Newsletter - 22nd November 2023
Upcoming Dates
November 24: Loreto College Musical Excursion, 10:30am-1:00pm
November 25: St Brendan's End of An Era Celebration, 2pm onwards
November 27: Little Feet, Big Footprints Concluding Session at the All Abilities Playground, Ballarat, 10:00am-2:00pm
November 28: Secondary School Transition Day for Year 6 students; Going Up Day
December 5: St Brendan's Graduation, 6:30pm
December 6: No Combined School Day - St Mary's students to attend at Clarkes Hill (St Brendan's have an excursion to Melbourne)
December 7: St Mary's End of Year Mass & Graduation, 6:00pm
December 8: Year 6 Excursion, details to come
December 13: End of Year Excursion, details to come
December 15: Last day of school for students, end of Term 4.
30 January 2024: Students start Term 1, 2024!
Principal's News
Colour Run
Thanks to St. Mary’s P and F for organising the Colour Run last Friday and to all of the families from both schools for supporting it. Amelia and Bryden did a power of work to get to it all organised and everyone had a fabulous time. Besides raising money, it was a wonderful event to get people together and build relationships. Well done everyone!
End of an Era Event
A reminder that we are celebrating ‘An End Of An Era’ at St. Brendan’s on Saturday. All are welcome! A huge thank you to everyone that has put in hours of work to get this event organised. Hopefully the weather will be warm and sunny and everything goes off without a hitch.
Dates until the end of the year
Please remember to refer to the school calendar for all of the upcoming events. They are listed at the start of this newsletter and most of the time you will be reminded through a See Saw message or text.
The main ones to look for are Graduation, Going up / Orientation Days, Masses, excursions and last days for the children – 14th December for St. Brendan’s and 15th December for St. Mary’s, with assembly at 12.30pm.
Graduations
The Year 6 Graduations will take place in a few weeks. It is an opportunity for everyone to come together to farewell our Year 6 children and give thanks for the year that has been. I would like to see all of our families at these events.
St. Brendan’s Graduation is on Tuesday, the 5th December at 6.30pm in the Church. Supper will follow at the school. This year the Graduation and End of Year Mass will be separated with the Mass taking place on the last day of school for the children – Thursday, the 14th of December at 10am. Bishop Shane McKinlay will say Mass this day
St. Mary’s will have both the Graduation and End of Year Mass together on Thursday, the 7th December, starting at 6pm. This will be followed by a meal at the Robin Hood Hotel at 7pm for all families.
Conclusion of the Little Feet, Big Footprint Program
Next Monday, the Year 6 children will join with St. Michael’s Daylesford, St. Brigid’s Ballan, St. Pat’s Gordon and St. Augustine’s Creswick to conclude our LFBF program. Many of our children have built relationships with a number of other Year 6 children, some of which they may go onto Secondary school with. The children have enjoyed the program and look forward to catching up with old and new friends.
This program will continue next year.
Going Up Day - Tuesday, the 28th November
On Tuesday, the 28th November, we will have our going up day from 9:00am–1:00pm. For most of our Year 6 children, it will mean a day at their new secondary school. It is up to parents to organise transport for this day. For St. Mary’s, the F-5 will have school as normal, experiencing what 2024 might be like. This will include the new Foundation children for 2024 – Genevieve and Skyla.
The Years 2–5 from St. Brendan’s will go to St. Alipius from 9:00am–1:00pm and can then return to St. Brendan’s if that is what parents would like. Could the parents organise their own transport for this day? If pick up from St. Alipius is problematic, please let me know.
Any children not involved in any of these transitions are welcome at school.
Lunch Orders
Lunch orders will be available for the next 2 Wednesdays, up until the 29th of November and then will stop for the remainder of the year, due to various events on the following Wednesdays.
Reports
Reports will be sent home on Monday, the 11th of December. They will be available through PAM and we will send home a hard copy as well.
The year is fast approaching and things are busy. Please ask if you have questions and clarify things if you are unclear about what is happening.
Go as gently as possible and take care,
Inez
Senior Room News
The members of the Senior Room have been very busy these last few weeks. Here's some of the exciting things they have been up to:
Maeve & Alexis - Colour Run: This year's Colour Fun Run was held on the 17th of November, 2023 at St Mary's Clarkes Hill. We did the run with St Brendan's. The day was so much fun and everyone was very excited to slime Inez. We ran through the paddock and went under and over hay bales. The teachers sprayed us with colour and at the end of the day we were all colourful. Thanks to Bryden and Amelia for organizing the day. We had an awesome day!!!!
Evie - Sock Day: On the 10th November we had a Sock Day. We had three activities that were a Soccer Ball Shootout, Designer Sock Colouring-in and Design a Sock Teddy. The day was a huge success!
We are very proud of everyone's commitment to the activities. There was a lot of fun and we are very proud of our amazing Leadership Team and the extraordinary kind, lovely people that we are surrounded by. We raised money for the Mission to help them with their work.
Chloe - Zooper Dooper Icy Poles: From now until the end of the year, the Leadership Team will be selling Zooper Doopers every Thursday. They will cost 50 cents each and the money is going towards the Missions. So help us make a difference in our community and have a cool summer!
Pat & Sull - Obstacle Course:
These past few weeks we have been doing obstacle courses and our course required skipping ropes, hula hoops and many more pieces of equipment. People got to choose where they could do their course. We were divided into groups of 2 and 3 and designed our course with our group members.
It has been great to welcome Leah and Emilia into our classroom. They have settled in well and it has been great to see the efforts that everyone is making to help them feel welcome.
Tara - Kingston Show: The Kingston show holds an Art Competition every year. The past few weeks the senior room has been planning their art entries. There's a list of Activities that you can participate in for a shot to win first place.
The Art categories are:
- Diorama using recycled items
- Photo of where i live
- Painting a canvas
There are four age groups for each category.
Junior Room Happenings
Colour Run
First of all we want to say a huge thank you to our wonderful parents who organised the Colour Fun Run for us last Friday. You all did an amazing job.
Last Friday we had the school Colour Fun Run, and boy was it fun! It was a sunny warm day to get wet and colourful.
Action Rhymes
We have been learning about action rhymes this week. Action rhymes are short rhymes, either sung or spoken, that include body movements and tell a story. We have learnt Doctor Knickerbocker, Miss Mary Mack and My name is Joe.
Here is an action rhyme we wrote together to the rythm of Miss Mary Mack:
Miss Bonnie boo, boo, boo
All dressed in blue, blue, blue
She loved to fly, fly, fly
Into the sky, sky, sky
She wore a shoe, shoe, shoe
Not one but two, two, two
She kicked the ball, ball, ball
Into the zoo, zoo, zoo
The terrible tiger, tiger, tiger
Got a fright, fright, fright
In the dark, dark, dark
With no light, light, light
Happy Birthday!
Happy belated birthday to Kaezia who turned 8 on November 2nd. We all hope you had a wonderful day and celebrated in style!
Kingston Show
Child Safety Information – all on website
As is stated on our Vision and Mission, our schools ‘…are committed to the safety, wellbeing and inclusion of all children and young people.’ Our procedures and policies are now in line with the 11 Child Safe Standards and can be found on the St Mary's website under the tab – Child Safety.
Melbourne Renegades School Holiday Camps (Ages 7-10)
The Renegades School Holiday Programs are back again this January! As we move into the second half of the season, this is a chance for girls and boys to get their cricket fix this holiday period.
Venue: TBC - Ballarat
Date: Wednesday, 11th January 2024
Time: 9.00am - 3.00pm
The program is designed for Junior Graders, aged 7-10 years old. The one-day camp will feature fun, fully supervised cricket activities, games, giveaways and more!
Places are strictly limited at each camp. Please note that we do not operate waiting lists for these events - it is first in, best dressed until the camp is sold out!
For other locations throughout Victoria: https://www.melbournerenegades.com.au/holidayprograms
Participants will need to bring their own food & drinks to the camp. Note that no nut products are permitted to be brought to the camp. There will be a fully supervised lunch break on the day.
***Parents/guardians do not have to stay for the entire day. Any Renegades player appearances are subject to availability***