Newsletter Term 3 Week 7

‘Play it on’, our Term 3 charity initiative led by the SRC, was a great success. Each recess across two weeks the SRC Executive and friends gave their time to selling over 1000 raffle tickets. This was very popular, with students bringing in their pocket money to win themselves or their dad a special prize. We raised an amazing $500.00 which will support disadvantaged children so they can have opportunities to play team sports. There were ten winners in all. Thank you for your support.

Fees to reduce across all Catholic Diocesan Primary Schools

The South Australian Commission for Catholic Schools has announced that it will make Catholic education more affordable by lowering the school fees of every Catholic diocesan primary school in 2021 under its Making Catholic Education More Affordable initiative.

The exact level of fee reduction in each diocesan primary school will vary from school to school to take into account their circumstances and the needs of their families.

Our school is working with Catholic Education South Australia to finalise our fees for 2021 and these will be released in the coming weeks.

There is more information about the initiative in the letter sent from the Chair of the South Australian Commission for Catholic Schools to families this week and on the Catholic Education South Australia website at cesa.catholic.edu.au/fee-reductions

Letter from the Catholic Education Office.

Dear Families,

Many thanks to our teachers who have spent many hours, before and after school, running Parent/Teacher Interviews.  It was great to be able to offer these in a face-to-face format as well. The next official communication from the school will be the end of year reports that will come home at the end of term 4.  However, as always, if you have any concerns please contact your child’s class teacher.

CV-19 IMPACTS ON COMING EVENTS
There are quite a few events approaching for the remainder of this term.  It comes as no surprise to anyone that these events have or could be impacted by Coronavirus in one way or the other. This is frustrating for everyone, but it is worth considering that we are quite fortunate to have our students at school and that we are in a State, where we can hold these events at all!  It is only natural for every child and adult to wish things could be run in the normal way, but as we all know this is not possible, at this stage.

The CV-19 theme for the remainder of the year is to be agile and flexible, when planning events!

We have reviewed the list of events for term 4 with the staff and the Parents and Friends. Next week this information will also be presented to the School Board.   The following term 4 events have been flagged as requiring a review, closer to the date:

Week 2 – Book Week

Week 8 – Graduation Assembly

Week 8 – Carols Night

Week 9 – Graduation Dinner

ASSEMBLY
​Last week, we held our first assembly for the term.  There were quite a few certificates handed out and a number of very excited children too!  For this event we divided the School into three groups and gathered in the marvellous Stella Maris Room.

Hello Friends

It was great to welcome spring officially on Tuesday this week. I always look for the first signs of spring in the garden at home and usually it’s the yellow Genista trees. Sure enough on Monday morning there were tufts of yellow on the branches.  I do hope though that there has been sufficient rain across winter to support our farmers and primary producers.  

Lost Property  
Our lost property box is overflowing with lost items from around the school. Many items in the box are not labelled and therefore it is very difficult to return the items to the rightful owner. Please label all items that come to school. There are a lot of lunchboxes and food containers in there at present and some of these items are quite expensive. On Friday 11 September the Lost Property Box will be emptied of any items that are not labelled and these items will be recycled. 

Each year we give parents some opportunity for input regarding the placement of students for the following year. This exercise is about considering your child’s educational needs. It is not an exercise in selecting your child’s teacher. I have always held the belief that the class teacher is the person in the best position to make judgments about the educational needs of your child and hopefully, all matters of concern about your child’s needs should have been expressed to the teacher early in the school year. The school is consultative in this matter; however, the final decision rests with the class teachers. It is my responsibility as Principal to support the judgment of teachers that I entrust with this decision.

It seems that each year there is increasing apprehension about this process. Some requests are unworkable and not in keeping with our school ethos and not about teaching children the skills of resilience, persistence and getting along. Experience indicates that once the year gets underway, the students adjust to their new teacher and they get on with life in their new class. Change is inevitable and during this process I would encourage all parents to support their child in embracing change, rather than shielding them from new opportunities for learning. Throughout a child’s education, they will encounter a range of teachers and each teacher brings a set of gifts that they share with each child. Diversity enriches the learning of each student.

Teachers will begin the process of class placements in the weeks ahead with the hope of having them finalised in Term 4. This process takes many hours of work to ensure classes have a balance of gender, and learning and social needs. If you think there is some aspect of your child’s learning that requires further consideration, please put your issues in writing on the Class Placement form available from the Front Office, or you can download a form from the school’s website www.star.catholic.edu.au Please return the forms to Vivian DePalma. Forms stating the names of teachers that you do or do not want will be returned and not considered. The class placement forms need to be submitted by Friday 25 September 2020.

Damian Weeks

Planning for enrolments and staffing for 2021 is now underway. A form was sent home recently with your child to let us know if she/he will be returning to Star of the Sea in 2021. If you haven’t returned this form please send it back to the class teacher by Friday 11 September. It is important that we know if your child is returning next year so we can appropriately plan programmes and resources to meet your child’s learning and wellbeing needs. This information is also timely as one term’s notice is required if you intend to conclude your child’s enrolment.

Behaviour Issues Between Students and the role of the Parent
Just a reminder that if an issue arises between students at school, please leave it to the school to deal with.  Parents should not be ringing other parents about these matters. 

Ups and downs at school are part of life for many young people. A good relationship with your child’s school and teachers can help you head off problems. If school problems do come up, it’s important that they are recognised and addressed. Please contact the classroom teacher if an issue needs following up.

I am pleased to share with you our plans for Sports Day, according to the current CV-19 regulations, which of course could change! 

I am sorry to say that parents will not be able to attend this event this year.  I know that this is disappointing but that you will understand that it is not possible under current conditions.  Teachers have organised class reps to help on the day.

Food – The canteen will be offering a special deals for the day.  Orders are via QKR and these close on Thursday 17th September.  I am sure you will understand that with a large amount food preparation that the canteen will not be able to take orders on the day.  Children not ordering from the canteen will need to bring their lunch with them on the day.

Click below to see the program for the day.

Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children.” Mt 11:25

The last two weeks have seen our students take on leadership roles in the school. A group of Year 4 girls have run five ‘Dance for Fun’ lunchtimes, where different year levels could come and show their dance moves to an appreciative audience. We finished by joining in some all-time favourites such as the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey.

The Stella Maris Room was a wonderful venue for this. All participants earned House Points towards Sports Day: Fitzpatrick – 1250, McAuley – 2050, Coolock – 2650 and MacKillop -  2950. It was a privilege for me to be part of their plans and support their enthusiastic endeavour and it made me smile when one girl checked in with me to make sure it wasn’t all getting too much for me!

Each day at Star of the Sea is a blessing.
Stella Foley

Congratulations to SAPSASA Airport District Girls and Boys Soccer team who were successful in winning the 2020 SAPSASA Metro Soccer Carnival, the Girls came a draw with South West.  Congratulations to Ciara O’Reilly, Jessica Burton and Maeve Nicholas who were selected to represent Airport Districts in the Soccer. 

Reception Swimming begins next week with RHB, Year 1 & 2 swimming during Week 9.   All info on Skoolbag app. 

Athletic training has been on for the past 3 weeks, with times and distances being taken next week (Year 5’s in Wk 9 once they get back from camp).  Days and times will come out through the Skoolbag app.  Stay tuned.

I have been informed this week that the SACPSSA Section 1 Swimming Carnival that was cancelled in Term 1 due to Covid has now been cancelled permanently for 2020.  SACPSSA Swimming Carnivals will resume in 2021.

Just reminding Parents that due to Covid19 restrictions spectators are still not allowed at the SACPSSA Carnivals / Events.  This is also the case with the Star of the Sea School Sports Day.  These restrictions are as a result of the accumulation of Catholic Education, SACPSSA, St Michaels and Star of the Sea Covid plans which are all in conjunction with SA Health. 

Kristen Victory
Sports Coordinator/Teacher

Classroom STEM Learning 
In Reception classes this week we learned how to use the Apple iPad app Clips to record video, photos and voice over to create a short clip to show our understanding. Here are a few photos of us investigating how Clips works. 

Year 5 learners are up to the test and improve stage of the Engineering Design Process. We are trialing other games and checking them against our learning criteria and giving improvement ideas and feedback to the designers as well as making the final design touches to our games. All the games we design will help the user learn something about the country we have been researching. We can’t wait to share a few of our completed games with you towards the end of term. Here is a photo of one our key game testers in Year 5 working hard. 

Cyber Safety  
We recently applied for a joint Project Rocket Google grant to provide digital citizenship webinars for our school. We were successful and will be booking these webinars in with our Year 5 and 6 students in the coming months. To read more about the grant and the webinar content please visit https://www.projectrockit.com.au/schools-grant/  

We will be still running our Carly Ryan Foundation in person student sessions for Year 5 and 6 learners at school this September. We have decided to postpone a parent session until we can confidently invite the whole community. Please keep an eye out for an early 2021 date announcement coming soon. To learn more about the Carly Ryan Foundation student sessions visit https://www.carlyryanfoundation.com/book-a-session/book-student-sessions and download the brochure for Online Safety Sessions. 

Security Update 
This term the IT staff have worked hard to improve IT security of devices and infrastructure at Star of the Sea School, as well as ensure we are in line with current CESA policies. We have moved to Multi Factor Authentication, where you need to have 2 devices handy to log in to your school emails as well as improve the administration of student MacBooks to ensure any application not approved by the teacher for learning purposes cannot be installed or accessed on a school MacBook. We have given students a two-week warning to save any data they wish to keep to something other than their Mac before all devices will be checked and anything unauthorized uninstalled. The ability to install and play these applications has already been restricted.