A new year brings us the gift of new members to our school community. We warmly welcome new staff, students and families to St Anthony's in 2021.
On Monday, 61 Kindergarten students attended their first day of school. There were many excited and nervous students as well as a few parents.
The children have had a wonderful week of learning and making new friends. They are settling in well to all the routines throughout the whole day and across the week, especially as they realise it's a full time commitment.
As a community, we keep Mrs Rowena Laurie and her family in our prayers. Mrs Laurie's mother passed away last week and we extend our condolences during this time of loss.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.
Each year during Lent, Catholics show their commitment to living better lives through prayer, fasting and almsgiving (giving freely of time, gifts or material goods for the benefit of others). In Australia, parishes and schools engage in Lenten almsgiving by contributing to Project Compassion. Project Compassion is the annual appeal of the Australian division of Caritas, the Catholic Church agency for international aid and development. As in previous years, your family will be provided with a Project Compassion box so that you can make this practice part of your observance of Lent at home, and at the same time, support Caritas Australia in providing assistance to people in need both in Australia and overseas. Students will learn more about Project Compassion and the people it supports in Religious Education this term.
Thank you to all families who booked in a time slot for their child’s Mathematics Assessment Interview (MAI) on Wednesday and Thursday last week. The Mathematics Assessment Interview provides insights into children's current mathematical thinking. We receive valuable information from this one on one assessment and allocate a Growth Point to each student in the four domains of Counting, Place Value, Addition and Subtraction and Multiplication and Division.
"Growth Points are like milestones or major pathways to mathematical understanding. It is not claimed that every child passes through all growth points because children's learning pathways are highly variable. However the Growth Points provide a useful framework for reflecting on and evaluating the knowledge and strategies a child uses to solve numerical problems."
Ann Gervasoni, Extending Mathematical Understanding, 2015, p31
Growth points are useful because they help teachers:
Understand how children learn;
Assess and monitor children’s growth in mathematical understanding;
Identify children who are at risk;
Identify the next point of challenge in children’s learning;
Plan & target teaching so that teachers can identify the experiences that will most effectively help children achieve the next growth point in their mathematical learning.
In the coming weeks, you will receive an outline of your child’s progress and their growth point achievements for Counting, Place Value, Addition and Subtraction, and Multiplication and Division.
We are pleased to advise that we have our 9 week ‘Dance Fever’ dance program that commenced on the 1st of February and will conclude on the Monday the 29th of March (Week 10).
Years 3-6 will participate in a 40 minute dance lesson and Kindergarten to Year 2 will participate in a 30 minute lesson, run by two Dance instructors, each Monday. All students will need to wear their sport uniform.
The “Dance Program” is curriculum based, to teach children a variety of dances and dance styles including dance used by cultural groups. Children will work individually, with a partner, and groups, providing a platform to develop students’ interpersonal skills, social skills, peer respect and etiquette. Students will explore the elements of Dance and practise fundamental movement skills. Also covered will be improvisation, where students will be able to create movements or dance sequences using different body parts and in response to various stimuli, concepts or ideas.
This program has been designed to fulfil the Dance Outcomes in the Creative Arts K–6 Syllabus but certainly has a strong cross curricular relationship to the outcomes in the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education Syllabus.
It is found that students who choose their own books to read and are encouraged to read for pleasure develop a lifelong love of knowledge and curiosity. Our school participates in Scholastic Bookclub which allows students to purchase age appropriate books of their choosing. Twice a term your child will bring home a brochure for Bookclub. You and they can then look through this brochure and choose any items that your child would like to purchase. You then simply need to go online at scholastic.com.au/loop and place and pay for your order using a credit card. Although cash payments are mentioned on the order form in the brochure, our school no longer accepts these for Bookclub. (Therefore you do not need to fill in or send to school any forms). All orders will then be electronically linked to our school and the bookclub organiser will validate them and do one group submit on the Monday after the brochures have gone out and then another the following week. Orders are then received at our school within a couple of weeks which are then bagged and sent home with students. Any late orders submitted after the second submit will require parents to pay for books to be shipped to their homes.
Ordering with the Scholastic Loop system is easy:
Brochures can also be viewed online at the Scholastic website.
All moneys spent through bookclub earns reward points for our school which in turn allows us to purchase some great resources for students.
Any questions please contact Mrs Heness in the library on a Monday or Tuesday.
Our 2021 School Community Group Executive Committee members will work together on community events, school fundraisers and fun activities for the children. We thank them for putting themselves forward for these roles and know they will be well supported by the generosity of our many other parents who volunteer for events as they arise throughout the school year.
| President | David Halabi | Sebastien (Y2) and Benjamin (K) |
| Vice President | Hugh McDermott | Geneva (Y3) and Camille (Y1) |
| Secretary | Stephen Keane | Liam (Y2) and Joshua (Y1) |
| Treasurer | Cathy Hall | Ashton (Y4) |
| Assistant Treasurer | Richel Gnanapragasam | Jayden (Y2) |
| Social Coordinator | Natalie Lette | Oscar (Y4) |
| Assistant Social Coordinator | Dayan Lavalu | Amari (Y2) and Aria (Y1) |
Save the date for our Term 1 meetings:
Wednesday 24 February - 7:00pm - Library
Wednesday 24 March - 7:00pm - Library
In 2021, due to ongoing covid restrictions to parents on site and the format of events, we will advertise for parent volunteers as each event arises.
St Anthony's uniform shop opening hours:
TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS 8:30-9:15am WEDNESDAYS 2:15-3:00pm
Outside of these times, orders and payments can be placed in person through the front office if the size of the item is known.
See our school website for uniform requirements and price list.
All students commence Term 1, 2021 in their summer uniform.
MENUS - check out the St Anthony's menus at melstastybites.com/menu
CANTEEN ACCOUNTS - consider opening a canteen account to minimise cash handling, see information on our website
BIRTHDAYS - Canteen options are available for a child to celebrate their birthday with their classmates.
* Animal Pops Bucket - $1 each ice block
* Cupcakes with frosting - $2 each cupcake (72 hours notice required)
