting them in class and then displaying them in the passage.
Our Beginning School Mass is on Sunday 27th February at 5.00pm and we look forward to seeing our school and Parish community coming together to celebrate.
Next week we acknowledge the beginning of Lent with Father Michael and a mass celebrating Ash Wednesday.
Star of the Week award goes to Melody Baker. Congratulations on your excellent effort!
If you have any concerns or queries please contact me at school or by email.
Cheers,
Mandy Sutherland
msutherland@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au
5/6 Classroom News
Welcome to Week 5! We have had another great week this week. Everyone has been loving our new daily brain tease, playing ‘Worlde’.
We are looking forward to the Beginning of the Year Mass coming up this Sunday. The Year 6 students have been busy preparing and writing their pledges to read to our community. The Year 6’s are also very excited to attend the ‘Dream and Lead’ conference in Melbourne this coming Monday. I’m sure it will be a great day and we will learn more skills to develop as leaders.
Next week we have another special activity that we are looking forward to. As part of our Religion unit, we are learning about our local priest and Bishop. Therefore, we will be having a Zoom call with Bishop Paul from the Diocese of Ballarat. The students have been allocated into ‘expert groups’ and have created a list of questions to ask the bishop. We are excited to meet him and learn more about his job and experiences.
In Maths this week we have been continuing our Place Value unit. The students have been learning how to write large numbers in expanded notation and standard form. The Year 5 students have been working on numbers in millions and Year 6 students have been working on numbers in billions.
This week in Writing we have been developing our recounts using the feedback and suggestions of others. We have also been completing visualising activities, where the students have noticed the importance of detail and the choice of specific words.
In Integrated Curriculum this week we have been learning about the different levels of government. One of our activities we completed was researching our local government; the Colac Otway Shire.
Just a reminder that students are expected to read for 20 minutes each night and this is to be logged in their diary. Homework was also sent home on Tuesday afternoon; this is due back at school on Monday.
Have a great week and please don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions or concerns.
Tahlia Whytcross
twhytcross@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au
Birthday Corner
We would like to wish a very big Happy Birthday to everyone who has celebrated their special day throughout the Summer Holidays including:
February 21st - Harriet Rock (8)
February 21st - Sofia Gray (6)
Important Dates
FEBRUARY
27th - Beginning of Year Mass 5pm St Brendan's Church 5pm
28th - Yr. 6 Dream and Lead Conference (Excursion to Melbourne)
- Departure 6.30am Sharp -
MARCH
1st - Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day at School)
2nd - Prep Students begin attending on Wednesdays (Full-time)
2nd - Ash Wednesday Mass 12pm St Brendan's Church
4th - Pupil Free Day (School Review Process Begins)
8th - Wide Smiles Dental Visit (New date due to reschedule)
9th - School Sports Day
11th - Swimming Session 4
18th - Swimming Session 5
28th - School Advisory Meeting 7pm
APRIL
8th - Last Day of Term 1
Acknowledgement of Country
At St. Brendan’s Primary School we pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land, the Gulidjan people and pay our respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.
We will respect the land, animals and waterways, from the roots of the earth to the tops of the trees. Through the example of our first Australians, we understand that if we look after the country, then the country will look after us.
About Us
School Vision: 'For you I have a destiny and a hope.'
PARISH PRIEST: Fr Michael O’Toole PRINCIPAL: Mrs Leanne Eastman
SAC CHAIRPERSON: Ms Gayle McNabb CHILD SAFETY OFFICER: Mrs Leanne Eastman