Newsletter 16th October 2024 - Term 4 Week 1

Principal's Message

Dear Parent/Carer,

I hope your children and you all had a wonderful holiday and are feeling rested and ready for our final term of 2024.  The term can be very busy, with many events, so we encourage you to list the dates in your calendar.  More detailed information will be sent throughout the term.

Assemblies and Open Classrooms
We will only have two whole school assemblies this term on Monday 21 October (Week 2) and Monday 18 November (Week 6), commencing at 2:30pm in the Hall.  We will not have a Week 10 assembly, as the Awards Day for Years K-5 will take place on Wednesday 18 December from 9:30am in the Hall.
Our Term 4 Liturgy and Open Classrooms will be on Monday 25 November from 9:30am in the Hall.  We invite all parents/carers, family and friends to attend.  We start with a liturgy in the Hall, before opening our classrooms for children to share their work.  The morning will conclude at 10:30am.

Grandparents Day
We welcome all our wonderful Grandparents to a special Grandparents Liturgy on Friday 25 October from 9:30am in the Hall.  Our K, Year 1 and Year 2 children will present the liturgy, then all classrooms from K-6 will be open for grandparents to visit.  Special elderly friends or relatives that take the place of grandparents for some of our children, who may not have their grandparents, are also welcome to intend.  We ask that parents/carers allow us to treat our grandparents on this day, as there are many other days throughout the year, where we invited our parents/carers to attend.

Period Positivity
Period Positivity is a Diocesan initiative that believes in the dignity, value and equality of each person.  This initiative provides access to sanitary dispensers in toilet cubicles and provides enhanced menstrual heath education aligned with the PDHPE curriculum.  Over the coming weeks, we will be providing staff, students, parents/carers with information and education into this initiative.  We invite all parents/carers to our Term 4 PEG, where will be go through this program and provide a timeline of its implementation.  The PEG will be held on Wednesday 6 November 2024 at 6:00pm in the Hall.  All children aged from K-6, will be engaged in this program, which is linked directly to the Personal Development strand of PDHPE.  Attached is information from the Catholic Schools Office regarding Period Positivity.

St Therese’s Ball Update
The inaugural Ball raised over $22 000 dollars, which will be put towards sunshades in the McAuley Courtyard.  Thank you again to the organising committee and all the parents/carers that supported this fantastic evening.

Start to the HSC
Yesterday, over 76 000 students started the HSC.  Please keep these students in your thoughts and prayers, as they complete their exams over the next 19 days.

Classes for 2025
Teachers will begin to look at organising classes for 2025, in the next few weeks.  Teachers and the Leadership Team look at academic, social and emotional considerations for all children, when allocating classes.  All children are also asked to nominate students they would like in their Homeroom and are assured of at least one of these students being in their Homeroom.  If you have any concerns that you feel may impact your child, please email Kaylene Maretich on kaylene.maretich@mn.catholic.edu.au.  Please do not requests teachers for your child.

Gastroenteritis
We have been informed that many students are experiencing gastroenteritis symptoms.  Please see the link for more information, about gastroenteritis and precautions to avoid this spreading at St Therese’s.  Any student that experiences vomiting or diarrhoea must remain at home for 48 hours after they have stopped experiencing these symptoms.
Public health warning: viral gastroenteritis on the rise - News (nsw.gov.au)

Kaylene Maretich
Acting Principal

Assistant Principal's Message

Welcome back to Term 4! The year has flown by so far, but we have a busy term of learning and many exciting activities ahead.

HSC
The HSC started this week. We ask that you keep students sitting the exams in your thoughts and prayers and especially wish all the best to our past students who are sitting the exams.

Office of Safeguarding - Safe and Respectful Peer Relationships
The Kids Helpline website has a number of great resources that are child friendly to help support safe and respectful relationships. Some topics include:

• Fights with friends
• Bulling is not ok
• Making friends
• Being ok with being different
• How to be happy being yourself
• My friends are fighting
• Cybersafety
• Wanting to fit in
• Treating others well

Please take some time to show your child the Kids Helpline website so they can learn to navigate through these resources should they ever want to know more information on some of these topics or others. - https://kidshelpline.com.au/kids/issues

Mark Konik
Acting Assistant Principal

Catholic Identity & Curriculum

Catholic Culture News

Francis' Focus – Who better to help guide us in the true depth and meaning of our Catholic faith than the charismatic and authentic leader of our Church, Pope Francis. Below, Pope Francis reflects upon the previous Sunday’s Gospel:
‘‘They were testing him.’ This sentence is key to understanding this Gospel passage. The Pharisees, having firm ideas about what the rules were, deliberately put a tricky question to Jesus.
Unfazed, Jesus questions his questioners: ‘What did Moses command you?’ After they give a legalistic reply, which he probably expected, Jesus speaks not of commands but of creation. As Pope Francis says, ‘Jesus firstly, with the wisdom and authority that come to him from the Father, puts the Mosaic prescription into perspective.’ Rules should always serve a higher purpose.
Crucial to Jesus’ teaching on marriage is its mutual nature, where lives are joined. It has purpose and meaning. As the Pope puts it, ‘the man and woman are called to recognise each other, to complement each other, to help each other.’
Jesus was evidently keen to encourage people to focus on the sacred attributes of marriage more than the issue of divorce itself. Interestingly, he did not even use the word translated for us as ‘divorce’ until later pressed to do so by the apostles. Even then, he used it in the sense of something done by one party to another. Recognising this, Pope Francis suggests that the Church should always strive ‘to make her maternal closeness tangibly felt by those who experience relationships that are broken or that continue in a difficult and trying way.’

Religious Education

Throughout Term 4, the RE Curriculum across the school is divided into the following units of work:
Kindergarten – Loving Like God, Year 1 – Remembering The Holy Family, Year 2 – A Celebrating Community, Year 3 – Encountering the Presence of God, Year 4 – Justice: Called to Serve and Advent & Christmas, Year 5 – Prayer and Advent & Christmas, Year 6 – Beliefs: The Creed and Advent & Christmas.

Prayer, Celebration & Mission

Socktober Mission Day – We will celebrate this Mission Day on the Friday of Week 3 (1^st Nov.).

Sacramental Program 2024/25 – The next Sacramental Program will commence with a parent information and registration evening being held this evening (Wednesday 16^th October at 6pm). This will primarily be for those students who are in Year 3, however, if your child has previously missed the program or you wish for them now to participate, please don’t hesitate to come along. The first sacrament, Reconciliation, will then be received by the students a few weeks later in Week 5.

Luke Smith
RE Coordinator

School Community News

St Therese's Fundraising Ball - Raffle Winners
A big thank you to everyone who attended our fundraising ball 21st Sep. Congratulations to the raffle ticket winners below:

1st PRIZE
Grace.M
2nd PRIZE
Elizabeth.R 
3rd PRIZE
Jane.S
4th PRIZE
Matthew.F
5th PRIZE
Martin.P
6th PRIZE
Claire.S
7th PRIZE
Jenny.S
8th PRIZE
Amelia.G
9th PRIZE
Daniela.M

Playgroup
Playgroup is back THIS FRIDAY, 9.15-11! We are excited to kick start the term with the jumping castle and some colour crafts! A wonderful place for your child to meet future school-mates.
For more info please contact Simone on 0402 305 446

End of Year Carols By Candlelight Concert 
Preparations have begun on our end of year Carols by Candlelight concert. The theme for this year's event is LET'S DANCE CHRISTMAS. There has been much success at our school this year in the area of dance - Aspire dance representatives, our dance and aerobics teams performing at a national level, not to mention our whole school participation in the dance KLA during term 1. We look forward to sharing some amazing songs of dance with you on Friday 22^nd November. See details below. It will be a wonderful concert bringing our whole school community together.
Alina Brymora
Performing Arts Teacher

Uniform Price Increases
Lowes have notified us of a price increase on school uniforms effective this term. The increase will be applied as an average 4.6% across all Schoolware garments. Lowes will continue to offer regular '20% off' sales throughout the year.

Poetry Club- Term 4
We are looking forward to seeing everyone at Poetry Club in Term 4, every odd week Wednesday at 8am in the library.

Volunteering
Throughout the year, we welcome all parents/carers to volunteer at the school. To volunteer, you must complete the volunteer's induction. This process can take up to 6 weeks, so you are encouraged to complete this early.

School Fees
Thank you to those families that have been making payments towards their fees. Our preferred payment methods are BPay, direct debit or credit card. If you choose to use CompassPay, please double check the amount before you submit the payment. Refunds can no longer be given for incorrect amounts paid unless your account is in credit.

Wellbeing

Some benefits of practising gratitude are:

• After 21 days, you start to scan the world for positives.
• After 42 days you become:
• More optimistic, energised & focused.
• Less likely to get sick.
• You will sleep better.
• Anxiety and depression decreases.

A few quick and simple ways to practise being grateful are:

• Journaling; each night write down 3 things that went well for you that day or purchase a gratitude journal with gratitude prompts.
• Write a gratitude letter to someone special, telling them why you are grateful they are in your life.
• Have a family discussion on the way home from school or around the dinner table about the things that went well that day or made you smile.

You can purchase 21-day, 6-month, and family journals from The Resilience Project website if that is something you’re interested in.

https://theresilienceproject.com.au/shop/

The GEM + EL Framework

Check out the following resources!

TRP@Home.
Our web-based resource for everyone to access GEM activities, reflections, parent hub, and our blog: theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/

The Imperfects Podcast
In this podcast, Hugh, Josh, and Ryan chat to a variety of interesting people who bravely share their struggles and imperfections, and we all learn some valuable take-aways we can apply to our own imperfect lives. 

Melissa Pyers 
Primary Coordinator and Pedagogical Mentor

Sport

Polding Cricket
We would like to congratulate John. D on his incredible achievements this year in Cricket. John made it all the way to the Polding Cricket trials and represented the diocese. Well done John!

Congratulations!
Congratulations to Bonnie Blazevic who won 'Cheerleader of the Year'  for the Knights Sparkle Squad on 13/10/24. Super achievement Bonnie - we are all so proud of you!

Term 4 Sport Days

• KN - Wednesday
• KW - Thursday
• KL - Tuesday
• Year 1 - Tuesday
• Year 2 - Wednesday
• Year 3 - Thursday Weeks 1-6 then Tuesday Weeks 7-10
• Year 4 -  Tuesday Weeks 1-6 then Thursday Weeks 7-10
• Year 5 - Wednesday Weeks 1-6 then Thursday Weeks 7-10
• Year 6 - Thursday Weeks 1-6 then Wednesday Weeks 7-10

Canteen

Important Dates

21Oct - Whole School Assembly 2:30pm
25Oct - Grandparents Day
31Oct - Year 6 Pius Visit
1Nov - Socktober
6Nov - PEG 6pm
7Nov - Kinder 2025 Orientation
15Nov - Kinder 2025 Transition
18Nov - Whole School Assembly 2:30pm
22Nov -School Carol Night 6pm
25Nov - Open Classrooms 9:30am