Dear Parents,

There was a strange stillness around the streets of Melbourne this morning as we embrace the challenges of working from home with children who are also home from school for the next three days.  We are committed to supporting all families and students during this difficult time so that we all stay connected, safe and that learning continues and is accessible to all.

This morning the Leadership Team met to map out various contingency plans so that we can be responsive and prepared for the weeks ahead.

Plan A 

Stage 4 Lockdown Monday - Wednesday 15 - 17 February

• Students work from home 
• Teachers provide unplugged activities on a grid where students are provided with choice in the activities they complete.
• Specialist teachers will contribute to the grid
• No devices will be sent home.
• Staff who can work from home will work from home.
• Onsite supervision is provided for children of essential workers and vulnerable students.
• Students return to classrooms on Thursday

Plan B

Stage 4 Lockdown continues until Friday 19 February

Arrangements continue as in Plan A

Plan C 

Stage 4 Lockdown continues for another 5 days 26 February

Arrangements continue as in plan A

Teachers do daily check-ins on google meet with their class.  For those students who do not have access to a device - please contact Cath Knights on cknights@spbentleigh.catholic.edu.au

This will be timetabled for families who have more than one child 

Plan D

Stage 4 Lockdown is extended beyond 26 February

• Staff will prepare for remote learning (2020 style)
• Teachers come onsite on 25 February to prepare ‘red’ packs to be sent home with remote learning resources 
• Packs stored in Hall.
• Friday - families drive through for  pick up in alphabetical order 
• Yr 6 chrome books to go home in packs
• Any other families who require a device will be sent home.

I will continue to provide regular updates as new information is provided by  the Department of Health and MACS. (

We are all optimistic that all students are back on site on Thursday.

Information Nights Scheduled for this Week

The Prep and Yr 6 Information Evenings scheduled for this Thursday will now be online.  The presentations will be pre recorded and sent out  to families on Thursday afternoon. 

Sacramental Information Evening Reconciliation for Year 3 and 4 parents will be a live presentation by Fr Elio Capra. You receive an email  inviting you into the zoom meeting today. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 7pm.  All families are expected to have one adult present.

Year 5 Camp

We contacted Sovereign Hill last Friday with a request for another date for the Yr 5 camp. If this is not possible we will pursue other camp opportunities.

Posting on your own Social Media

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have issued a warning for all parents. Images with children in school uniform, their name or indicators of their location in the background can be used by offenders to build a profile and groom parents and children. The AFP is continuing to regularly seize images of children in the collections of online child sex offenders. The AFP have advised that if you do post on social media that you lock down your privacy settings.

A reminder to all parents to monitor the digital health and screen time of your child. 

Food Sharing

To ensure safety to the health of all our students we have a food sharing policy that requires staff, students and families to ensure there is:

• No food sharing or trading during snack or lunch
• No food sharing for birthday celebrations - this includes cakes and lolly bags
•  No food to be given as rewards
• Limited use of food for classroom celebrations   

I ask all families to assist me in enforcing this policy.

Parent Teacher  Meetings

All parent teacher meetings scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday 23, 24 February will now be online. Bookings information will be emailed out Wednesday 17 February.

Children who are will be attending school on Tuesday and Wednesday will need to bring with them their pencil cases and any supplies that were sent home on Friday. They can wear sports uniform on both of these days.

Take care,

Catherine

Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. Unfortunately the children in Grades 3-6 will be unable to attend Mass and the P-2’s unable to participate in a planned Liturgy.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. It occurs forty days before Easter not counting Sundays. The ashes remind us that God helps us to grow.

The children will be learning about Ash Wednesday and Lent. The message for our children is that all actions help us to live more like Jesus and that we can all follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

The children will be learning about Ash Wednesday and Lent. The message for our children is that all actions help us to live more like Jesus and that we can all follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

Values/Strengths 

Making connections and knowing what is important for our Catholic Identity is a focus this Year. We are learning about the Values/Strengths of our Catholic Identity. The goal is to make connections between RE and Values and how that looks and translates to everyday life.  

This month the value is ACCEPTANCE 

• God wants us to make friends with everyone no matter how different they may look or act.
• Acceptance...is the ability to respect the dignity and rights of all persons, even those whose beliefs and behaviours differ from our own. 

Kind Regards    

Marg Mitchell

Religious Education Leader

Welcome back to another jam packed year of learning, excitement and fun!

On Tuesday 2nd February, years Prep - 6  were lucky to be entertained by Laura and Jordan from the ‘Playground Craze - Popstars for the primary school’. The performances engage students with important social-emotional skills, covering topics such as confidence, resilience, kindness, persistence, friendship and cooperation. The messages help students strengthen self-awareness and self-management of the personal and social skills encouraged in the curriculum. The children had a lot of fun singing and dancing along whilst thinking about the importance of identifying emotions and learning that we can ‘choose to be happy’. This was a fantastic start to the Term 1 inquiry and wellbeing focus of understanding diversity and being inclusive of others.  If you would like to listen to the songs with your child/children you can find them on Spotify if you search ‘The Playground Craze’ or head to their website to find video clips and music.

https://www.theplaygroundcraze.com/music-and-videos/

This term students in years one to four will be completing the URSTRONG Friendology program which is a series of sequential sessions that inspire children to feel empowered, develop a strong sense of self, and love themselves while learning to manage the most important thing to them….their friendships. URSTRONG is an internationally recognised friendship program that gives children the language, skills and self confidence to be better friends and develop healthier relationships. Year 6  students will be part of a peer support program helping their year 1 buddies during these sessions.

Year 5s will be looking at building sportsmanship skills which will greatly benefit the beginning of their inter-school sports journey. URSTRONG also have a free parent page full of useful tips and videos to help learn the ‘language of friendship’ along with strategies on how to help your child overcome friendship issues.  It can only be a good thing if both parents and teachers are using the same ‘language of friendship’ when helping the children navigate through relationships, and being able to identify what makes a healthy relationship.

https://urstrong.com/parents/.

SRC NEWS

Congratulations to the students who were elected to represent their classes on the SRC for Semester 1. We have already had our first meeting where we discussed the Value/Christian Virtue that the school will be focussing on for the month of February, ‘Acceptance’.  Students will be collecting information from their classes about what it means to be ‘accepting’ of others and what that might look like in the classroom and on the playground. Certificates given out at our next assembly will be given to students who have been demonstrating this value. SRC badges will also be handed out to our new SRC members at this assembly.

Katrina Gardiner

Wellbeing Leader

Dear Families

Our new accounting system has created some delays in processing the school fees for 2021 for which we apologize but unfortunately some things are out of our control.  We hope to have the billing system in place by the end of February.

However, the School is still able to take payments using the regular options of:

1) A payment plan with your choice of fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or annual frequency.

To participate we need a signed, Payment Plan Authorization indicating your preferences.  The form is available on this newsletter site (see under the Heading ‘School Fees’) or ask for a form from the School Office to be sent home.

2) Eftpos /Credit Cards (Cash/Cheques) payments at the School Office.

Parents may come onto the school grounds during office hours. Alternatively you can phone through your payment - 95577130

3) Direct Debit to our bank account –

Account Name:        St Paul’s General Account

Bank: National Australia Bank           BSB:   083 347       Account Number:  69500 0591

Your reference:     Account code & Child’s Last Name

NB: Families who have a swimming credit from 2020 should deduct $65 per child from the total.

       Camp Fees are in addition to the total fees and payable by the end of Term 1.

       Year 5 Camp  $270   Year 6 Camp  $360

Concessions

Health Care Card holders may be eligible for a concession under the State Government’s Camps, Sport and Excursions Fund.  An application form is available and can be picked up from the Office or sent via email upon request. 

Financial Hardship

As always, parents experiencing difficulties in meeting their commitments to the school are urged to contact us as soon as possible so that we can discuss the situation with you.

Please feel free to call Mary on a Monday, Tuesday or Thursday if you have any questions or email: mmaguire@spbentleigh.catholic.edu.au

Congratulations to Louise and Matthew Bull on the safe arrival of their beautiful baby boy Henry, born on 9th February.

Riley (2H) is a very proud big brother!

Hi my name is April. I am 8 years old and I am in Year 3.  I am shaving my head in March for the World’s Greatest Shave. Why I am shaving my hair is because there is a very bad blood disease called leukaemia.

The medicine that people with leukaemia have to take is very strong, and they lose all their hair.

I am doing this to raise money. If you would like to sponsor me it will be very helpful for the people who have leukaemia to try and find a cure. And they will love the support from you.

If you see me on the yard say hi to me. I am more than happy to ask me questions.

Just click here to sponsor me (copy the link into your browser if it doesn’t work when you click):

http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/aprilarundel

Thank you,

April Arundel xx

I found out I really enjoyed making banana splits for dessert for my family so I decided I should do something bigger with it.

Zoe and I thought we should do a banana splits mini stand to raise money which we decided to donate to charity.

We needed to decide on a charity and remembered Bayciss. This was because a lady had come to our school last year and told us all about Bayciss and the good work they do.

Our B-splitz stand went really well, everyone loved them. We had 6 different flavors - the favourite was the chocolate Dulux!

We raised nearly $140 for Bayciss.

Thank you to everyone that came to buy a B-Splitz and donate money to a good cause and to everyone that came and helped us on the day.

Lily and Zoe