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Dear Parents and Carers
COVID-19 Update
Thank you to all of our families for continuing to follow health advice by administering their allocated RATs and committing to our additional measures such as the Walk Through, which has been a great success.
Our teachers are following COVID safe practices at all times and are to be commended on their commitment to keeping our community safe.
The ACT Cabinet will meet today to make decisions regarding the use of RATs beyond next week.
Grounds Renewal Project
Hopefully, in the past week, you have had the chance to drive by the school or pick up and drop off the kids and have seen our grounds starting to change.
During our staff professional learning week, it was noted by staff that the grounds of our school needed to reflect the feel of our community. These are sentiments that have also been shared by parents. In light of this and the fact that our school is 60 years old, we are now engaging in a Grounds Renewal Project to achieve our goal of having the school environment reflect the feel of our community. This will include our School and Parish Working Bee on Saturday 2 April.
We would love to hear your ideas for how the grounds can be renewed. You may have experience in landscaping, be or know an artist that can bring life to blank walls or just have a great idea that we can consider. If you are one of these people please give me a call so we can have a great conversation!
School Blessing and Leadership Badges
Due to current restrictions in schools, we will be unable to have a Whole School Opening Mass or a Centred in Faith gathering to hand out our leadership badges. As an alternative, we have invited Fr. Emil to visit us on Friday morning when the students line up to give the school a blessing and bless the leadership badges. Fr. Emil will then hand out the leadership badges in individual packaging to our Year 6 students. The 5/6 teachers will be sharing this moment with our families.
School Calendar
To streamline our communication practices we have developed a calendar that is now available on the school website and Compass. The calendar contains events throughout the year and will be updated as necessary.
Birthday Present for Students - Uniform Free Day
We know that celebrating your birthday at school can be an exciting day and would like to make it even more special. From tomorrow any child who is celebrating their birthday will have a uniform free day! This means that everyone in the school will know it is their birthday and be able to wish them a happy day. If your child has a birthday on the weekend or in the holidays, they can choose the next school day to have their uniform free. Children who have already had a birthday in 2022 can choose a day in the next week to have their uniform free day.
We see this as a small initiative to increase the wellbeing of the students in our school community.
Luke Donnelly
Principal
Christian Meditation
St Thomas More’s Primary School has a strong tradition of participating in Christian Meditation. The below visual is often shared with our teachers and students to remind us about the ‘Essentials of Christian Meditation’.
It is a practice at our school to be Centred in Faith by participating in Christian Meditation 3-4 times a week with our class.
Sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance
Preparation for this Sacrament began on Sunday. If you were unable to attend Mass on Sunday to enrol please email me samantha.mance@cg.catholic.edu.au so that I can send you electronic copies of the forms. Filled in forms can be returned directly to the parish office campbell@cg.org.au Reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation will take place at the Parish at 11:30am on the 26th of March.
Mini Vinnies
Ariana Strmota, our school chaplain, facilitated our first Mini Vinnies Meeting of the year. Mini Vinnies empowers primary school students to become advocates within their school and local community. In Term 1 the year 5 and 6 students will meet fortnightly to learn about social justice issues. Currently we are unable to mix cohorts of students, it is our hope that in Term 2 we are allowed to invite year four students to join the meetings.
Youth Minister
Hello, I’m Liarna, the 2022 Youth Minister at St Thomas More.
I am in my second year of Ministry. I moved to Canberra to study primary school teaching at the Australian Catholic University. I am looking forward to engaging the students into the faith life of the school and building pathways to the broader parish community. I love the mission of CSYMA and am so excited for the year ahead!
Liarna (Youth Minister)
liarna.miller@cg.org.au
Yours in Christ,
Samantha Mance
Religious Education Coordinator
School Fees
Term 1 Fee statements have been emailed to all families. If you have not recieved your fee statement contact julie.ogden@cg.catholic.edu.au