Term 3 Week 7

Dear Star of the Sea Families

The big picture on learning
Thank you for your continued commitment to the home school partnership. There is no doubt that the quality of the home and school partnership that we enter into from enrolment, has a significant impact on each child's learning outcomes throughout their time at school.

In Catholic Education we believe that each and every person is made in the Image of God, and each person has their own unique strengths and ways of learning. This means that educational opportunity isn't only about cognitive development it also emphasises physical coordination and capability, spiritual development and social emotional learning.

Catering for children's social emotional development is fundamental to each child's success as a learner, as this aspect of learning gives children real life  opportunities to learn resilience, self-awareness, empathy and responsibility, all of which lay a strong foundation for them to be a successful student of life.

In this way, each child's education is also about working with parents to discuss how each child is learning about our school values of respect, inclusivity, compassion, collaboration and honesty. These core values are fundamental to the learning opportunities we provide and very often relate to children's decision making. As is the case with other areas of learning, children need our support and feedback and the opportunity to reflect, try again, and learn to build their social emotional capability. This learning is what guides and shapes the type of people we become and how we contribute to our class, our family, our community.

As part of the outstanding daily work staff commit to each child's learning development, social emotional learning features strongly, as we know that children need ongoing additional support in this area because it not only impacts how they see themselves and others it also impacts their learning in other areas of development. Fundamentally, success in this area of development is a precursor to effective learning throughout life.

Canteen survey
At a time when many school canteens have closed, our school is very fortunate to still have a fully functioning canteen. My thanks and appreciation to Dee, our school Canteen Manager who has done an outstanding job of not only keeping our canteen running effectively but also encouraging a canteen survey. The purpose of the canteen survey is to seek feedback from families as to what extent our canteen menu aligns with what families are seeking. 

The canteen survey accompanies our newsletter this week and I encourage all families to complete this survey which only takes a few minutes to complete.  Your responses in the survey will help to inform any future menu changes. Click here to access the canteen survey.

My thanks to the Education Sub Committe of the School Board who are supporting this review and who will assist me in the analysis of data we receive from your responses.

In the coming weeks
As we enter into the final few weeks of the term, I am looking forward to the upcoming swimming experiences our Reception to Year 3 students will be participating in, Year 5 camp, Year 6 Canberra trip, sporting opportunities and sacramental celebrations. Thank you to our dedicated staff for the time committed to the preparation of these opportunities which enhance children's learning development.

Until next newsletter, wishing all families much peace and joy over the coming weeks...

Gemma D'Angelo
Acting Principal

Dear Families,

It has been lovely to experience some more sunshine recently as we are now in the season of Spring. Mother Nature certainly blessed us with wonderful weather on Sunday for Father’s Day, and we hope that all Fathers and Grandfathers had a very special day.

Sustainability Focus
Last week at our Whole School Assembly our Eco Warriors talked to us about the importance of caring for our environment. At Star of the Sea, our Eco Warriors are a group of dedicated Year 6 students who give up some of their time every Friday afternoon to help look after our school environment. They help with sorting our rubbish, cleaning and caring for our school spaces and working in our school garden.

The Eco Warriors explained that recently some wonderful volunteers from KESAB visited our school to work with them. Together they collected and audited the rubbish that our school created in one single day. This came to a total of 117 Litres of rubbish! We learnt that a lot of what we are currently putting in the red landfill bins can actually be put in the food scrap bins, or the recycling bins to cut down on the amount of rubbish going to landfill.

As a school, we would really like to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill.  Some of the actions we can take are;

• Packing ‘nude food’ in our lunch boxes – ‘nude food’ is food that does not have any wrappers or plastic involved (please see the images below for some examples)
• Taking any uneaten food back home in our lunchboxes
• If we do bring food in wrappers or plastic wrap, we will take them home with us
• Only putting paper in the paper bin when both sides are used – otherwise keep in a ‘scrap paper’ box
• Putting rubbish in the correct bins

We thank you in advance for your support in embracing these changes as we collectively work towards becoming an almost waste free school!

Upcoming Events
With just over 3 weeks remaining in Term 3, there are still many events yet to come.

Week 8
Next week sees our Reception and Year 1 students travelling to Immanuel College for their swimming lessons on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday will be a ‘rest’ day, with no swimming scheduled. The students are very excited about getting in the pool and developing their swimming skills.

On Wednesday next week, our Year 5 students will board the bus and head to El Shaddai camp at Wellington for their much awaited camp. The students will take part in a variety of activities throughout the 2 night, 3 day camp.

Week 9
In Week 9 it will be our Year 2 and 3 students turn for swimming as they head to Immanuel College.  Again, their swimming lessons will take place on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday will be a ‘rest’ day, with no swimming scheduled. The students thoroughly enjoyed their swimming lessons last year and are eager to get back into the pools.

Our Year 6 students will have a very early start to the day on Wednesday of Week 9 as they need to be at the airport bright and early to catch an early morning flight to Canberra. Their 3-day trip will be action packed, including visits to Parliament House, Adelaide War Memorial, ANZAC Parade, The Royal Australian Mint, Questacon and the Museum of Australian Democracy. We look forward to sharing more about their travels in our next newsletter.

Wishing you all a wonderful remainder of the week and weekend, hopefully with some sunshine.

Warm regards,

Sheena Pattinson
Acting Deputy Principal

The Season of Creation is the annual Christian celebration to pray and respond together to the cry of creation: The ecumenical family around the World unites to listen to, and care for our ‘Common Home’. Season of Creation celebrations begins on Friday 1 September - the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and ends on Wednesday 4 October - the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christians.

This year we will unite, in prayer, around the theme, “Let Justice and Peace Flow”.
As a school community we are called to listen to the call of justice and peace and take action.

What does this action look like?
We can all do our part to look after our earth and to take time to experience God’s love through creation.

Some simple ideas are:

• Take a beach walk and spend some time praying and giving thanks for the gift of creation that God has given us.
• Switch to a bamboo toothbrush
• Plant something
• Refrain from using single use plastics
• Go vegan or vegetarian for a day

Season of Creation Placemat for families
Want a way to engage your kids in Season of Creation? Check out the Season of Creation printable placemat for kids! 1 action per day for everyone of any age to tick off during the Season of Creation! Download a copy here.

A couple of ways my family and I are committing to hearing the call to look after God’s creation is by switching to 100% biodegradable laundry washing sheets, instead of using commercial washing detergent. Not only are the laundry sheets chemical free, but we are no longer putting huge empty plastic bottles into land fill.  We have also switched to chemical free cleaning products. I can highly recommend making the change.

As a school community we will participate in a morning walk to the beach on Friday 29 September, the last day of the term.

The whole school will gather together at the beach and pray some of the prayers from Pope Francis’ Laudato Si Prayer book. The students will then spend some time making sand castles, drawing pictures or mandalas in the sand. We will also engage in a beach clean-up. Back at school our students will continue to engage in some activities focused around caring for our earth and giving thanks for God’s creation. Students are invited to wear casuals on this day.

With Gratitude,

Domenique Laurendi
APRIM | Leader of Learning