Newsletter No. 23 | Term 4 Week 3 | Thursday 19th October 2023

Prayer

In today’s prayer, we pray for the people enduring so much suffering in the Middle East, particularly Israel and Palestine.

Principal's Message

Dear Families and Friends,

The recent referendum for a Voice to Parliament highlighted many things (regardless of what the outcome was to be) including the need for education with regards to Australia’s Indigenous community and culture. When many of us went to school, our education in this area was minimal, and in many cases inaccurate. It is important that our children, and future generations, are given educational opportunities to broaden their knowledge and understanding of the people who have lived on this land for over 60,000 years. 

Each week at Assembly we make an Acknowledgement to Country. We have also enhanced our Indigenous garden with a beautiful Gulidjan country sign. We will continue to teach the stories of the oldest living culture to our younger generations to ensure the living truth, the dreams and hopes of our Indigenous people are heard. Such education provides a genuine pathway to reconciliation. 

In light of some things that I have heard and read online in the last few weeks, it was very timely that we were informed on Monday that one of our students, Melody Baker, had won a poetry competition for her poem titled 'Kindness Poem'. Melody was awarded $350 for First Prize! Wow! Congratulations Melody!  Your poem was absolutely beautiful, demonstrating many ways that we can show kindness in our world.

A couple of years ago, much respected Aboriginal elder, Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, visited Colac, and you may remember that her nephews came to our school to dance for us. After the referendum, she posted the following reflection which helps to build our understanding of Aboriginal culture.

"My people are not threatened by silence. They are completely at home in it. They have lived for thousands of years with Nature’s quietness. My people today recognise and experience in this quietness the great Life-Giving Spirit, the Father of us all. It is easy for me to experience God’s presence. When I am out hunting, when I am in the bush, among the trees, on a hill or by a billabong; these are the times when I can simply be in God’s presence. My people have been so aware of Nature. It is natural that we will feel close to the Creator. Our Aboriginal culture has taught us to be still and to wait. We do not try to hurry things up. We let them follow their natural course – like the seasons. We watch the moon in each of its phases. We wait for the rain to fill our rivers and water the thirsty earth…

When twilight comes, we prepare for the night. At dawn we rise with the sun.

We watch the bush foods and wait for them to ripen before we gather them. We wait for our young people as they grow, stage by stage, through their initiation ceremonies. When a relation dies, we wait a long time with the sorrow. We own our grief and allow it to heal slowly.

We wait for the right time for our ceremonies and our meetings. The right people must be present. Everything must be done in the proper way. Careful preparations must be made. We don’t mind waiting, because we want things to be done with care.

We don’t like to hurry. There is nothing more important than what we are attending to. There is nothing more urgent that we must hurry away for.

We wait on God, too. His time is the right time. We wait for him to make his word clear to us. We don’t worry. We know that in time and in the spirit of dadirri (that deep listening and quiet stillness) his way will be clear.

We are river people. We cannot hurry the river. We have to move with its current and understand its ways.

We hope that the people of Australia will wait. Not so much waiting for us – to catch up – but waiting with us, as we find our pace in this world.

If you stay closely united, you are like a tree, standing in the middle of a bushfire sweeping through the timber. The leaves are scorched and the tough bark is scarred and burnt; but inside the tree the sap is still flowing, and under the ground the roots are still strong. Like that tree, you have endured the flames, and you still have the power to be reborn.

Our culture is different. We are asking our fellow Australians to take time to know us; to be still and to listen to us."

~ Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann

(Aboriginal activist, educator, artist and 2021 Senior Australian of the year)

Leanne Eastman
leastman@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

OCTOBER IS MENTAL HEALTH MONTH

Throughout the year, Liz and I have been part of the Mental Health in Primary Schools program. It has involved regularly meeting with other schools in the network, with each school sharing knowledge and practice, in order to design school frameworks pertaining to the needs of each school.

It has been an excellent process and we are well on the way to completing our framework. We will share with you when it is complete.

Remember that the door is always open if you have any concerns or if you would just like a chat. We are always here for you.

SRC STUDENTS

Congratulations to the following students who have been selected as SRC representatives for this Term:

Prep/1:   Charli Lettieri and Lewie Panther

2/3/4:   Pearl Armistead and Liam Wilson

5/6:   Ava D’Altera and Melody Baker

We will hold our first meeting with a party pie lunch next Tuesday.

DIVISION BASKETBALL

Last week some of our Year 4-6 boys joined with two students from Alvie PS to participate in a basketball tournament at Blue Water.The boys did a fabulous job, demonstrating terrific skills and good sportsmanship. Well done to all!

TRINITY COLLEGE 

Yesterday the whole school went to Trinity College to attend a band concert. The Trinity Band combined with Apollo Bay College and CSC bands to perform a number of pieces for us. For the finale, they did a wonderful rendition of Sweet Caroline which really had the crowd on their feet!

It was terrific to see one of our year 6 students from last year, Maverick Lenehan, playing the trumpet. The children were all very excited to see him and I am sure were inspired to see what he has achieved in his first year of Secondary school.

WARRION FLOWER SHOW

Preparations for our bbq stall at the Warrion Flower Show are underway. A big thank you to Sophie for taking the lead to ensure that everything is organised. Thanks also to the parents who have already volunteered.  We currently have 6 one hour slots to fill between 3pm and 8pm.

If you were not able to help out at the footy gate, this would be a great opportunity to contribute. 

The children have been working on their entries for the Flower Show. This has included:

Pasta Flowers Art (Prep-3)

Colouring Competition (Prep-3)

Poster Competition (Years 4,5,6)

Photographic Competition (Years 4,5,6)

Garden Collage (whole school)

Each child’s work will be on display at the flower Show so come along and check it out!. It is a really fabulous local event. You can take a sneak peak of our Garden Collage entry below. It looks fabulous!

The children also decorated aprons supplied by Mark and Kristy Robb. We will be selling them at the Show. They look great! Thanks to Alice for coordinating the school art activities. 

100 DAYS OF PREP

Last week our Prep students celebrated one hundred days of Prep. It coincided perfectly with our other 100 celebration, 100 years of the Good Samaritan Centre.

The children dressed up to look ike they were 100 years old and participated in many ‘100’ activities throughout the day!

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PLAYGROUND UPDATE

Earlier in the year DOBCEL sent some playground playground safety representatives out to check on the safety of our playground. They identified that the bridge would need to be removed and arrived at school this week to take it away. The good news is that they will be replacing it with a new one free of charge. Thank you to DOBCEL!

World Teacher’s Day - A message from our governing body, DOBCEL

World Teachers’ Day will be on Friday 27 October 2023. We invite our school community to recognise and celebrate our remarkable teachers for their contribution to educating, inspiring our kids and acknowledge the support they provide each day.

We invite our students to join in this celebration. Students are encouraged to share creative content, such as a snippet of writing, a short video or a piece of artwork or drawing. Let your creativity and imagination run wild! With relevant permissions in place, this content will be shared via St Brendan’s and DOBCEL’s social media platforms. Please ensure all content is submitted no later than Friday 20 October.

For convenience, printable posters for our kids can be found below.

We look forward to celebrating World Teachers’ Day together and celebrating our dedicated teachers.

Catholic Culture

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

WOODEN CHOPPING BOARDS

The lunchtime Sustainability group have been busy putting the final touches to our wooden chopping boards. The last step was to oil them using olive oil and citrus oils. They look amazing!

The chopping boards will be on sale for $25 with profits going towards the back square planting project. 

We will be taking them up to the Warrion Flower Show but if you would like to place an order before then, feel free!

Wellbeing News

PAPER CRANES UPDATE

We currently have 765 paper cranes made. Only 235 to go! We have 6 days until the Warrion Flower Show. We can do it!

Prep/1 Classroom News

It's week 3 and we are back into the swing of things! The Prep/1 students have been producing some incredible work this week and having lots of fun along the way.

Literacy: We’ve been considering ‘social justice’ in literacy and learning about the story of Malala. Malala was a young girl who stood up for her right to go to school. This week we practised writing complete sentences and using the word ‘because’ to explain why something is so. We also investigated the four different types of sentences; statements, questions, exclamations and commands.

Maths: This week in Maths, we’ve been exploring 3D shapes and identifying the number of faces, edges and vertices these shapes have. Students particularly enjoyed the opportunity to complete some tangrams - these are puzzles involving shapes.

Religion: The Prep/1’s are running the liturgy this week. Our theme is ‘joy.’ We’ve been practising the songs, readings and actions that are part of our liturgy.

Integrated Curriculum: Our storyboard has sparked lots of great discussion this week. We’ve developed our own community and have begun adding some important services to the communal space. We talked about ‘things we need’ and ‘things we want’ and then decided to add a range of community places and services. These included: a school, hospital, park, playground, fire station and supermarket.

Thanks to all families for organising dress-ups for our 100 days at school! We had a fabulous day and enjoyed many laughs together.

Allira Kluver
akluver@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

4/5/6 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 3 of Term 4!

Homework: A reminder that homework is due back this Friday 20th October.

Writing: In Writing we have been working on sentence expansion. We read Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I Have a Dream’ and worked on developing our sentences using the question stems; who, what and why.

Spelling: This week we have been focusing on all of the spellings for the sound /ue/. Year 4 students have been looking at words such as queue, unite and pewter. Year 5/6 students have been looking at words such as revenue, neuroscientist and euphoria.

Maths: In Maths Year 4 students have been working on Shape. We have been drawing 2D shapes and 3D objects and discussing their properties. Year 5/6 students have been working on Volume. We have been calculating the volume of cubes and rectangular prisms.

Religion: In Religion we have continued to discuss our theme for the term, ‘transformation.’ We have begun looking at our scripture piece - The Conversion of Paul in Acts of the Apostles 9:1-19.

Integrated Curriculum: In Integrated Curriculum we have been discussing big problems around the world such as Malnutrition, Poverty, Sanitation and Illiteracy. Students have been looking at facts and creating infographics about them.

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...

11th October   -   Theodore Phillips (6)

15th October   -   Grace Bayne (10)

22nd October   -   Pearl Armistead (8)

Important Dates