Newsletter No. 22 | Term 4 Week 1 | Thursday 5th October 2023

Prayer

Dear Lord,

We pray for a bright and just shared future for all who call Australia home.

We ask that Your grace of acceptance and compassion will guide us.

Let the Creator Spirit lead our journey with the

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of this land.

May we share Your Spirit more deeply; celebrate the gifts You have given us.

Help us appreciate true harmony and peace just as our Old People did;

Keep us strong, make us resilient and remember us in this time.

Now is an opportunity to change our Nation’s history for the better.

Walk with us as we write a new chapter together and

may we be one in Your love.

Amen.

Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful break. The sunshine was definitely good for the soul! It was lovely to come back to school to see the gardens looking so beautiful. Thank you to our gardeners who came in over the holidays. A special thank you to Jim Beardsley who gave his whipper snipper a really good workout and destroyed some very tall weeds in the process!

Today’s prayer asks us to pray in solidarity for a better future for our First Nations people. The proposal for an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament has seen very strong opinions on both the Yes and No side and has been unsettling for many. There are many differing views on the Voice to Parliament, and it is important that people from both sides listen to one another. As a Catholic community, we pray that the upcoming referendum be a time of respect and informed decision making for us all, uniting us as one Australia.

This Term at St. Brendan’s, our inquiry unit focus will be around the concept of Social Justice. Teachers and students will be learning a lot in this space, with their learning culminating in our annual Mission Day.

We are pleased to announce that we have finally reached a decision on the new school logo. The decision was made in consultation with students, parents, staff and parish members. Thank you to everyone who voted. We are really happy that the final design is a good representation of our school.

The new logo was the clear winner out of the many designs we looked at. The boat represents St. Brendan the navigator; the adult and children represent the community (children, parents, staff); the green represents both the land we are situated on and the importance we place on sustainable practice; the telescope represents our spirit of exploration and adventure.  

Our new Vision statement will be launched shortly. Part of it states, We are active learners journeying beyond the familiar and pursuing connections to the world around us. The new logo represents this Vision well. 

The new logo will gradually be incorporated into school signage and documentation. It will also make its appearance on the school bus very soon!

Leanne Eastman
leastman@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

Congratulations

We extend warm congratulations to Allira and her partner Tom, on their recent engagement, a lovely holiday surprise! We wish you both much love and happiness in your future together.

Condolences

It was sad news to hear of the passing of Peter Higgs over the school holidays. As you are aware, Peter, with his trusty companion Lucky at his side, spent many hours doing little jobs around our school, such as looking after the chooks, gardening, painting the train and much more. Peter never sought recognition or thanks for his work but we are filled with gratitude for all that he did for us. We extend our deepest sympathy to Peter’s family.

We also extend our condolences to the Lenehan family on the passing of Les Lenehan. Les was one of a group of people who donated money to refurbish the church bell and has had a long association with the St. Brendan’s community, right back to his days as a student at our school. Les played Santa for many years and had many nephews and nieces who attended St. Brendan's. Our thoughts are with Les’s family at this time.

Well Done Joe!

At the Western Eagles Junior Presentation Night Joe Bayne was awarded 'U/12 Rookie of the Year' for the best team player and most improved. Joe was presented with the game ball as his trophy. Well done Joe, you've had a fantastic season of football!

School Musical 2024

At Assembly today, we were extremely excited to announce that in 2024, St. Brendan’s students will all be taking part in a school production of The Wizard of Oz musical.

We have engaged the services of Georgie from Act and Imagine to produce and direct the show. Georgie has had extensive experiences in Red Door productions including the 2023 show ‘Priscilla’ and recently directed CSC’s production of Peter Pan, which was absolutely fabulous!

In Term One next year, Georgie will be working with our students (assisted by Liz McGuane) each Wednesday during their Music/Drama sessions.

We will be holding auditions for main parts on 6th December with the performance scheduled for Wednesday 27th March at Red Rock Regional Theatre and Gallery. 

More details will follow in the next couple of months. Stay tuned!

Warrion Flower Show

The Warrion Flower Show is fast approaching. It will be held on Wednesday, 28th October. Sophie recently posted a message on the Parent facebook Page. In case you missed it, please see below: 

Warrion Flower Show is only 3 weeks away!! It's time to get moving and make our Parents Fundraising Group Stall happen!! 

We are planning on scaling things back a little this year, and looking to just run our BBQ stall which in previous years has served Sausage Sizzles, Steakettes with slaw S/Ws and cold drinks. 

Perhaps your family could help out by... 

• Meeting up at the school next Tuesday (10th) from 2.30pm (before pickup) to go over the BBQ Trailer, sort out equipment, make a jobs list, etc. 

• Setting up Stall before 12 midday on the day 

• Cooking BBQ/Cash handling/Serving at stall on the day 

• Pack up Stall at end of event 

We will pop a roster up showing time slots soon, and look forward to you joining us for what is always a cracker of a day!

Paper Cranes for International Day of Peace

As mentioned in previous Newsletters, the students, staff and families have been busy making paper cranes to commemorate World Peace Day. 

Our paper crane count has moved up to over 500! We are hoping to display our paper cranes at our Warrion Flower Show stall. We have three weeks to go, we can do it! 

Well done to all of the children who are persisting and continually looking for more paper squares to make more paper cranes. You have done an amazing job!   Anyone who would like to join us with making the paper cranes is more than welcome.

Let it Grow Project

It was wonderful to see children and staff presenting their Let it Grow Projects at our last Assembly in Term 3.

Children shared their reflections on how their projects had helped them to grow. Reflections included:

"I want to keep trying to do more new things."

"I feel proud of myself."

"I feel really good."

"I feel good that when it was hard, I kept going."

Children can take on a Let it Grow Project any time. Come and see the display of our projects in the foyer. It may give you some more inspiration!

SUNSMART

Just a reminder to ensure that your child has a hat at school each day. Children will be asked to stay under shelter if they do not have their hats. If you need to purchase a new school hat, they are available from the uniform shop for $13. Please enquire with Gracesyn.

Check out the table below. Last week on an overcast, showery days, the UV rating was 7.

Term 4 Swimming

Our Swimming Program begins next week on Friday 13th October at Bluewater Fitness Centre in Colac.

A reminder students should be bringing along and drinking plenty of water on swimming days so please remember to pack a drink bottle.

On these days students should pack a swimming bag (seperate to their school bag) with their swimmers, towel, goggles and a plastic bag for wet items at the end of the day. If you are sending your child to school with their swimmers on underneath their uniform remember to pack underwear for them to change into.

It is a good idea to label each item of clothing your child is wearing on swimming days with their name as uniforms are easily mixed up in changing rooms.

Parents are welcome to come along to swimming lessons to watch their children. The schedule for these days is:

1.00pm: Leave school

1.30pm - 2.30pm: Swimming Lesson

3.00pm: Return to school

Long Service Leave

Mandy will be taking Long Service Leave from Monday 16th October, returning on Monday 30th October. During this time, Liz and Alice share the teaching role in this class. 

We wish Mandy all the best for a fun, relaxing break.

Pre Prep Program Dates

We are excited to be offering our Pre-Prep Program for 2024 Prep students. The Program provides the opportunity for students to familiarise themself with the school, meet their classmates before school begins, build a relationship with the Prep teacher and other staff, help to make their transition to school as smooth as possible, and generally to have a bit of fun! 

 The Program will run on from 9.ooam - 12.00pm each Friday on the following dates:

10th November

17th November

24th November

2024 Prep students will also have the opportunity to join us for Transition Day on Tuesday 5th December.

Catholic Culture

100 Years of the Good Samaritan Centre

It should be a great day on Sunday celebrating 100 years of the Good Samaritan Centre. The site has seen many changes over the 100 years but the building still stands tall and is an iconic historical landmark of Coragulac. 

You are invited to come along on Sunday to join us for the celebrations. It begins with Mass where the Thomas Carr Choir will lead the singing. This is always a highlight. We look forward to once again having the church filled with their beautiful voices. 

Many past students and parishioners will be returning to celebrate the day. It would be great for them to meet some of our current families to learn about the school today. 

There will be a light lunch and self guided tours of the school and convent to follow.

St Brendan's Coragulac & St Joseph's Pirron Yallock Mass Times

St Brendan’s Coragulac: 9.30am Sunday   /   5pm 4th Sunday of each month
St Joseph’s Pirron Yallock: 10:30am Lay-led   /   Mass 1st Sunday of each month

Sustainability at St Brendan's

Student Sustainability Group

This week our lunchtime Sustainability group planted new seeds in the vege garden. Allira spent time in the holidays preparing the garden for planting so it was all ready to go! The children planted tomatoes, cucumber, beetroot, beans, carrots and leeks. We can’t wait to see them grow!

Terracycle Program

A reminder that we have joined up with Terracycle to recycle the following products:

1. Snaplock bags or freezer bags, including the Glad to Be Green range. Cling wrap can also be recycled through Terracycle.
2. Pens and other Writing products eg pens, felt tip markers, mechanical pencils, correction tape and fluid pots, fountain pens, ink cartridges

The recycling boxes are in the foyer, opposite Gracesyn’s office.

Wellbeing News

Prep/1 Classroom News

Welcome to Term 4! What a fun start we have had. It's been lovely to see all the Prep/1 students back at school again - everyone is feeling very refreshed and excited.

Literacy: On Monday, we started learning about recount writing by engaging in a language experience; ‘Making Bubble Paintings.’ Students carefully followed a step-by-step procedure to create their paintings. This activity was very colourful and exciting. Since then, we have been planning and writing recounts about the experience.

Maths: This week we have been learning about shapes. Students practised drawing and name a range of 2D shapes and even played some drawing games. Over the next few weeks, we will also learn about 3D shapes and the various features of shapes i.e. sides, corners and faces.

Religion: Our concept for RE is ‘joy.’ This week we have been thinking about times in our own lives when we have experienced joy. The students had a very thorough understanding of the meaning of ‘joy’ and could describe several times in their lives when they had felt joyful.

Integrated Curriculum: Social Justice is on the agenda for Integrated Curriculum this term. To begin our unit, we have been considering the idea of fairness and the importance of rules. We have developed our own ‘community’ on our class storyboard. On Tuesday, the students came up with and then voted for a series of rules governing behaviour within our ‘community.’ It was so exciting to see the way they carefully considered the rules and whether they should be implemented or not.

Looking forward to a wonderful term.

Allira Kluver
akluver@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

2/3/4 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 1 of Term 4!

I hope everybody enjoyed the holidays and got to spend time doing things that they loved.

It has been wonderful to see everyone return refreshed and ready for our last term of the year. The children are excited for swimming which will begin in Week 2.

Religious Education: Our concept for this term is ‘Origins’. Origin stories are stories that relate to the beginning of something important. They link listeners to important connections to family, place, special people in their lives and key events.  

Literacy: Our class has been identifying and exploring the suffix ‘est’ and revising prefixes and suffixes of base words.  We are currently working with ‘air’ graphemes in spelling and reading, and revisiting the 100 Most Used Words. In Writing, we are revising procedural texts and the components that are specific to this genre.

Numeracy: This week we are investigating probability. We are looking at language associated with chance such as certain, likely, unlikely and impossible. We have learnt a new game called Grab It and conducted an experiment using dice.

Integrated Curriculum: This term our topic is Social Justice. We are learning about disabilities and the challenges that people with disabilities face in our community and world.

The Resilience Project: This week we have brainstormed ways we can be kind to ourselves, to others and to the planet. The children wrote responses to how we are kind, and things we can do to be kinder.

Homework: Homework has been handed out with mathematical problems to complete and  new spelling words to learn. The phoneme focus this week is ‘air’.

The Star of the Week award goes to Jerry Robb. Congratulations on your excellent effort!

Cheers,

Mandy Sutherland
msutherland@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

4/5/6 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 1 of Term 4! I hope everyone had a wonderful break and enjoyed the sunshine. We have a big term ahead! I hope our Year 6’s have a fantastic last term of primary school.

Reading: In Reading we have been looking at idioms. Idioms are phrases that do not literally mean what they say. The idioms we looked at this week are: Kill two birds with one stone, every cloud has a silver lining and the grass is greener on the other side. We also looked at an original version of a Winnie the Pooh story that was written in 1926 by A. A. Milne. We analysed the story and discussed how the story is written differently to stories written today. 

Writing: In Writing we have been writing procedural texts. Students have chosen a procedure to write about, edit and share with the class. In their writing, students are including: A title, description, ingredients, materials/equipment, method and background information/tips.

Spelling: This week we have been focusing on all of the spellings for the sound /air/. Year 4 students have been looking at words such as prayer, mayor, flare and flair. Year 5/6 students have been looking at words such as repairable, millionaire, heirloom and loungewear.

Maths: In Maths we have been working on Probability and Chance. Year 4 students have been looking at everyday events and ordering their chances of happening, Year 5 students have been writing the Probability of events as fractions and Year 6 students have been writing the Probability of events as fractions, decimals and percentages. 

Religion: In Religion we have started our new unit on Transformation. This week we watched a video about Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop and discussed events in his life and why he had a significant impact on the people around him.

Integrated Curriculum: In Integrated Curriculum we started our new unit on Social Justice called ‘Care for the Kids.’ To begin our unit we have been looking at the Rights of Children around the world and discussing how some children’s rights aren’t being met in different places around the world.

Tahlia Whytcross
twhytcross@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

Birthday Corner

Wishing a very big Happy Birthday to everyone who has celebrated their special day recently! Especially...

2nd October   -   Isabella Coates (8)

6th October   -   Ava D'Altera (11)

Important Dates