Filter Content
Message- Deputy Principal – Teaching and Learning
Dear Families,
It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm and joy on the faces of our children as they paraded in their costumes as part of our Book Week Celebrations. Congratulations to our Year 6 Leaders – the Marketing and Promotions team who co-ordinated and ran the event this morning, capably supported by their teachers. A special mention to all of the parents who made, sourced or created these costumes for their children. You did a wonderful job to support your children in their learning.
Book Week
Book Week is an annual event that aims to engage the community with quality
literature written by Australian authors. Reading is a fundamentally important skill for all children to develop and literature and texts which are engaging, entertaining and informative support children in developing this skill. Our teachers have been engaging the children in various learning experiences all week, centred around the short-listed texts form the Children’s Book Council of Australia.
We encourage you to make reading a part of the daily routine at home, whether it involves reading to your children, reading with them or listening to them read to you. The more encouragement and support all children have to engage in reading, the better their learning and life outcomes will be.
We look forward to sharing some of the images from the Book Week Parade in next week’s newsletter.
Learning Expos
Over the coming weeks, each year level will be inviting families into classrooms to share in an aspect of learning that has been a focus for the children. If you are able to make it to these sessions it would be lovely to see you. We understand that this may not be possible for all families and will take photos and video to share on Seesaw as well. Please see the table below for the expo dates.
Date |
Time |
Year Group |
Focus |
Thursday 1st September |
11.45am – 12:15pm |
Year Four |
Mathematics – Tool Time |
Tuesday 13th September |
8.30 – 9.00am |
Year Two |
Physical Sciences – Forces |
Tuesday 13th September |
2.30pm – 3.00pm |
Tear Three |
Physical Sciences - Forces |
Wednesday 14th September |
2.30pm – 3.00pm |
Year One |
Physical Sciences – Ramps |
Thursday 15th September |
8.30am – 9.00am |
Year One |
Physical Sciences - Ramps |
Thursday 6th October |
8.30am – 9.00am |
Year Six |
Mathematics – Tool Time |
Thursday 13th October |
2.30pm – 3.00pm |
Year Five |
Technology - Coding |
Integrated Learning - Term 4
In Term 4, The Performing Arts – Dance, Drama and Music will the focus of our integrated curriculum. With the central theme of ‘Creativity’ students will be engaged in various learning experiences which will allow them to develop their skills as an artist and as the audience. Our teaching staff already have plans in place for appropriate incursions and excursions to enhance the children’s learning over the term.
We look forward to sharing our student’s creative talents throughout next term.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Peta Overbury
Deputy Principal – Teaching and Learning
Confirmed!
On Saturday the 20th August, two Confirmation Masses were held at the St Thomas the Apostle Parish. Father Denis and Bishop Greg confirmed the candidates - many from our school. The students all chose a Saint name that they felt reflected their own values and also values that they hoped to achieve. At school all the students in Grade 6 researched a Saint they admired, while also undertaking Confirmation classes with Sister Julie. Congratulations to all our students on being confirmed. The Masses were full of reverence, laughter and joy. A huge thanks to Sister Julie, all the families and the STAPS teaching team for helping our students throughout their journey.
There’s quite a bit of history found in the sacrament of Confirmation. Some parts of the ceremony are thousands of years old and hold a lot of tradition. One such part, is the ‘Laying On Of Hands’. The Bishop extends his hands to cap the candidate’s head and prays over them. It is a symbolic motion of invoking the Holy Spirit and a beautiful act of blessing. In the Old Testament we hear of Moses ordaining Joshua through the Laying On Of Hands, so this has been around for thousands of years before Christianity! The same physical practice can be found in so many other religions too.
Confirmation dove tails in beautifully with Baptism in that they are now fully initiated into the Catholic faith, with a lot more knowledge and awareness of what this means. The Holy Spirit is a wellspring of power that always exists within us. Bishop Greg likened the Holy Spirit to the blind auditions process in the TV show, The Voice. As a judge in this section of the show, they do not care what the person looks like, what age they are, the colour of their skin or what they are wearing. What matters is the purity and beauty of their voice. The same can be said about the Holy Spirit working in us. We need to be able to close our eyes to shut out the distractions in our lives to listen to the pure and unadulterated voice of the Holy Spirit, telling us how we can be the best we can be. This links powerfully with a recent article in our newsletter where it pointed to the need to have purposeful quiet moments in our lives, in order to hear the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit.
Congratulations to the Confirmation candidates that have now been made more aware of this immense power within!
Damascus Mass
The Damascus Community (year 3) had a look at St Bartholomew this week for their celebration of the Eucharist and we are grateful for another great turn out from parents and parishioners.
St Bartholomew is one of the Apostles that isn’t mentioned very much in scripture. We know that he visited India and Armenia to spread the Good News. Armenia is known as being introduced to Christianity thanks to St Bart! All of the Apostles were called to spread the word of Jesus to the world, which is really where we get the concept of Bishops from.
Socktober
The Social Justice Leadership team would like to let you know of how you can support this event, starting right now. They produced a light-hearted video for the assembly movie that calls the students to arms and asks for donations of some materials. See below for the video script…
“Are you here for the new Socktober news? Yeah? Here, I’ll introduce you to my lovely friends….
Hi, my name is Mr Sock. I’m here to tell you about the activity we will be doing for Socktober. We will be making sock-balls with each learning community. You can donate your old t-shirts, socks, like me and more materials that you don't use anymore to make a soccer ball using recycled materials! Meet my other friends…
Hello, I’m Penny the Plastic bag. I can be scrunched up to help make the shape of the sock-ball on the inside!
I’m Sally the T-shirt and I can hold everything inside of the sock-ball and can also be cut up into string so everything can be tied together, that's why I am the most useful product!
Excuse me? You are not the MOST useful?! Anyways, as you all know, I am Mr Sock!”. A ‘sock ball’ has the word ‘sock’ in it. So, as you can tell, I am a pretty essential part of a sock-ball! It can be placed inside the shirt with the plastic bag to make the sock-ball rounder!
Hi I am Ben the bubble wrap and I wrap the T-shirt, the sock and the plastic bag all together!”
At the end of every week, a member from the Social Justice team will come and collect the materials that have been donated. This will help immensely with the work we will do leading up to Mission Month (October). Please start donating any of the items listed above, but make sure they are clean!
Safety Online
New learning resources to help your family stay safe online
eSafety has released new resources to help parents and carers from all backgrounds protect their families online.
The new videos and advice sheets from the Online Safety for Every Family suite of resources covers how to:
- get started with social media
- enjoy safer online gaming
- help your child if they are bullied online.
To make sure more families can start a conversation with their children about online safety, the information comes in multiple languages - English, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, Tamil and Dari.
Dear family and friends,
Last week our students participated in science week, we participated in some fun activities.
The younger grades had the most fun time with their senior buddies making a cute DIY kaleidoscope. They used mirrors to make fun patterns, some of the year 1’s even put their fingers in the middle of their creation and shared their findings with some friends.
The Honey Experiment.
This experiment was done by the year sixes, where they found out if the temperature would affect honey. They enjoyed their time blowing bubbles in the honey, making a mess as it splattered everywhere. They wrote a small report and took many photos capturing each moment of the experiment.
For the years 2’s, they made a lightbulb using a battery. One year two said “The experiment was super fun! Filled with struggles it was kind of hard to try get the lightbulb working but it did work in the end” With all smiles the experiment was successful and the year 2’s seemed to enjoy it with smiles and laughter!
-Regards the Yr6 Marketing and Promotion leadership team.
Year 5 welcomed Mark Wilson, Australian author and illustrator to the Ephesus Community. Mark shared with the students his journey as a writer of children’s stories, powerful stories that made links to Australian history and the plight of marginalised groups. He discussed how his ideas begin and what steps he takes to see his projects through to their fruition. The students had the opportunity to learn how to draw using some simple techniques which all of our students valued. We look forward to welcoming Mark back in the future.
Grade 6 have had a very busy week. Last week the students continued their supported transition to Secondary School with an excursion to St Peters to experience life with a timetable and movement.
The Japanese Hiragana Club recommenced this year and provides a great opportunity for students to improve their hiragana literacy in a supportive learning environment.
Congratulations to Year 3 students Emma McCracken and Jasmeen Kaur on obtaining their Black Belts in the Hiragana Club. OMEDETOU GOZAIMASU! This is a great achievement at Year 3 and means that they can read and write the full hiragana chart and read over 120 words. Emma and Jasmeen are now keen to help other students in the Hiragana Club reach their goals. The club runs Tuesdays and Fridays at lunchtime.
Dear Parents,
The Friends of St Thomas (FOST) organise social events, special lunches and other activities throughout the year as well as fundraising events.
Our first event for this Term will be ‘Sports day Subway Lunch’ which will be held on Friday September 16th.
Introducing CDFpay, which is a cash-free solution for our schools’ events or activities.
This solution is an online payment platform offered by the Catholic Development Fund Melbourne (CDF).
We are asking all parents to use this simple, cash-free platform to submit their child's lunch order.
You are able to do this via your mobile if you wish. Please click on the pdf below for the step by step process to access and register for CDFpay
Once registered, click on the link below to access the school website to place your order.
https://cranbourneeast.cdfpay.org.au/All orders for the Subway lunch must be placed by Thursday 1st September via CDFpay