Newsletter Term 1 Week 3

Dear Families

Our two weeks at school have been a very successful start! We devote most of this time to social and emotional learning, which is the beginning of our Student Wellbeing program which continues throughout the school year.  This week we have begun to turn our attention to the curriculum and academic learning.

PARENT TEACHER CHATS
Teachers have been putting in long hours last week offering an opportunity to meet your child’s teacher.  If you missed the opportunity, please contact your child’s teacher directly. 

PLAYGROUP
Our very popular playgroup began last week.  It is again held on Tuesdays in the Parish Hall.  The group is run in conjunction with the Parish and is for any child in our wider community, accompanied by Parents or Grandparents or Caregivers.  Bookings are not necessary just turn up at 9:30am.

SCHOOL ROUTINES
As school routines begin to take shape you will notice that homework will beginning to appear, the majority of which is reading.  The importance of reading cannot be underestimated and has been the topic of thousands of pieces of research.  For example, in a study of the out-of-school activities of fifth graders, Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding (1988) found that time spent reading books was the best predictor of a student’s reading proficiency.  Some examples from the study are…

• A student reading at home for 2 minutes a day would read 100 000 words a year and would be in the bottom third of reading ability when compared with all 10 year olds
• If that student increased their reading by 10 minutes a day, they would bump up into the top third of reading ability when compared to all 10 year olds
• Those students in the top 10% of readers, when compared with all 10 year olds, read for 21 minutes a day, reading nearly 2 million words a year away from school

Please keep in mind that when children bring home readers they should be quite easy for them to read.  The rule of thumb is no more than 5 errors per 100 words, this is because the aim of reading is to comprehend the text.

AUDIRI application is our major link to families delivering school alerts, information as well as our new electronic version of the school newsletter instantly and directly to your smartphone and/or tablet.  In your devices “App Store” search for “Audiri” and follow the very simple instructions.

STAR OF THE SEA SCHOOL FACEBOOK SITE
This year we are continuing our Facebook site to celebrate some of the fantastic things happening around our school.  On Facebook you can search for our site by using Star of the Sea School.

SCHOOL HOURS
Just a reminder that children are welcome at school from 8:20am, when our gates are opened and teachers are on yard duty.  In the morning children can play in the Nature play area, on the MDC courts or playground.  This year there is no playing on the oval before and after school.

At the end of the day, we supervise children in the yard till around 3:25pm.  Any remaining children are then seated in the front office and should be picked up no later than 3:30pm.

CARS AND CHILDREN
The safety of our children is paramount to the operation of any school and where our children and cars share the same space every care is needed.  We make many appeals to parents about parking, kiss and drop etc.  Sometimes we have neighbours and their visitors or workmen not paying attention to the parking signs.  In our last newsletter you will have found a full description on this.

SHROVE TUESDAY
Many thanks for all the pancake mix and condiments that the older children brought along.  Thank you also goes to the many volunteers on the day who cooked, cleaned and served the pancakes.

ASH WEDNESDAY LITURGY
With Father Manu away we held a liturgy in the church this year, run by our APRIM Domenique Laurendi.  I must commend the children on their behaviour in the Church which was excellent.  Next week we have our beginning of the Year Mass and again invite any adults to come along, Thursday 11:30am in the Church.

CARTNAVALE
Congratulations to Lisa Lata and Tania Condelli for putting on this fantastic event last Friday.  It was a great way to bring the community together and a great way to start the year.

Kind regards
Damian Weeks

Dear Families,

Welcome to Week 3!   It has been amazing to see our students settling into school routines, developing and strengthening relationships with their peers, teachers and ESO’s and forming positive learning experiences.  It has been wonderful getting to know many of the Star of the Sea students and families and I thank you all for the continued warm welcome.

LUNCH TIME CLUBS
We are extremely fortunate to run lunch time clubs at school for students in both the Early Years (R-2) and Primary Years (3-6).  Lunchtime clubs are an opportunity for students to have fun and interact with peers, including peers from different year levels, who have similar interests and passions.   They help build student engagement and social skills for all students and provide opportunities for students who may like a quieter place to play during their break. 

Lunchtime clubs can also have the following benefits for students including:

• Engagement in teamwork, co-operation and collaboration 
• Opportunity to increase interests, knowledge and skills 
• Increasing feeling of safety whilst at school 
• Decreasing loneliness 
• Learning social cues and opportunity to practice social skills 

Whilst we have many resources for lunch time club including games and puzzles, we are always on the hunt for more to provide a wide variety of activities for our students.  If you have some items in great condition that you no longer need and would like to donate to the school for lunch time club, we would greatly appreciate it.

Items include:

• Puzzles
• Board Games
• Lego/Duplo
• Marble Runs

Any donations can be made directly to the front office.  Thanks for your support and generosity. 

MEET THE TEACHER
It has been wonderful to see so many families take up the opportunity to come and meet their child’s class teacher. I know our educators have found these meetings beneficial in building a learner profile and working in partnership with you to support your child. As you are aware, open communication at Star of the Sea is vital and welcomed. Your child’s class teacher should be your first point of call if you have any concerns or celebrations you wish to share.

NAPLAN (National Assessment Program- Literacy and Numeracy)
At Star of the Sea School, our Year 3 and Year 5 students will be sitting the NAPLAN assessments during Week 7 and 8 of this term. The NAPLAN assessments are linked to the Australian Curriculum. The aim is to determine whether students are developing the essential skills; predominately in literacy and numeracy, that they will need in life. It is important to understand that this is one form of assessment that is used to gather data about your child’s attainment of literacy and numeracy skills. At Star of the Sea, we use a variety of ongoing assessment and reporting processes to inform our teaching and support student learning.   If you have any questions regarding NAPLAN, please contact your child’s class teacher.

CANTEEN
A reminder for families to ensure recess and lunch is packed each day for you children.  We understand that sometimes lunch boxes are forgotten but getting your children into a positive routine by packing their own schoolbags everyday will really help with this. We kindly provide something small from the canteen when recess or lunch is forgotten but this has some impact on the running costs of our canteen.  We want to ensure our school canteen continues to be financially successful for our school community and your support will really help with this.   

2024 CATHOLIC EDUCATION AWARDS 
Nominations are now open for the 2024 Catholic Education Awards. The awards will be presented as part of Catholic Education Week in May. Nominations close March 8 2024.  Please find further information below from the link: https://awards.cesa.catholic.edu.au/

Have a safe and happy fortnight.
Annette Diassinas

Just as there are seasons of the year: Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. So too, the Church’s year has seasons. Each season celebrates a part of Jesus’ life.

This week was a very important time in our Liturgical Calendar. It began with Shrove Tuesday followed by Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a new season in the Church’s year. The tradition of the Church has been to see Lent as a time of renewal and preparation for the great feast of Easter.

On Tuesday our students celebrated Shrove Tuesday by eating yummy pancakes that were cooked and prepared by our wonderful parent helpers. A huge THANKYOU to Michael Burgan, Joe Rachou, Pina Birbas and all the parent helpers who came  and served all the pancakes.

Also a big shout out to the families of the Year 4 students for supplying the mixture and the Year 6 families for supplying the condiments. 

An absolute testament to our wonderful community here. We are truly blessed.

Yesterday our school marked the beginning of the Church’s season of Lent by celebrating with a whole school liturgy in our church. Our students and school community were marked with ashes on their forehead. This is a public expression of our faith and humility. Lent is a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  

During our celebration each class received a Project Compassion gift bag. These contain boxes which will be sent home to collect donations for Caritas Australia.

Project Compassion
During the season of Lent we have been called to Pray Fast and Almsgiving. ‘Alms’ is what we do and give to people in need. As a school community we are Almsgiving by supporting Project Compassion. We thank our families who will generously to Project Compassion through money donations. Donations can also be made via QKR.

Kind regards
Dominque Laurendi

Peanuts are the leading cause of severe allergic reactions, followed by tree nuts, shellfish, fish and milk. Adrenaline/epinephrine is the first line treatment for severe allergic reactions and can be administered via auto-injector, called the EpiPen®.

To learn more about anaphylaxis and food allergies, go to www.allergyfacts.org.au and www.allergy.org.au

As the only way to manage a food allergy is avoidance, the school has implemented several strategies to help prevent a severe allergic reaction. We can never totally eliminate the risk of an anaphylaxis but we can all do things that will help lessen the risk. Please consider the child with food allergy when packing your child’s lunch or when sending in food for any occasion, including school excursions.  Foods that ‘May contain traces of nuts or nut products’ are fine for the non- allergic students to consume at school as long as they do not share food.