Prayer to St Monica

Dear St Monica
We now ask you to pray with us
for all those sons and daughters that have wandered away from God,
and to add your prayers to those of all mothers
who are worried over their children.
Pray also for us that,
following your example, we may,
in the company of our children,
one day enjoy the eternal vision of our Father in Heaven.

Amen.

Dear Parents and Carers, 

Feast Day

Next week we celebrate the feast day of our patron Saint St Monica. We have arranged a number of activities for the children to participate in to celebrate her honour. Thank you to Haley Stonham (REC) for organising all the wonderful opportunities to celebrate her amazing life in an appropriate manner. 

Father’s Day Celebration – Save the Date Friday 2 September 8:15am-9am

We have organised a Father’s Day celebration with information already sent out via COMPASS.  We invite all fathers and significant males in our lives to come down and grab a coffee and a donut on us. We will then have a Furthest Father Footy kick off at 8:50am.

We will also have a Father’s Day stall for children to purchase a gift (Friday 2 September).  If you are able to assist please let Kirra know.  I would like to thank Kirra Thompson for all her organisation to celebrate the important males in our lives.

Book Week

Thank you to Veronica Melville for all her efforts and organisation to celebrate Book Week this year. It was so great to see the students (and staff) dressed up as book character. So many costumes were imaginative and creative and I thank our parent community for the work that goes into putting a costume together. It was a wonderful way to celebrate all things books… “A book is a gift you can open again and again” Garrison Keillor.

Parent Survey on Wellbeing and Learning

The CSPA 2022 Parent Survey on Wellbeing and Learning is open and all schools are encouraged to share this link to the survey.  

Peace and Blessings to all families,

Maggie Lloyd

Happy Birthday to the following students  celebrating a Birthday this week 

Mason M, Pasquale A, Hamish H, Khloe H, Mitchel C, Lily H, Geeza J, Patrick S, Fraser C, Alexandra T

St Monica’s Feast Day Celebrations

This coming Saturday is St Monica’s Feast Day. To celebrate, Week 7 is going to be a week of celebrations!

Monday 29 August -  Liturgy with buddy activities afterwards to show how we are ‘Living the Footsteps of St Monica’. Our St Mon's Got Talent finals will be in the hall. Then in the afternoon we will compete, class against class, in a St Monica’s Trivia.

The St Mon’s Got Talent: Classes have been running their own try outs over the past week. I have loved hearing and seeing the children practising their talents at Recess and Lunch!

Tuesday 30 August -  Silent Disco Day for Year 4, Year 1, Year 6

Don’t forget to wear your disco party clothes!

Wednesday 31 August - Silent Disco Day for Year 3, Year 2, Year 5, Kinder

Don’t forget to wear your disco party clothes!

Thursday 1 September - Special Lunch order treat from the Canteen available today to continue our celebrations. Mrs Regan will have party pies and sausage rolls available at Lunch Time. Order your special treat via QkR! from Friday afternoon on this week.

Saint of the Week: Saint Mon

St Monica Pray for Us

Sacrament of Confirmation for eligible Year 6 students will be celebrated on 13 September 2022 in St Michael’s Church and 14 September 2022 in St Monica’s Church.

Saint’s Name for Confirmation and Sponsor’s Name

URGENT - If you did not provide this information in your registration form please provide this information now to the Sacramental Program Coordinator at sc.belconnennorth@cg.org.au

Retreat Day – Wednesday 31 August – 9.00am to 2.30pm at St Monica’s School.

Child/Parent Formation Evening

Thursday 1 September – 6.00pm St Monica’s Church – Candidate and at least 1 parent are required to attend.

Sacrament of Reconciliation for eligible Year 3 students will be celebrated on 8, 9, and 10 November 2022 – Registrations open on Monday 19 September 2022.

For further Information regarding the Sacramental Program – please contact the Sacramental Program Coordinator at sc.belconnennorth@cg.org.au
or check the parish website for updates at  www.cg.org.au/belconnennorth

Belconnen Track and Field Results

Congratulations to all of the students who participated in the Belconnen Track and Field Carnival last Thursday. I am very proud to announce that as a school we placed 3rd overall out of 26 schools. Special congratulations to the following students who placed in the top 10 of their events -

Maddie N-H 8 years girls- 8th 70m

Milla F 9 years girls- 5th 70m,

Nellie R 9 years girls- 7th 70m, 8th 100m

Polly D 8 years girls- 10th 100m

Amelia H 12 years girls- 6th 100m, 6th 200m, 10th 800m, 10th Long Jump, 6th Discus

Annalene L 12 years girls- 6th Long Jump 

Arabella A 10 years girls- 7th Shot Put

Freya S 11 years girls- 10th Discus

Sonny S 8 years boys- 7th 70m, 5th 100m 

Nikolas H 9 years boys- 1st 100m 

Ater A 10 years boys- 3rd 100m, 9th 200m, 9th 800m  

Nicholas P 11 years boys- 1st 100m, 1st 200m, 3rd Long Jump

Jack G 11 years boys- 3rd 100m, 9th Shot Put

Joseph J 11 years boys- 5th 200m 

Charlie D 11 years boys- 5th 800m, 4th Long Jump 

Patrick I 11 years boys- 9th 800m

Patrick H- 4th 8-10 years Long Jump

Gabe J 12 years boys- 4th Long Jump

Zak D 12 years boys- 10th Shot Put

Ruben V 8-10 boys- 6th Discus

Jake W 11 years boys, 10th Discus

By finishing in the top 4, Nicholas, Gabe, Ater, Patrick H, Charlie, Jack and Nikolas have now qualified for the ACT Carnival to be held on 8 September. Congratulations!! 

I would also like to especially thank Noel Chan, Fiona Steinberg, Leanne and Tim Porter, Ruby and Jay for assisting me and the St Monica's staff run a successful carnival.

Oz Tag Gala Day   

A reminder that Thursday 1 September is the Boys Oz Tag Gala day and Friday 2 September is the Girls Oz Tag Gala day. Both days will be held at Southwell Park in Lyneham. Team lists have been finalised and have been sent out via Compass. Draws and further information will be sent out when we receive it from the carnival organisers. 

Please contact Ryan Matchett (ryan.matchett@cg.catholic.edu.au) if you have any questions. 

CBCA Book Week 

There have been many celebrations of books around the school this week from reading in class, artwork based on books, stories and crafts at lunchtime in the library and students guessing who the teacher was behind the book. Yesterday many students also had an extra visit to the library to celebrate the first “Australian School Library Day” taking the time to chill with a book. We are very lucky to have a wonderful library that is well resourced with a wide variety of physical books and online resources such as Britannica Online and Storybox Library. If you would like to learn more about why school libraries are important visit https://studentsneedschoollibraries.org.au/research/ 

Author Visits

On Monday students in Years 3-6 had the opportunity to meet and workshop with Harry Laing, a poet, creative writing teacher and children’s author. 

Harry recited some of his own poems and was able to demonstrate how to take something as simple as a thumb and create a poem.  He had the students writing poems on their favourite sport using verbs. The students commented that “Harry used a lot of expression when telling his poems . This made them interesting. He could make up poems on any topic.”  Harry was funny, we loved the rapper bee.”

On Tuesday local author Amelia McInerney visited the Kindergarten to Year 2 classes and shared her books. The students asked some fantastic questions about the writing process, including “How do you stay focused?” and “How long does it take to write a story?”  They were surprised to hear that “Bad Crab” took 6 months to write.  When Amelia read her funny story “The Book Chook”  a student commented “I like the way the chook wanted to come out of the book but if you are in a book you are not real.”

It is not too late to order the books as a wonderful reminder for students of meeting the author and the wonderful time they enjoyed. Below is information on ordering books

St_Monica_s_Harry_Laing_and_Amelia_McInerney_Presales.pdf

St_Monica_s_Harry_Laing_and_Amelia_McInerney_Presales _pdf 749.16 KB

Street Library Launch

If you have been walking near the school you will have noticed that we now have our own Street Library.  This was given to St Monica’s by Street Library Australia through the CBCA ACT Branch in 2021.  Julie Long OAM the CBCA ACT branch president was present for the launch on Monday.  Julie loved the thought and detail our  2021  Year 6 Arts leaders had put into the design of the art work. It is great to see that books are being borrowed and that new titles are being added to the library by members of the community.  Happy Reading! 

Book Character Parade

I am not sure where the students and staff  of St Monica’s were this morning but they missed a great morning as hundreds of characters from the books in the library came out of the books and into the courtyard this morning. The librarian was there to meet a Snow Queen, Wolf from “The Bad Guys”,  fairies, Harry Potter visiting from Hogwarts, Red Riding Hood..

Thank you to all the creative students and parents who showed great imaginations and innovation in designing and making their costumes.

A special thank you to everyone who donated a gold coin to support the great work of Story Dogs Australia in supporting over 2700 children around Australia each week with their reading.

Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge

The Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge finished on 19 August. Students are required to give their completed reading records to Veronica Melville by Friday 26 August for verification and presenting of certificates.

Issue 6 of Scholastic Book Club for 2022 will arrive home today. This is a fantastic way to build your child’s/ children’s personal library and love of reading.  All purchases support the school library with the library receiving a percentage of the sales to purchase books for the library. Orders need to be placed by Monday 12 September. 

It is easy to order. All orders are placed using  Book Club LOOP platform which allows parents to pay by credit card. Your child’s order is submitted directly to school safe and sound and the books will be delivered to class. You can place your child’s order at scholastic.com.au/LOOP or using the LOOP app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

I can’t quite believe how quickly this term is flying by. We have a few special things that the canteen is participating in. Firstly, there will be a Special Lunch next Thursday 1 September as part of our week of celebrations for St Monica’s Feast Day. We will have our normal Thursday lunch foods available, plus party pies and party sausage rolls - something different, warm and yummy as we celebrate St Monica’s.  Look out on Qkr! early next week to see the other yummy treats on offer for our “party lunch”. 

The canteen will also have some special treats available on the Walkathon day, these will also be listed on Qkr! closer to that date.

As always, I am ever so grateful for the dedicated volunteers who enable the canteen to run smoothly. Thanks to Katherine O’Sullivan, Sam Cox, Rach Pentes, Fiona Steinberg and Chris Regan for your assistance last week. We are always happy to welcome new volunteers to the canteen. Feel free to check out the schedule to see if you can contribute to our wonderful community.

volunteersignup.org/FMWE

St Monica's Chess Tournament

We will be holding our annual St Monica’s Chess Tournament in the Library on Monday 5 September. It will be open for students from Year 1 to Year 6. There will be a Year 1-3 category and a Year 4-6 category for students to enter. The students will play approximately 7 games depending on time. Students will be expected to have knowledge of chess to enter the tournament.

Thank you to Mr Drake and Mr and Mrs David Hoole for their support with running the tournament on the day. If you would like your child/children to participate in the tournament please complete the form below and return to the Front Office.

Natalia S (4C) has been growing her hair since Kindergarten so that she would be able to donate it to wigs for kids - Kids with cancer. She has donated four 25cm braids in support of this cause! Natalia was inspired by a family friend who had Hodgkins Lymphoma and went through chemotherapy resulting in losing her hair. Our dear friend was blessed to recover and now leads a healthy and cancer free life.

If anyone would like to donate to this cause the link is below - 

https://fundraise.kidswithcancer.org.au/fundraisers/nataliasotiropoulos