Yulmburral Week 9.
I trust the school community has been relishing the cooler mornings. Each cool day has brought forth beautiful days that our fellow citizens down south can only wish for. This has been an exciting and busy week with a series of important meetings and student experiences.
The Prep – Yr 3 had the Bravehearts Show which focused on personal safety. This is an important message for our little people and I am certain that this message is often delivered in the home. Parents of students from the lower Primary are encouraged to have a conversation with your child(ren) regarding the show and the messages that were delivered from the various characters.
As I write this Newsletter our Yr 6 Seniors are enjoying their camp experience. I am certain that the cool evenings and physical days are giving them all challenges that are fun and eventful. I spent Thursday evening and Friday with the students and though I am unable to relate any stories at the moment I am confident that all has / is going well. If experience is anything to go by I am sure that each student will be asleep very early on Friday evening.
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Wednesday was School Officer Day. This day provides the school community with a focus and opportunity to thank our Support Staff for their efforts and commitment in providing the support necessary for all students to maximise their learning and pastoral needs. So on behalf of the school community I say thank you to Tanya, Tess, Sharon, Kaye, Everest, Leah, Amanda, Lenice, Theresa, Jake P, Richelle and Ruth.
This week we also had a Parent & Friends Meeting that highlighted successes by your team in the first semester. Through a series of fund raisers, the P & F have provided significant investment in audio visual resources. The current Pie Drive ( Yr 6 Parents ) has been extremely successful and I for one am looking forward to the pies arriving towards the end of term. The P & F are a very active group within our school and their success is dependent upon all parents committing to a sense of community that is a feature of all Catholic schools. On the horizon there will be a Working Bee to refresh the ground area underneath the outdoor junior gym. On Thursday 28th June the school will have the Life Long Learners and Athletics Awards followed by a school disco. The evening will commence at 5:30pm with a BBQ. Year 1 Parents are hosting this evening and we thank them in anticipation for their contribution in making the evening a success.
An important development from your P & F has been the Dollarmite Student Savers initiative. The Commonwealth Bank has a positive history in school banking across Australia for over 50 years. I do need to make a couple of important disclosures. The CBA promote this as a commercial opportunity to capture life long bank customers. Secondly the school receives a kick back of $5 every time a student completes 10 deposits. This kick back is not a significant income source for our school and this is not a motivation for the program to being introduced at St Augustine’s. School Leadership supports Dollarmites as an opportunity for students to develop good money management and saving habits. I thank Allison Franz for her enthusiasm and commitment in making this important life skill opportunity available within our school. Many students across the country get this opportunity and Allison is making this opportunity equally available for our kids. With full transparency and awareness of the underlying actions of the bank, the choice to participate in Dollarmites is left entirely with parents.
A change in procedure will be introduced from the start of next week. It relates directly with the distribution of Birthday Invitations. The school respects that each family is entitled to invite or not invite any person into their home. The school has no right or desire to involve itself in that area. What I am requesting is that Birthday Invitations be delivered or made outside school hours. The reason for this comes from two recent experiences where invitations have been distributed to most students within a class and one or two students have been deliberately not invited. I respect this position however the social and emotional fall-out for a young child when they see their peers excited and invited to a fun event and only to be perhaps the only person left out is extremely distressing. The school staff are then left to pick up the pieces for the ostracised individual. It is not fair to staff to leave them with this consequence and dare I say it’s cruel, uncaring and not reflective of Gospel values that we pride ourselves upon as a Christian faith community. I do urge parents to find other ways to invite children to outside school events. Students will have it explained why we are moving away from having Birthday Invitations distributed at school. Children can still enjoy this action outside the school context. Your support in this change of procedure will be expected and appreciated.
As we head towards the end of term I remind all parents that school fees need to be finalised and for any families that are not returning for Semester 2 please inform the school so appropriate exit procedures are actioned.
Don’t forget the School Athletics Carnival is coming up on Tuesday the last week of term.
Get Training and keep fit
Paul
