Dear Parents and Carers,

It was a lovely farewell for Lisa Monro last week, thank you to all our families for your gifts and kindness and to those who attended on Saturday night. Lisa was truly overwhelmed with everyone’s good wishes.

A huge welcome to Lynda Logan our new office manager who has been working the past week as part of a handover process. Lynda joins us from St Thomas Aquinas Charnwood where she held the position of Office Manager for their busy Early Learning Centre. She is excited to join us, and I know you will make her feel welcome as she settles in and gets to know our wonderful community.

Covid Updates

I want to acknowledge that it is tricky for families when our Covid updates provide minimal information around cases. This is a mandated process from Catholic Education to ensure that there are no privacy breaches around the identification of students, families or staff. Making sure that our community is safe and ensuring we have clear and updated information is our top priority, if you have not downloaded the COMPASS App, please ensure you do this as you will have the latest information available in the parent portal.

If your child experiences any cold or flu symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, runny or blocked nose they should undertake a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) test, these have been sent home.

If the test is negative but your child is still unwell, they should stay at home and undergo a PCR test (polymerase chain reaction) if this is negative and your child feels well and is not experiencing symptoms they can return to school.

If your child tests positive; Please email the school

office.stmichaelsps@cg.catholic.edu.au

damien.webb@cg.catholic.edu.au

In the ACT, everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 must isolate for at least 7 days (where the day of your test is day zero).

If your child tests positive for COVID-19 with a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT), you must register with ACT Health using an online form.

If someone in your household tests positive you are a household contact this means you need to have a test as soon as you can and quarantine for 7 days from the date of collection of the positive COVID-19 test result (day 0) of first case in your household.

If your child is unwell, please do not send them to school and if you have any further questions please visit; https://www.covid19.act.gov.au/home

Our parents and community have been vigilant and supportive around keeping everyone safe and it is important that we all continue to follow the ACT Government Health advice.

This week I will be attending the Catholic Leaders Day and Retreat and sincerely thank Damien Webb for his leadership in my absence.

Thank you for your continued support.

Many Blessings

Judy Egan      

Emails sent to School 

Previously, if you have emailed Lisa Monro directly for any school correspondance, please note this email is no longer active.

For all correspondance please email:office.stmichaelsps@cg.catholic.edu.au

Recording of Student Absences

A notification went home via Compass reminding parents/carers to ensure the school is provided notes for absences. It is a legal requirement for schools to ensure they have documentation around student absences, and we need your help. Please follow the instructions on the Parent Portal to send an absent note or email the front office and let us know.

office.stmichaelsps@cg.catholic.edu.au

We will be sending reminders each Thursday to any families missing notes, this is a generated email from compass, please email or phone the front office if you have any concerns. 

Kind Regards

Judy Egan
Principal

Thank you to everyone that donated to help support my cycling efforts to Charlotte’s Pass. These donations have all been passed on to the amazing team at Hartley House in Canberra.

The weather was not favourable, and the first two days of the three-day ride consisted of heavy rain and wind. There were multiple cases of hypothermia, but every rider was well trained and pushed through. Day 3 was a magnificent day and our average speeds were up and we got back home in record time. It certainly was a challenge, but we managed to finish the ride safely and were smiling at the end.

Overall, the event raised close to $500,000 and I am very excited to be riding again for Hartley in November.

Many thanks

Mr Webb 

Religious Education around our school – Spotlight on staff – sharing our prayer life

With our focus on being ‘Faithful in Prayer’ this year I’ve asked some of our staff to share their thoughts on their own prayer life. They made me go first of course! 

I find regular prayer really important to keep me balanced and try to ensure it is a regular part of my every day. I love taking my prayers to God at the end of the day and feeling like I have a greater being looking after me. I’m regularly inspired by nature and the beauty of God’s Creation and try to remember to say ‘thank you’ to God when I notice something particularly beautiful or awe-inspiring – even if it’s whilst walking the dog or out gardening. I feel so lucky to work in an environment where regular prayer is supported and enjoy the opportunities to pray with Staff, in the classroom and together as a whole school for special liturgical events. Mass for me is key to my prayer life and I work hard to enjoy regularly attending Mass at St Michael’s and really notice it if I am unable to go for a little while.

Meaghan Younger – REC & 5/6 Teacher

Religious Life of St Michael’s

Project Compassion boxes / Lenten Appeal

If you did not receive your small money box for the Project Compassion Lenten Appeal there are some left at school. Please send me an email or just ask your child to come ask me for another one. Once they are filled please return them to the Front Office or the Church. Thank you for your generous support of this important fundraiser.

Week 2 Caritas – This week we meet Biru from India

Biru lives in a rural village in India. He lost mobility in one of his legs, after contracting polio as a child, which makes it difficult for him to walk. He managed to complete his education until grade six but was always dependent on his parents to get him to school because he was unable to walk so far on his own.

A member of India’s Ho ethnic minority population, Biru started to work as a shepherd from a young age, looking after other people’s cattle. He continued this work, after he married his wife, Budhni, and had four daughters, even though keeping up with the cattle was a challenge.

Library Matters

Thank You

Thank you to the El Cheikh, Clark, Copping, Thomas, Kingham and Halley families for kindly covering new books for our library.  Your time and efforts having been greatly appreciated by the students who have enjoyed reading the new books! If you are willing to assist we love to hear from you.

Chief Minister's Reading Challenge

This week we launched the Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge! All students will participate in the challenge this year, which sees them aim to read 30 books by August. The challenge will be completed at school during class and library lessons.

Families can also complete the challenge at home, if they wish. More information can be found at https://www.education.act.gov.au/public-school-life/additional-programs/chief_ministers_reading_challenge

Each completed form (whether completed at school or at home) can be placed in the barrel in the library for the chance to win a prize. Prizes will be drawn when the challenge concludes on 19^th August.

Happy reading over the long weekend!

Erin Hardwicke

Erin.hardwicke@cg.catholic.edu.au

Parish Sacramental Program 2022
If you have a child in Years 3, 4, or 6 in 2022, this will be a Sacramental year.

This also applies if your child is in Year 5 and he/she has previously missed the Sacraments of Reconciliation and/or First Eucharist.

Sacrament of First Eucharist will be celebrated on the weekend of 18 and 19 June 2022 (Corpus Christs Sunday) across the four Sunday Masses.

6pm - 18 June at St Monica’s Church – Evatt;

8am - 19 June at St Michael’s Church – Kaleen;

10am – 19 June at St Monica’s Church – Evatt; and

5.30pm – 19 June at St Michael’s Church – Kaleen.

Registration for the Sacrament of First Eucharist

Registration must be made via the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Qkr! App.

Registrations will open on Monday 4 April 2022 and will close by Friday 29 April 2022.
No further registration will be accepted after the closing date.

Commitment Masses
Students and parents must attend one of the weekend Masses at either St Monica’s Church (6pm Saturday or 10am Sunday) or St Michael’s Church (8am or 5.30pm Sunday) on one of the dates listed below to make their commitment for the Sacrament.
Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May
Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 May
There will be no additional commitment masses beyond these dates.

Confirmation will be celebrated in Term 3, 2022.

Reconciliation will be celebrated in Term 4, 2022.

For further Information – please contact the Sacramental Program Coordinator at sc.belconnennorth@cg.org.au or check the parish website for updates at www.cg.org.au/belconnennorth

Special wishes to those children who will celebrate their birthday this week:

Sebastian 1/2B, Milos 1/2B, Felix 1/2B, Chloe 3/4L, Zanna 3/4F

We hope you have a great day!!

Congratulations to the following students who achieved a Harmony Award in Week 5.  Awards will be handed out to students during the day on Friday.

Well done!!   

As several of the students at our school have a life threatening allergy to nuts and related products we have adopted a NUT FREE policy. 

Our school does not sell any nut products and we ask you to support our efforts by ensuring that your child does not bring peanuts, peanut butter, nutella or other nut related products to school in their lunch boxes.  This will require you to take note of the content of items such as muesli bars etc.

We appreciate your support in ensuring the health and safety of all our students.

School photos will be taken on Friday 18th March.  Photos can now be ordered through the Parent Portal, please see link below on how to order:

Below is a video on how a parent orders through the Compass portal – family orders are all online as well.

https://www.loom.com/share/31a090ae64a74b7ca52a9e050eae30dc

Could all students please remember to wear full school uniform on the day.

Parent Support Network

Dear Parents

We are calling for nominations for parents to be the class representatives on the Parent Support Network.

This network would help support communication between the classroom teacher/s and the parents in the class. These networks have proven very successful in past, but with the interruptions of the past 2 years, we haven’t called for parent volunteers since 2019.

We are looking forward to getting this network up and running again and helping everyone stay connected and continuing to build our wonderful school community.

Parents on the network will receive a copy of the email address of the families in the class and there will be a short digital meeting in the coming weeks with Mr Webb to discuss the simple duties of the role and the ways that you can support the class. It is not a time consuming role, so the commitment to role is certainly not demanding 

If you are interested please email Mr Webb, damien.webb@cg.catholic.edu.au and include the following information

• Your name and name of child
• Class of child
• Email address
• Best contact phone number

Once again, thank you all for the continued support

Many thanks

Mr Webb