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- SCC Report
- RE Week 10 - Be still and know that I am God
- Library News
- Working Bee - Rescheduled
- Awards Term 3 Week 10
- September/October Birthdays
- Photos - First Eucharist
- Photos - Kinder Excursion
- Photos - Year 3/4 St Thomas Apostle Culture Art
- Photos - Year 3/4J Book Covers artwork
- Yr 34J Pen Licences
- Saturday Netball
- TeamKids Spring Holiday Program
- Cyclabilities Programs
- First Step and Highland Dance
- Get Active Sports - Basketball
- Tiny Tots Ginninderra Athletics Club
- Tuggeranong Tornadoes Little Athletics
Dear Parents/Carers,
The SCC met on Monday (end of another school term already!) and had a lot of things to discuss.
We discussed some of the challenges in delivering events this year and the need to be flexible. These include the musical, end-of-year Christmas Carols and Election Day BBQ. Some (BBQ) won’t be possible due to restrictions, and for others we agreed we need to stay flexible. The Year 5/6 teachers are doing a great job in managing uncertainty around the musical – while we still haven’t established exactly who can attend and what the options (like streaming, etc.) will be for those who can’t, we will need to be understanding of the limitations of holding any event in the current environment. This also applies to the Year 6 Graduation and Christmas Carols (in the case of the Carols, we agreed we’d look more closely at this, closer to the time).
Ursula also presented a proposal to include music for all students as a release subject in 2021. This will be in addition to STEM, Indonesian and Library. This may require some investment (see point below) but we agreed that having this included would also provide opportunities for the class teachers to meet together to conduct the necessary planning required. We agree it’s a great initiative and thank Geoff Ryan and Judy Egan for agreeing to step up as music teachers in 2021 and teach the ukulele! This does require a small change in school start time – the first bell will now be at 8.50am in 2021 – but this is a minor change and we agreed it’s worthwhile.
We also discussed the strong financial position of the school – and the opportunities to further invest in great outcomes for our kids. While we won’t benefit from things like a fete in 2020, we remain in a good position to further invest in the school and enables us to do things like agreeing in our meeting to buy new readers in Term 4 (to replace those that are no longer appropriate), the multi-use court (late 2019) and the smart boards and ICT upgrades (a few years ago – including the smart boards in our classrooms). We have a great advantage from not having significant loans, which means that when opportunities come we can take them – so any ideas are always welcome.
Finally – the toilet project was discussed, with a lot of hard lead-in work culminating over the school holidays in a group of dedicated parents upgrading the kids’ toilets. We’ve had some great support from sponsors like Bunnings providing paint and equipment and Taubmans for suppling paint, along with some general and specialists skills donated by our school community (for which we’re hugely grateful) we’re getting close to the rubber hitting the road. A big thank you to Liz Grellman for leading this initiative and to all the parents who have given up so much time to get it to where it is (and to those about to dedicate their time!).
Have a great school holidays!
Carl Jenkins
SCC Chair
RE Week 10 - Be still and know that I am God
This week we concluded our Community Prayer for the term with a focus on what we know and experience as members of a Catholic School. We are so blessed at St Thomas the Apostle to have an amazing community that follows Jesus in both word and deed. I would like to particularly acknowledge the Year 3/4 students who completed their Unit of Inquiry by producing unique pieces of artwork that represented their understanding of the culture of our school. The works demonstrated how strongly the students have internalised the culture of our school and were a credit to both the students and their teachers as well as the community as a whole. Our students are incredible and we know that the future is safe in their hands.
Our Year 2 students have also been working hard in their Inquiry Unit, Human Interaction with the natural environment impacts living things. Today they held an exhibition for the younger students, teaching them about their learnings and describing their work which included artwork, poetry, science experiments and dioramas. Well done Year 2. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with others around this important issue.
Have a wonderful, safe holiday.
Penny Vanzwol
REC
Working Bee
RESCHEDULED
Saturday 26 September
8am - 12pm
this week. Photos will be included in the next newsletter.
Kinder | Heather Quinn, Alfie Cameron Jessica O'Callaghan, Benjamin Taylor |
Year 1 |
Georgina George, Vincent McInerney |
Year 2 | Sarah Bryan, Jack Perkins Destiny Costanzo, Maxwell O'Callaghan |
Year 3/4 | Cooper Wundersitz, Daniel Bright Kalari Boney, Josef Nebril Holly Smith, Dylan Dunn |
Year 5/6 |
Alisha Alisha, Kailee Hellwig |
Cultural Award |
Teekjwock Kwol |
Principal's Special Award |
Pippi Town, Eli Garrett |
Harvey Hales
Aidan Burston
D'arcy Keefe
Tobias Mitchell
Matthew Rozario
Georgia Penny
Emelia Cacciotti
Abrylle McInerney
Eli Bellato
Thomas Odd
Erin Galsim
Juliette Taylor
Jade Tesolin
On Saturday the St Thomas Blue Jays had their final netball game of the season. The girls had a fantastic time every week (including in the snow!) and all of the families of the girls would like to say a big thank you to Mon and Jono Warren for their coaching expertise.