Term 3 Week 6

At the start of this week, we joined with St Martin’s school for a joint staff retreat day. As a catholic school in the parish of Greenacres and Walkerville Parish, it was a very special opportunity to meet and work with our colleagues from Greenacres on the topic of finding God in our everyday lives. Led by Val De Brenni, an experienced spiritual leader and facilitator, we were gifted with the time to sit quietly and consider the environment we were in and be aware of the presence of God. Always present, always with us. During the last two and a half years of uncertainty, having the chance to sit and be still was very much appreciated by all the staff in attendance. I hope that each of you can find some small window of stillness in your busy lives. Take the chance to catch your breath and listen to what your body and heart are saying to you.

Today we went 'live' with our bookings for our 2022 Student Led Learning Conversations. These conversations are a bit different to a ‘typical’ parent teacher meeting. Our intention with these conversations, is for the child to use his/her voice to share with you how they are meeting their learning goals, what their next steps are and if they are facing challenges, what their strategies are for meeting them. The teacher will be present in the room to assist your child with the conversation, but predominantly it will be student led. For each 15 minute time slot, 3 students and their families will be in the classroom.  If you would like to see a model of what these conversations will look like, please use the link that I have included here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_WBSInDc2E

We had planned to have initiated these conversations last year but COVID made us put the pause on them. We are very excited that we are able to revisit these important conversations with you and your child. Please make a booking online through the email that will be sent to you from your child’s teacher and further information will be sent home in the week leading up to these meetings. Miss Ryan's Reception class will have a different booking system and this is also being shared to day via email. 

Recently, you may have read or heard the Minister for Education, Blair Boyer, speak publically about the State Government’s approach to addressing chronic student absenteeism and the impact that this has on a child’s learning and wellbeing. The Catholic Education system has asked each school to monitor its data on attendance records. If your child is unwell and needs to stay home, this isunderstandable but please let our front office know so we can complete our attendance records accurately. If we don’t hear from you and your child is away, they will be marked down as an unapproved absence. Thank you for your support with this.

 An email was sent to each family earlier this week sharing the sad news of Peter Eden’s passing. Peter was the much loved husband of Maddalena Eden, our wonderful Italian teacher and Year 4 PE co-teacher. We send all our love and support to Maddalena and her family at this sad time. 

It was wonderful to have so many special gentlemen with us this morning for breakfast and our liturgy. Having these community gatherings are what makes a school community extra special - time together. A huge thank you to all the staff who made this morning possible by cooking and their service - an amazingly generous group of people.

I hope all our amazing dads and special blokes have a truly relaxing and wonderful Father’s Day on Sunday. You are all very special and loved dearly.

Blessings,

Emily Sayer

Principal

Due to meeting correct staffing ratios and requirements (qualified staff), families must book their child/ren into afternoon OSHC by 1 pm of the day required. This then allows Ms Byrne or myself to try to organise extra staff if required. If you have a permanent booking each week, you do not need to make a daily booking. Thank you for your support with this.

Today we celebrated the fathers and grandfathers and special men of our community with a BBQ Breakfast and Liturgy. Thank you for all who were able to attend to help make it a truly special St Monica's Community event. 

Our wonderful Parents and Friends group made shopping for a Father's Day present easy with a well organised stall full of great presents. We thank this amazing group of people who support our community so beautifully. 

We wish to thank Skara Artisa Small Goods & Slape and Sons for their very generous donation of the bacon and vegetable patties we all enjoyed at the breakfast.  Lastly a HUGE thankyou to Carolyn Easterbrook for organising these generous donations. 

Happy Father's Day to you all!

Congratulations to the students who celebrated there First Holy Communion over the past weekends. This weekend all students and families who were involved in this years Sacramental Program are invited to Mass to celebrate the complettion of their Sacraments of Initiation. Mass times;

Satuday 3rd,  6pm St Monica's Church OR Sunday 4th, 9.30am St Martin's Church.

Can all students involved in Children's Univiersity 2022 please bring their passports and any documentation to school next Friday 9 September. This is a friendly reminder that students wishing to graduate in term 4, will need to finalise their hours by the end of this term.

Premier’s Reading Challenge – reading concludes on Friday 9^th September 2022 – please return completed PRC forms to the Library by the 9^th September.  Thank you

Premier’s be active Challenge concludes 23rd September 2022

Scholastic Book Club Issue 6 orders close Monday 12^th September.

Each class spent a lesson with Jon learning how to play his weird and wonderful home-made instruments. At the end of the day all Years 2-6 students put on a performance for the Early Years classes to share their learning and celebrate a fun day of music making. 

The Year 5 students of Saint Monica’s went to 'Live at the Gov' to see Kildare College perform a concert with lots of awesome songs. The theme for their songs was Australian music.

We were just watching for the first few songs and then we got up and started to dance. The Kildare students came and joined us and taught us some moves. We really enjoyed dancing with the older girls, and we thought that the girls on stage felt a little more enthusiastic in their performance when we were dancing.

By the end of the concert, we were all talking about how awesome this excursion was. We would definitely love to go back and see all the wonderful musicians again.

Thanks Kildare for such a great experience.

by Ella and Annabelle Yr 5MM

Congratulations to our guitar and voice tutor Ella and her sister Sienna who won the REBOOT Competition at the NQ's Rock'n Country Music Festival in Mackay last weekend. This means they are off to Nashville, USA next year to record a new single. 🎤🎼🇺🇸

Congratulations to you both 🙌 We can’t wait to hear what you produce in the home of country music!

Here's also the link to our website if you want to grab any info from our general bio's;

https://ellaandsiennamusic.com/

St Monica’s acknowledge the Kaurna People as the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we live, learn and work. We acknowledge the continued deep spiritual connection and relationship of Aboriginal peoples to this country and commit to the ongoing journey of Reconciliation.