Newsletter No. 24 | Term 4 Week 5 | Thursday 2nd November 2023

Prayer

Giver of all wisdom and greatest of all teachers,
look upon our teachers with love.
Grant them the resolve to nurture eager minds.
Bless them with gentle patience for the path of learning is never easy.
Kindle a spirit and passion in them, it is the flame that ignites the love of learning in us.
Let the light of your example shine upon all teachers to build up with their words,
to love with their mind and to share with their heart.
Amen

Principal's Message

Dear Families and Friends,

Last Friday was World Teacher's Day. We are extremely blessed at St Brendan’s  to have dedicated and passionate teachers who continually work hard to find ways to meet the individual needs of each child. Friday was an opportunity to say thank you to them and acknowledge all that they do. I am extremely grateful for the work that our teachers do to provide an excellent, holistic education for our students.

Yesterday we were really pleased to have a visit from Tom Sexton, the Executive Director of Education Ballarat. I attended Aquinas Teachers College with Tom in Ballarat many years ago (I won’t say how many!) and since then he has been a teacher, a school leader, Principal and many other roles which has led to him now being the leader of Catholic Education in the Ballarat Diocese. We are very appreciative to have a Director who makes it his goal to visit every school in the Diocese each year. 

Whilst Tom was here, he observed our Sustainability group working with the Prep/1 children. They were oiling chopping boards, making dishcloths and doing paintings with water colours, which will be used to create greeting cards.
Tom was really impressed with what he saw and learned about various aspects of our school. He was also extremely appreciative of his ‘sustainability gift pack’ which included a chopping board, a jar of olives from our trees, a wooden toothbrush and an apron.

Thank you to Allira for organising the fabulous sustainability session and the  gift for Tom. Great work!

Leanne Eastman
leastman@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

READING

UPCOMING SCHOOL CLOSURE DAYS

The school will be closed on Monday and Tuesday of next week, November 6th and 7th. Monday is a School Curriculum Day and Tuesday is a public holiday for the Melbourne Cup. 

Enjoy the long weekend!

TRANSITION DAY

Transition Day will be held on Tuesday, 12th December. On this day, Year 6's spend the day at their new Secondary schools, and our 2024 students spend time with their new classes. It is always an exciting day and we especially love welcoming our Preps into their new school.

END OF YEAR CELEBRATIONS

After positive feedback about our schedule for school celebrations last year, we will be following the same format this year. 

The Year Six graduation, End of Year School Mass and Carols Night will all be combined on the same night. This very special celebration will take place on Thursday 7th December.

More details to follow shortly.

WARRION FLOWER SHOW

Despite challenging weather conditions, the Warrion Flower Show was once again a fabulous event!

Well done to all of our students and parents who entered items in various categories. We are proud of you all. A special congratulations to the following children who took out prizes:

• Nellie Armistead
• Claire Beardsley
• Joe Bayne
• Kaitlyn Bourk
• Millie Carlon
• Charlie Ferrari
• Teddy Phillips
• Caleb Price
• Jerry Robb
• Audrey Rock
• Harriet Rock
  
• Pearl Armistead
• Sophie Carlon
• Jess Beardsley
• Lexie D'Altera
• Lewie Panther &
• James Bourk

A special mention to our future Prep students who also won prizes! Fabulous effort! We can't wait for you to contributue to our school entries next year. Well done to:

• Greta Rock
• Everlyn McGuane
• Georgie McGuane

A BIG thank you to the following parents who helped out by transporting gear to the venue, cooking the barbie, selling aprons and cookies, packing up at the end, and to others who popped over to say hello and lend moral support. Special thanks to  Sophie Alliband for taking the lead with this event and to the following parents for their support; Ken Coates, Vanessa Flanagan, Aaron Price, Janet Ross, Lynda Newcombe, Jayne Robb, Lauren Mitchell, Ben Phillips, Kristy Robb, Mark Robb, Tracey Bayne, Hayley Beardsley, Alice Armistead, Bianca & Chris Wright.

It was a wonderful team effort and it raised $988 for our school. We are pleased to confirm that our $6000 fundraising target for the 2023 school year has now been met. To all our families who have helped with any and all fundraisers thoughout the year we sincerely thank you.

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MISSION DAY

The date for Mission Day is Thursday 16th November and the excitement is building!

The funds raised on Mission Day go to a charity nominated by Caritas. This year the money will go towards Sister Carolina’s mission  for better health in Timor.

The Year 6's have started working on the ghost house and I think that it looks like being the best one yet! What will we see behind  the green tarp?

THE MISSION DAY CAKE AUCTION

The Cake Auction is always a big highlight of Mission Day and it will once again be going ahead. For those of you who have not been to Mission Day before, the cake auction is ran by our Year 6 students who will be taking bids on all cakes available to purchase on the day. Cakes sell for anywhere between $1 and $100, with all funds going to our Mission Day total. We invite all family, friends and Parishioners to come along to the auction and place a bid or two!

In order for the cake auction to be a success we rely on cake donations from our community to auction off, so it's time to hit the kitchen and start baking! If you are making a donation of a cake or baked good please present it on a paper plate and cover with a plastic or gladwrap covering, perhaps you could even present it on a plate from the op-shop that you will not need returned to you. Please include a sticker or note on the plastic covering that lists the ingredients of the cake, bake date and type of cake.

This year we are excited to introduce judging categories for cake donations! Year 6 students will be judging the cakes based on their appearance prior to them being auctioned off. The categories are as follows:

• Best Dad Cake: Cakes in this category must be baked and decorated by students Dads
• Best Mum Cake: Cakes in this category must be baked and decorated by students Mums
• Best Teacher/Staff Cake: Cakes in this category must be baked and decorated by St Brendan's Staff Members
• Best Grandparent Cake: Cakes in this category must be baked and decorated by students grandparents
• Best Student Cake: Cakes in this category must be baked and decorated by current St Brendan's students
• Best Baked Good: All non-cake items will be entered into this category. For example: Cupcakes, Slice, etc.

If you would like to enter your cake into one of these categories for judging prior to it being auctioned please let us know when you are dropping it off. Trophies will be awarded on the day. All cakes must be delivered to the Hall prior to 9am on Thursday 16th November.

We have many renowned bakers in our community, whose cakes and baked goods are always in high demand at this auction. Bids can get quite heated and in many cases quite high. 

Mission Day will begin with a Liturgy before reccess, the Cake Auction kicks off at 11.30am following which the students Market Stalls will be open from 12pm onwards.

Mission Day is a fabulous community event. It would be great to see as many people there as possible and we warmly invite all parents, friends, grandparents, parishioners, past students and community members. Hope you can make it!

SWIMMING

One week to go!

PRE PREP PROGRAM

Our three week Pre-Prep program kicks off next Friday, 10th November. We look forward to welcoming our 2024 Preps into the school. The children will be meeting their teacher for 2024 and participating in a range of activities to assist them with a smooth transition to school next year. It should be lots of fun!

MOVING INTO 2024...

As the school year comes to a close, our students and staff are actively involved in assessments to prepare for report writing and parent-teacher meetings. Assessments being undertaken help us understand your child's strengths and areas needing improvement. This data guides our teaching methods and curriculum development, to better support your child's growth.

Looking ahead to the next school year, we are working on creating balanced classes, ensuring that each student gets the right level of instruction and support.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher or Leanne. You can call, email, drop in or arrange an appointment any time.

Thank you for your continued partnership in your child's education.

FISHING RODS FOR YEAR 5's

The Year 5's were excited to receive their fishing rods this afternoon, the fishing rods were gifted from the Victorian Government who ran the initiative to encourage children to enjoy the outdoors. Looks like we know what the parents of these children will be doing this weekend, no pressure!

Catholic Culture

Vinnie's Christmas Appeal

With Christmas around the corner we are looking to collect donations for St. Vinnie's.

We are going to be doing Christmas hampers. We are looking for Christmas food donations such as; Christmas puddings, custard (long life), lollies, treats, fruit cake, mince pies etc.

We would also love some donations of toys especially for boys in the 8-12 year old age group.

We would really appreciate it if you can try to donate these supplies to help people in need.

Thank you so much.

The Social Justice group - Brennan, Lexie and Melody

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

Prep/1 Classroom News

Welcome to week 5! How the term flies. We’ve been enjoying school swimming every Friday - the students certainly look forward to Friday afternoons. It's been great to observe their growing confidence in and around the water.

Literacy: This week, we are beginning a unit on narrative writing. Students practised describing a character using lots of descriptive language. I’m amazed at the level of independence and competence the students are showing at this time of the year.

Word work: The Preps are working on the sound /ng/ like in ‘ring’ and ‘sing’ whilst the Grade 1’s are learning about the different spellings of the sound /or/ like in horn. There are six different ways to spell this sound: a (all), al (walk), ar (award), au (Autumn), or (born) and aw (draw).

Maths: This week we’ve been challenged to do some problem solving involving measurement. Students were required to find out which of two lines was longer. The tricky part was that the lines were not parallel and they were very similar in size, making it difficult to judge with the eye. Students decided the best way to measure and compare was to the lines using blocks.

Religion: This week, the students learnt how to write prayers. We began our prayers by addressing God i.e. “Dear God,” then identified something we wished to pray for. We asked God for help to achieve/work towards this and then concluded our prayer by saying “Amen.”

Integrated Curriculum: To continue our unit on ‘social justice,’ students have been thinking about rules in society and why we have rules. It was really interesting to learn about what school was like back in the 1950’s and 60’s. They had some very strict rules back in the day! We compared school now to school back then and thought about the way school has changed over time.

Mission Day: Mission Day is fast approaching! This is a fundraising event for the Catholic Missions. At school, we celebrate by holding little stalls where the children can sell a range of homemade gifts and goods. The Prep/1 class will be making some items in class to sell however, students are welcome to come up with and oragnise their own stall if they want to. Some ideas include: hairdressing stalls, homemade cards, drawings etc.

Keep up the home reading - reading just one book a day with your child makes SO much difference to their reading success.

Allira Kluver
akluver@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

2/3/4 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 5!

I would like to thank Alice and Liz for taking care of the 2/3/4’s in my absence.

We are excited and preparing for our annual Mission Day on Thursday 16^th November.

The children have been asked to check with their parents to see if what they want to do, aligns with what parents think is acceptable. If you have any questions relating to this, please contact me.

Religious Education: This week we have been looking at the Liturgical Calendar of the Catholic Church. The last Sunday of November is the beginning of the new year in the Catholic Church. It marks the official start of the liturgical year.

Literacy: Our class has been identifying and exploring the prefix ‘pre’. We are currently working with ‘oy’ graphemes in spelling and reading, and working on our fluency. The students get a story which contains the current phonemes we are learning about. They practice reading this text daily which familiarises them with the focus words and helps develop increased fluency, expression, following punctuation cues and confidence.

In Writing, we are using descriptive words to build super sentences. The children are also working on research projects of their choice.

Numeracy: This week we are revising 2D and 3D shapes and objects, and their associated features. We are also focusing on money and change.

Integrated Curriculum: This week we are unpacking the concept of fairness. The class have created their own definitions of being fair and what that looks like.

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

The Star of the Week award goes to Pearl Armistead. Congratulations on your excellent effort!

Cheers,

Mandy Sutherland
msutherland@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

4/5/6 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 5 of Term 4!

Homework: A reminder that homework is due back this Friday 3rd November.

Writing: In Writing we have been working on character descriptions. We have been writing our descriptions using sentences of 3 - describing 3 features of the character and expanding on one of these features. Here is an example from Lexie about Spongebob:

Spongebob is a bright yellow sponge who is always wearing his clean shoes and dressing neatly, to look more professional when working at the Krabby Patty.

Spelling: This week we have been focusing on the spellings for the sound /oy/. Year 4 students have been looking at words such as moisten, enjoyable and loyalty. Year 5/6 students have been looking at words such as boysenberry, poisoning and asteroid.

Maths: In Maths Year 4 students have been working on Shape and have been calculating the area of shapes using square units. Year 5/6 students have been working on Capacity and have been converting between different units of capacity.

Religion: In Religion we have been unpacking our scripture piece; Acts of the Apostles 9:1-19. We have been learning how Saul transformed dramatically with God’s love. We have also been sharing times in our lives where we have transformed in some way. 

Integrated Curriculum: In Integrated Curriculum we have been working on our storyboard. We are all in groups and have a topic (Sanitation, Malnutrition, Poverty or Illiteracy). We are creating a family that is affected by one of these problems and will be sharing information about the problem and how others can help.

Tahlia Whytcross
twhytcross@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

Important Dates