Newsletter No. 4 | Term 1 Week 7 | Thursday 14th March 2024

Prayer

Lenten Prayer

Lord, bless us during this season of spiritual 

renewal.

Fill our minds and hearts with love,

that we may be a sign of Jesus to all those 

living in our midst.

Principal's Message

Dear Families and Friends,

How good was our School Sports Day? Such a fun day and always a wonderful community event. Congratulations to Turner who took out the trophy for the first time in quite a while, the first time in the four years that I have been here. Turner’s captains, Grace, Jackson and Zayne were very excited to be presented with the winning trophy and led their team around the oval for a memorable victory lap! We're grateful for the sense of community and engagement at St. Brendan’s, and we look forward to more wonderful moments together in the coming weeks.

Days like Sports Day need many hands to make light work. Thanks to the following people:

• Andre for organising the day and ensuring that it ran smoothly
• Parents / grandparents who helped to set up and cook the bbq
• Our former students: Anabelle, Tilly, Cooper, George, Jimmy and Levi for helping out with setting up
• Gracesyn for scoring and organising the coffee van
• Staff for doing such a great job all day
• Everybody who turned up to support the students: parents, friends, grandparents and other family members
• Boswell and Dave from Alvie Cricket Club who did the line marking for us
• Kara and Lisa for taking such great photos of the day
• Rod Newcombe for doing a great job preparing a very dry oval for the day

After what has been a very busy start to the year, I hope you all enjoyed the extra long, albeit very hot weekend. The long break was just what the students needed before the big Wizard of Oz extravaganza, only 12 more sleeps to go. Be sure to order your tickets, they are selling fast!

Leanne Eastman
leastman@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

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Staff Formation

Last week the Staff participated in two Staff Formation days. We engaged in learning and reflection on Aboriginal Perspectives, as well as the life of Australia’s first Saint, Sr. Mary McKillop. All speakers were inspirational and deeply thought-provoking. This year we have adopted Mary McKillop's quotation: If you see a need, do something about it. During the two days in Melbourne, we were privileged to walk in the areas where Mary lived and worked, and learnt more about how Mary lived out this quote, she was an example and inspiration to us all.

Easter Raffle

Our school fundraiser for Term 1 will be the Easter Raffle. We are requesting that each family sends in something to contribute to the raffle. We will make hampers with all of the donated goods. It was always my dream to win the Easter Raffle as a student. It never happened, I still live in hope!

Preps at School on Wednesdays

Last week our Prep students attended school on a Wednesday for the first time this year. They were able to take part in our Specialist classes and, as the Preps have done with everything so far, they took it all in their stride. It was also great to see them so happy to take part in the Wizard of Oz rehearsals. The smiles on their faces and their positive comments at the end of the day said it all.

NAPLAN

On Wednesday our Year 3 and Year 5 students took part in the NAPLAN Writing Test. We congratulate all students on the way they have approached the tests. The NAPLAN testing format is a learning environment that is not a regular part of our day to day experiences in the contemporary classroom, where discussion, interaction and group sharing are encouraged. Therefore, we do not make judgments on the children based solely on their NAPLAN results. It is one of many assessment tasks that the children participate in throughout the year. You just do your best, we can’t ask anything more than that. 

Our NAPLAN schedule for next week is as follows:

Monday March 18th:

• 9.15am: Reading
• 11.30am: Conventions of Language

Tuesday march 19th:

• 9.15am: Numeracy

Child Safety

The eSafety Commissioner has some great short videos about online safety for families. They cover topics such as ‘helping your family stay safe online’. ‘getting started with social media’ and ‘safer online gaming’. The link is here if you would like to give them a watch.

The updated Child Safe Standards (eleven in total) came into effect in July last year and are a vital part of what we do here at Brendan’s. More information about these standards can be found here:

Library Day

All students visit the school library every Thursday in classroom groups.

During library students are given time to browse the shelves and select up to three books to take home and borrow for the week. Students need to return these books the following Thursday in order to borrow new ones. It would be great if students used a library bag on a Thursdays to help protect the books in school bags.

Tissues for Classrooms

Each year we ask that every student please supply 2 boxes of tissues for their classroom. Tissues can be dropped at either the front office or to classroom teachers. This is a small expense but something that saves the school a lot of money over the course of the year, allowing us to use these funds on more inportant learning resources for the children. Thank you for your contribution.

Last Day of Term - Early Finish Time

The last day of Term for students will be on Thursday 28th March. Children will finish school at 2.20pm as school buses will be running early.

Please remember: The first day of Term 2 (Monday 15th April) is a pupil free day. Students will return to school on Tuesday 16th April.

The Wizard of Oz

UPDATES

Not long to go now. There is such a buzz in the air and the children are doing such a good job of rehearsing their lines and acting their scenes. Next week, children will be practicing each afternoon. If your child has a speaking part we ask that you please practice with them at home. There is not much time left so we need to really step it up. This week students will not be reading their scripts during rehearsals. This will help them with memorising their lines.

Once again, I thank everyone who has been working on the costuming and set design. We really are blown away with how much support there has been from the parent community. Part of the reason for doing the production was to enhance student wellbeing. It is clear that not only has it enhanced the wellbeing of our students, it has enhanced the wellbeing of staff and parents, and demonstrated the wonderful community spirit in our school. Bring on opening night!

Programs: Programs will be available for purchase on the night. They will be $2 each.

Video: The performance will be videoed and will be downloaded to USB sticks which the school will sell for $10 each.

Easter Raffle: At the end of the concert we will draw the Easter Raffle. Tickets will be $2 each or 3 for $5. You’ve got to be in it to win it!

IMPORTANT

All students costumes must be dropped at the office

before next Tuesday morning (19th March).

The costume committee will be sorting through costumes Tuesday afternoon and organsing them for the upcoming dress rehearsals.

If this is not possible for you for any reason please let us know as soon as possible. Thank you.

Tickets

Tickets for the Wizard of Oz are $5 per adult, children are free. Tickets are on sale now via TryBooking, follow the below link to purchase or scan the QR code on our posters. We plan to have a program for you to have as a keepsake on the night. Stay tuned!

Show Week

There will be a lot happening on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the last week of Term. Just giving you a heads up! Please note details below:

Tuesday 26th March

9am - 12pm: Rehearsal at school

12.30pm - 2.30pm: Children bused into Trinity for microphone checks

2.30pm Return to St Brendan's

Wednesday 27th March

9am Children bused into Trinity

9.30am - 10am Children fitted with mics and shown lighting

10am - 11.30am: Full dress rehearsal 1

11.30am - 12pm Lunch

12.30pm - 2.30pm: Full dress rehearsal 2

2.30pm Return to St Brendan's

6pm: Children back at Trinity to get ready for the 7pm public show

Aproximitly 8.30pm: Conclusion of Show

It’s going to be a big week!

Practice, Practice, Practice.

If students would like to practice their singing at home the link to the soundtrack is listed below:

Wellbeing

School TV / Anxiety

Early this week I sent out an email inviting parents/carers to complete a short survey about their child(ren’s) wellbeing on the SchoolTV site. Thank you to those who have already completed it. We would like more families to complete the survey in order to give us more accurate data, so please follow the link below when you get a chance. Thank you.

Catholic Culture

Project Compassion

Lent marks the beginning of the Caritas Australia Project Compassion Appeal. This is a Catholic Agency providing International Aid and development for vulnerable communities across Australia andaround the world.

Your child will have brought home a Project Compassion box. To help support Caritas Australia thisyear, we are simply asking for students and families to add some coins to their Project Compassion box each week and bring their coins in during the week to add to their class box. 

The theme this year is ‘Compassion in Action’. Let’s see if we can all come together to make a difference this Lent!

40 Deeds in 40 Days for Lent

Throughout Lent we have a focus on completing 40 good deeds over 40 days to show our love for Jesus.
Below is a copy of the '40 Deeds in 40 Days Program' that we will be following at school and we would love if families would like to join in at home as well. This is the digital version of the program that has links for you to click on a follow. 

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

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

Prep/1 Classroom News

Congratulations to all students for their enthusiasm and participation on Sports Day! It was a fabulous day for all involved. Thanks to parents and families who came along to support. 

We’ve had a great couple of weeks in Prep/1. Lots of learning has been happening and it's exciting to see the students’ confidence in their skills and knowledge growing each day!

Literacy: We have been exploring the story, “The Papaya that Spoke” the past few weeks. This has been an entertaining and enjoyable story. We’ve created a story map as a class and come up with actions to help us internalise the text. Our sentence work has revolved around the story. The Prep/1’s are currently learning that all sentences contain a subject (who or what) and a verb (what they’re doing.) We’ve also been working on starting our sentences with a capital letter and ending them with a full stop.

Word work: The Preps are learning the letters n, o and p. They know the most common sound that these letters represent and are practising reading short words containing all the focus sounds eg. pat, tap, can. Grade 1’s are working on the sound /ee/ like in tree. They have been learning that there are four different ways to spell this sound: ee, e, ea and y.

Maths: In Maths we have been learning that our number system is built on groups of ten. Students have been practising making groups of 10 and then using their knowledge of skip counting to count the total number of items in a collection. They applied this to a real-world scenario when I brought in my dried broad bean seed collection to count. It turns out, there were 591 broad beans! What a phenomenal job the whole class did counting all of those beans.

Religion: As Lent continues, we have been learning about the Liturgical Calendar and the different colours that represent special times during the year: purple, white, green and red. Over the next couple of weeks before Easter, we will be exploring the Easter story and doing plenty of Easter activities to get excited for Easter.

Thanks again for all the support on Sports Day! We look forward to the concert next.

Allira Kluver
akluver@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

2/3/4 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 7! We are getting closer to the opening night for the Wizard of Oz, and the children are practising hard to give their best performances. It is looking fantastic!

We celebrated another successful School Sports Day yesterday, with Turner winning and Spokes and McCarthy coming equal second.

It is such a blessing to be involved in an event (and school) where children really support and encourage each other and are happy for the success of others.

It was wonderful to see Andre DeLorenzo run our Sports Day in his temporary role of P.E. teacher. He did a fabulous job and everyone enjoyed a lovely day.

Religious Education: As part of preparation for Reconciliation, we have investigated the parable of the Prodigal Son. The students were invited to consider the point of view of the main characters in the story, and why they may have felt that way.

Literacy: The children have participated in dictation tests focused on the words they have been learning: ‘air’ for Year 2’s and ‘f’ for Year 3’s and 4’s.

Our Morphology focus has been the prefix ‘dis’. It is Latin and means lack of, or not(as in dishonest), opposite(as in disagree), and apart/away(as in discard).

In Writing, we have been working on narratives and the whole class participated in a NAPLAN writing practice this week.

Numeracy:  We are finishing our unit of work on Place Value and starting Addition and Subtraction next week. Everyone has completed a pre-test for both Addition and Subtraction.

Homework: Homework has been a bit hit and miss because of all our interruptions and we will make sure we get back in the groove next term. Reading nightly is part of our homework expectations, and reading lines and practicing for the Wizard of Oz can be homework for the rest of the term.

NAPLAN: The Year 3’s and Year 5’s have participated in the Writing component of the NAPLAN testing. On Monday, the students will complete Reading and Language
Conventions, and on Tuesday they will finish NAPLAN with the Numeracy part of the testing. If you have any questions regarding this please contact me.

The Star of the Week award goes to Milly Carlon. Congratulations on your excellent effort!

Kind Regards,

Mandy Sutherland
msutherland@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

4/5/6 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 7 of Term 1! We have had such a busy few weeks in the 4/5/6 classroom, including having a fantastic time on Melbourne Camp a couple of weeks ago.

Character Strengths: Recently, everyone in our class took a Character Strengths survey. This survey ranked students’ 24 character strengths from their strongest to their weakest strength. This has been a great opportunity for students to recognise their strengths and identify areas for growth. I will be posting these on Seesaw later this week. 

Phonics: In Phonics we have been focusing on the sound /f/ and exploring the different spellings of this sound. Year 4 students have been working on words such as; before and photo, and Year 5/6 students have been working on words such as; triumphant and circumference.

Maths: In Maths we have been finishing our Place Value unit. We have been working on factors and multiples, ordering numbers and rounding large numbers to help with estimating.

Religion: In Religion we have been reflecting on the sacrament of Reconciliation in preparation for some students completing this sacrament next week. We have been unpacking forgiveness and how this may look in our lives. 

Tahlia Whytcross
twhytcross@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

School Photo Day

School Photos 2024 – St Brendan's Catholic Primary School

Annual school photos including sibling photos will be taken by Arthur Reed Photos on Wednesday 17th April 2024.

There is no need to return any forms or money to school.

Unique image codes will be issued to all students on/after photo day so families can register online to view images when they become available in the webshop.

Registration is simple, just follow the 3 simple steps on your child’s personalised flyer once you receive it and remember to add the codes for all your children attending this school.

Even if you registered last year, it’s important that you do again this year using your child’s 2024 image code to link their images for the current year with your contact details.

When images are ready to view and in the webshop, all parents who have registered will be notified by SMS and email.

Once registered, please wait for notification that 2024 images are online to view before making your purchase. 

Birthday Corner

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

15th March   -   Liam Wilson (9)

Important Dates

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