Dear Parents

The formal enrolment period for Catholic schools in Canberra has commenced. I encourage families with siblings, due to start Kindergarten in 2022 to lodge their enrolment as soon as possible. Enrolments are to be submitted online and can be accessed via our school website. 

A Proud Principal 

"Hi Carmel - Just wanted to thank you for your time yesterday talking about potential enrolment for our daughter. I also wanted to send you a note to say how wonderful the year 6s were who showed us around the school. They were so confident and well-spoken and are a real credit to the school. Thank you again" - A New Family.

Super Stars - Win News

Last night St Monica's featured on the Win News as part of a report commenting on NAPLAN preparation. Congratulations to our students who featured. Visit the St Monica's Facebook page to view our story.  

https://www.facebook.com/StMonicasPrimaryEvatt/ 

Mother's Day Thanks

Sincere thanks to Michelle Bowman for her preparation and coordination of this year Mother's Day gifts. The selection of gifts was beautiful and very much appreciated.

Compass

Please register with the Compass Parent Portal if you have not already done so. Please ensure your email address is correct for registration to go through. If you are having difficulties with registering please contact the Front Office. Reports will be distributed via Compass to please register. 

CE Changes to Semester One Report 

Our teaching team has begun the process of creating each child’s Semester 1 2021 report.

In Semester 1:

For Kindergarten students:

• Achievement in each subject will be reported using a four-point scale (Well Above Expectations, Above Expectations, Meeting Expectations and Working Towards Expectations).

For Year 1 to Year 6 students:

• Academic grades for each subject using a five-point scale from A-E will be reported using the Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards.

For all students:

• Strand Achievement will be reported in English, Mathematics, Humanities and Social Sciences, Health and Physical Education, and The Arts using a five-point scale (Excellent, High, Sound, Basic, Elementary).
• Engagement with Learning statements, which are taken directly from the Australian Curriculum, will provide specific information about your child’s Critical and Creative Thinking, and Personal and Social Responsibility, using a three-point scale (Beginning, Developing, Consistently).
• Individual student comments will not be used in the Semester 1 Reports.

Dialogue is an important feature of reporting. The Semester Report in this format encourages parent engagement and conversation about student learning. We want the report to be the entry point for parent-teacher interviews so we can engage in a genuine conversation about your child’s strengths, challenges, effort and areas for growth.

You are encouraged to keep in touch with your child’s teacher should you have any concerns as our next formal parent-teacher meetings will occur in Term 3 Week 1.

The new approach to Academic Reporting is a developing process. Further work will be undertaken in the coming months to determine how progress and achievement is best reported based on what we know to be important information about a student’s learning and progress.

New Traffic Arrangments and Improvements 

New infrastructure improvements planned near St Monica’s Primary School include a new roundabout at the intersection of Copland Drive and Verbrugghen Street to reduce vehicle speeds and increase safety. This work is to occur in the coming weeks.

Director, School Safety Program
Development Coordination Branch | Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate | ACT Government

Continue to stay safe and healthy and may God's blessing be with everyone.

Principal  

Did you catch our Year 5 students on Win News last night preparing for NAPLAN? If not, check it out on our school Facebook page!

Students in Years 3 and 5 will be taking NAPLAN next week. To ensure the best testing environment is set up our Year 5 students will be taking the test in the Year 4 rooms meaning the East Block will become our testing hub. 

It is vital that all parents of student taking NAPLAN complete the checklist below to ensure a smooth running of the test. 

Here is the timetable:

NAPLAN Parent Checklist

• Read the NAPLAN letter from Carmel Maguire
  Letter_to_parents_from_principal_re_NAPLAN_online_version.pdf

  Letter_to_parents_from_principal_re_NAPLAN_online_version _pdf 142.32 KB

• Read the parent information brochure
  naplan_online_information_brochure_for_parents_and_carers.pdf

  naplan_online_information_brochure_for_parents_and_carers _pdf 182.86 KB

• Ensure the NAP Lockdown Browser app is installed on your child's BYOD device. N.B. Students without their own device will be issued one by the school. 
• Visit the NAPLAN Demonstration Site to familiarise your child with the online platform.
• Contact Luke Donnelly if you are considering withdrawing your child from one or all of the tests.

What does the word Eucharist mean?

We hear and use the word Eucharist quite often – but what does it actually mean?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

The inexhaustible richness of [the sacrament of the eucharist, i.e. the “Mass”] is expressed in the different names we give it. Each name evokes certain aspects of it. It is called: Eucharist, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words eucharistein and eulogein recall the Jewish blessings that proclaim — especially during a meal — God’s works: creation, redemption, and sanctification. (CCC 1328)

We can see that the word Eucharist means more than just sharing a Holy meal together during a certain part of the mass. It is a word that means ‘giving thanks to God'.

So when we say ‘First Eucharist’ we are saying this is the first time that I can fully participate in the Holy meal as a member of the Catholic community I belong and I am able to give thanks to God in this way. How exciting!!!

Year 4 will be exploring this in more detail next week at the Eucharist Retreat Day and Parent/ Child Formation evening. Thank you to those families who have participated in a Commitment Mass already. For those who haven’t yet, this coming weekend is the last weekend to come along.

Please continue to keep Year 4 and their families and teachers in your prayers as they prepare for the Sacrament of First Eucharist this term.

Change of Time for Saturday Vigil Mass at St Monica's Church 

Commencing 5 June 2021 the time for Saturday Vigil Mass will change from 6.00pm to 5.00pm. This is to allow for the end of daylight saving. The time will change again when daylight saving begins in October. From 5 June 2021 the Sacrament of Reconciliation will be available from 3.30pm - 4.30pm to accord with the change of Mass time.

Clergy Assembly - 17-21 May - Galong

Both Fr Loi and Fr Johnny will be away from the parish during this time. Liturgy of the Word services with Communion will replace the Masses from Tuesday to Friday.

Sacramental Program 2021 – First Eucharist for Y4 students in 2021

The Sacrament of First Eucharist will be celebrated in term 2 of 2021 on the following dates:

• Tuesday 8 June at 6pm in St Michael’s Church
• Wednesday 9 June at 6pm in St Monica’s Church
• Thursday 10 June at 5.30pm in St Monica’s Church
• Thursday 10 June at 7pm in St Monica’s Church

Please keep the candidates for First Eucharist in your prayers.

Registration must be made via the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Qkr! App. Registrations opened on 30 March 2021 and will close by 16 May 2021.
No further registration will be accepted after the closing date.

Commitment Masses

Students and parents must attend one of the weekend Masses at either St Monica’s Church (6pm Saturday or 10am Sunday) or St Michael’s Church (8am or 5.30pm Sunday) on one of the dates listed below to make their commitment for the Sacrament.
Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 May
Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 May 2021

There will be no additional commitment masses beyond these dates.

Booking a Mass time for the Sacrament

Once you have decided on the date and church you wish your child to celebrate the Sacrament, bookings can be made through ‘Trybooking’ on the parish website at www.cg.org.au/belconnennorth
Bookings will be open from 10 May 2021 to 21 May 2021.

COVID Restrictions - due to current Covid restrictions we can only have 200 people in the church for each celebration.
This means the number of people attending is restricted to 8 to 10 per family only. (This may include parents, siblings or other family members or friends).

Booking will close once 200 bookings are made for the service.

Purchasing a stole for First Eucharist

Purchasing a stole is optional and is not compulsory. If you wish to purchase a stole, please make a payment of $20 through the Qkr! App and send an email to sc.belconnennorth@cg.org.au and arrangements will be made for delivery/pickup.

For further information please contact the Sacramental Program coordinator at sc.belconnennorth@cg.org.au

We will continue to share cheat sheet's following our Cyber Safety with Safe on Social. This week's cheat sheet is a list of 10 strategies to keep your tweens safe online. 

Last Friday, 7 May, eleven students from Years 5 and 6 competed in the Canberra heat of the Kid's Lit Quiz. The Lit Quiz is a global contest that is run each year for children between the ages of 10 and 14 that celebrates the 'sport of reading'. Students are quizzed on a range of subjects about different books and authors with questions ranging from 'What was Akela the leader of?' (The Wolves in the Jungle Book) to 'What kind of animal is Blackjack from Percy Jackson?' (A pegasus).

We were very lucky this year as we are one of only two countries to be able to hold a contest at all. Here in Canberra we were even luckier to hold a contest in person. The Students and their families visited Canberra Grammar School to compete in the Senior School Library.

I am proud to report that the teams from St Monica's did an excellent job! For all of our students it was their first time competing face to face and most of the teams we were competing against were made up of high schoolers. Despite the fact that many of the students there had years more experience our teams did very well with one winning a prize for the top score in the category of 'mice'!

St Monica's has a long and proud history of competing at the Lit Quiz, with this being our eighth year in a row that we have sent teams. If your child is in Year 4 or 5 they should consider coming along to see what the Lit Quiz is all about, because we will be holding tryouts for next years teams in a few weeks time!

With the implementation of You Can Do It! and other support networks we aim to:

1. Help prevent and reduce a students’ social-emotional difficulties and mental health problems and
2. Promote students’ positive well-being and flourishing

 The children in Year 3 have been learning that “giving effort” is a way of thinking that can help them complete difficult tasks.

Ms Maguire and Mr Donnelly are creating a picture book of The St Monica’s Way.

To help them find the authors for this book they are holding a writing competition to find the best writers from each grade.

Write a story or poem based on the theme The St Monica’s Way. Use the footsteps of respect, resilience, engagement and growth in your story or poem.

You may like to include one or all of them.

National Simultaneous Storytime

National Simultaneous Story time is next Wednesday.  St Monica’s has registered all the students for this event.  The book is “Give me some space!” by Phil Bunting and will be an intergalactic experience with the NSS 202 with the book being read by the astronaut Dr Shannon Walker from the International Space Station. Over one million children across Australia and New Zealand will be participating in this fantastic experience. The National Simultaneous Storytime website has great resources linked to science and space to further engage the students with an interest in space. https://www.alia.org.au/nss .

Scholastic Book Fair 

To the Book Fair and Beyond! The Scholastic Book Fair is coming soon so get ready for some out-of-this-world excitement! You’ll go where no reader has gone before as you explore the coolest array of books in the cosmos. This stellar reading celebration will run in the library from Tuesday 25 May to Friday 28 May. Just visit the Fair with your family and you will go in the draw to win FREE BOOKS! This is one far-out event that you won’t want to miss!

The Bookfair is an important fundraiser for the library as the library receives a percentage of the sales from the bookfair. Each book purchase contributes to new books for the library. The funds raised from this bookfair will be used to purchase books for the fiction section of the library that we are focussing on updating with current titles. Our goal is to have 300 books in students homes so please come along and support the library to reach this target.

Maths Question

Well done to Vsevelod K (5EM) for answering last weeks questions correctly.

Daily Review

As part of Catholic Education's Catalyst Program, we have 6 teachers participating in High Impact Teaching Practices training with Toni Hatten-Roberts from COGLearn. As part of this training, teachers are currently implementing as a trial, Daily Review. A Daily Review is a process of reviewing and practising key strategies and content every day. Teachers are implementing this explicit instruction at the start of each of their maths lessons for 20 minutes. 

When you use explicit instruction, you follow a set of sequential steps:

• Identify a clear, specific objective.
• Break the information into chunks.
• Model with clear explanations.
• Verbalise the thinking process.
• Provide opportunities to practise.
• Give instant feedback.

ACT Swimming

Congratulations again to Joel M, Annabelle F, Arina M and Fletcher B who represented St Monica's and Belconnen at the ACT Swimming Carnival a few weeks ago. Our four students achieved some outstanding results:

Fletcher- 100m Free 11th, 100m Back 8th and 50m Back 9th

Arina- 200m IM 4th, 50m Free 11th, 100m Breast 15th, 100m Back 20th, 50m Breast 6th, 100m Fly 7th and 50m Back 15th 

Annabelle- 50m Free 11th, 100m Free 17th, 50m Fly 6th, 100m Back 9th and 50m Back 9th

Joel- Unfortunately Joel was disqualified in his race but has shaved 10 seconds of his personal best time in this event since competing at our school carnival, a great effort Joel!

Thank you so much for the wonderful efforts of our lovely volunteers Tracy D'Ambrosio, Esme Rolleston, Katherine O'Sullivan and Rach Pentes last week.

I notice this Friday (14 May) we are very low on volunteers.  I would really appreciate it if anyone was able to help, even just for an hour or two. Thank you to those who have already signed up. We sure have a wonderful crew helping in our canteen.

Please click on the following web link (or copy it into your web browser if clicking doesn't work) to go to the signup sheet:

volunteersignup.org/XF84H

To sign up, just follow the instructions on the page. It only takes a few seconds to do. 

Walk Safely to School Day- Friday 14 May

Now in its 22nd year, Walk Safely to School Day is happening on Friday 14 May 2021. National Walk Safely to School Day (WSTSD) is an annual event when all Primary School children will be encouraged to walk and commute safely to school. It is a Community Event seeking to promote Road Safety, Health, Public Transport and the Environment. On arrival to school, students who complete their walk or ride to school will be provided with a light snack. Students may even wish to organise a group to walk or ride to school together. Please see the flyer attached or access the website below for more information.

Happy Birthday to the following students  celebrating a Birthday this week 

Charlie C, Maddie R, Zoe P, Max S, Bella P, Ador D, Ryan W

If you have any ideas or concerns please email them through to our Secretary Noel Chan at council.stmonicas@cg.catholic.edu.au 

Reminder all families: 

Catholic Education COVID-19 Website - Click to open web updates