St Matthew's Catholic Primary School

Parish Priest: Fr Florentino (Boy) Galdo

School Principal: Mr Bob Brown

Deputy Principal: Mrs Carmela D’Amato

RE Leader: Mrs Helen Howden

School Email: principal@smfawknernth.catholic.edu.au

School Phone: 0393595423 

Hello to Students, Parents, Staff and Friends of St Matthew’s,   

 A warm welcome back to school to you all. I hope you all had a most joyous Easter and relaxing holiday break with your families and friends. The weather over Easter and during the first week was wonderful, but the second week gave us an early reminder that Winter is not that long away.  I visited all the grades yesterday and it was great to see so many happy and smiling students and teachers back at school, hard at work, in full swing in the first session of the day. Well done students and staff, keep up the great work.

SCHOOL WINTER UNIFORM: 

As we start Term Two can I remind Parents that all students should now be wearing their Winter Uniform. We normally allow a week for all students to obtain any extra winter garments that they may need so by next Monday 26th April every student at St Matthew’s should be in full Winter School Uniform. Please remember there are plenty of School Beanies and School Spray Jackets available from the Uniform Shop to keep those winter chills out. Both are universal for Boys and Girls. The Uniform Shop will be open this Thursday from 8:30am through to 9:15am.                    

CELEBRATING 200 YEARS OF CATHOLIC  EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA:

Many of you may not be aware but this year, the Catholic Church is celebrating 200 years of Catholic Education in Australia. The upcoming 200 year celebrations are an opportunity to give thanks for Catholic Education in Australia and to look forward to a hope-filled future as catholic education navigates new territory in schooling and the changing educational landscape and societal context in Australia. To support our celebrations at a local level, the below prayer cards have been supplied for all our students and their families to commemorate such a historic occasion.  As part of the 200 years celebrations, a National Mass has been planned for the feast day of Our Lady Help of Christians on Monday 24th May, 2021. Arrangements about how schools in the Archdiocese will celebrate the Mass will be communicated closer to the day.     

ST MATTHEW’S 6OTH ANNIVERSARY

This year 2021 also marks the 60th Anniversary of the opening of St Matthew’s Catholic Primary School in North Fawkner. We will be celebrating this in third term this year with quite a number of events. This should be a great time in the school’s life so stay tuned for further details as they unfold. COVID-19 hopefully won’t inhibit these events in any way. Fingers Crossed.

 4 YEARLY REVIEW

Every 4 years every Catholic Primary School in the Archdiocese of Melbourne undergoes a formal review and it is our turn this year. This will occur over 4 days either side of the Term 3 holidays, firstly on Monday 6th September where the Reviewer has to check all of the VRQA (Minimum Standards and Child Safe Standards).  4 years ago there were 93 of these so I dare say they will have added a few more since then. Of course each of these standards have to be met. Then there are two Review days at the school on Tuesday 12th October and Thursday 14th October, followed by a Dialogue and Engagement Day on Wednesday 3rd November where the review is finally delivered. Copies of this will be available to Parents after this.

As a Staff we will be working on the Review at our weekly staff meetings, but we will also need a whole day on Friday 21st of May for the whole staff to work together on our documents. This will be a pupil free day so there will be no school for all students on that day.

 ENROLMENTS FOR 2022 ARE STILL OPEN

Yes enrolments are still open for Students in Years Prep to 6 for 2022. If you have a younger child/children who are turning 5 years old before April 30th 2022 then they are eligible to commence at St Matthew’s next year. Also if you know of any family members, family friends or neighbours that are interested please let them know that enrolments will be closing this term and they need to get their enrolment forms in as soon as possible.

If anyone missed any of our guided tours on our Open Days last term then please ring the School Office on 9359 5423 between business hours 8:30am – 4:30pm to arrange a suitable time for a personal guided tour of the school.

Enjoy a wonderful first week back everyone and don’t forget to rug up. keep warm and dry as the weather declines this week. As was stated many times in the Game of Thrones – “Winter is Coming.”

Yours Sincerely,

Bob Brown

Principal

 2021 TERM DATES

TERM 2   Monday 19th April           -        Friday 25th June

TERM 3   Monday 12th July           -          Friday 17th September

TERM 4   Monday 4th October       -        Friday 17th December

All events for Term 2 have been added to the calendar on skoolbag app. Unfortunately, you will not receive an alert when an event has been added, please continue checking the events page for updates.

At the end of last term, our Year 5 and 6 students took part in a leadership day called 'Aspire Higher'.  Here are some reflections from the day.

Aspire for Higher has really changed my perspective of working with friends. Working with friends is fun but you normally don’t get as much work done as you have lots to talk about such as what you're going to play at recess or lunch or what video game is better.

Working with people you’re not familiar with can be hard but once you start working there's a significant amount of change you can bring about. Using the new teamwork you have created with that unfamiliar person will create a new superior bond. That bond could lead to new friends to expand your friendship group.

Being a leader doesn't mean you need a badge. We can all be leaders by helping younger generations and the older generations even by doing simple acts of kindness like saying thank you or good morning.

Jack Cavanagh

Aspire Higher, Aspire for higher is a program that came to our school for the whole day to teach about leadership and how you don’t need a badge to be a leader. A.S.P.I.R.E is an Acronym for Action, Serve, Persist, Influence, Respect, and Encourage. For the Whole day, the Year 5 and the Year 6 students combined into groups and encouraged each other while playing the team games. At the start, we got to choose a person we were unfamiliar with and played fun activities that John and Jamie, the presenters, created.

Everyone has been Included, even the students that were on crutches. At the end, we all did a survey to see if we were the People leader, the Prophet leader, and the Planner leader. I found out that I am a people leader. We had to add up the points to see what leader we were. I got 12 points for Prophet leader 11 for the planner and 14 points for A people leader meaning I am a peoples leader. This means I serve people and  I am almost like a leader in a group.

Aspire for Higher has taught us how to be good leaders and role models to the younger students and it teaches us about teamwork and patience and I am glad that we got to have aspire for higher to come to our school and I thank Jamie and John for taking their time to come to our school for the year 5s and year 6s.

Well done to all the children in Years 3 to 6 who had-a-go and entered the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee for 2021. These children received their Certificates of Participation at Assembly on the last day of Term 1 :

National finalists were announced on April 1st and I am very excited and proud to announce that Jayden Khada from 3A has made it to the State and Territory finals. Jayden will sit for this Spelling Bee on April 29. Congratulations, Jayden and good luck from all of us at St. Matthew’s!

Mrs Rina Carfi

Literacy Leader

Welcome back everyone,we are happy to invite and encourage families to come to our playgroup every Monday and Thursday from 9am-11am. In the Family Room at st Matthew’s primary school.

Playgroup is an effective program to engage families and children from 0-4 years of age with the school community. There are many many activities that can benefit your children in many different ways.

For further information and bookings, please call Bushra (Playgroup Coordinator) on 0451474773 or call the school office on 0393595423.

Due to current restrictions there will be a limit of a maximum of 10 parents with their children for each of these sessions.  Please be aware that all adults will need to wear a face mask during the time they are at playgroup. We thank you for your understanding regarding this. We are looking forward to meeting you very soon!