Happy Easter everyone! Hoping that you are enjoying this wonderful season of Easter and you have been able to have some special family time during the holidays, particularly as the weather was so fabulous. Easter is a very special time of year for us as Catholics after the reflection and prayer of Lent and Holy Week, where we strived to change, to be more open and forgiving, more loving and less focused on being negative and hurtful. Easter is a celebration of the new life within each of us as we strive to be better people. Hopefully, the symbolism of the Easter Eggs was celebrated in your homes and the excitement added to the sense of joy & celebration!

One of the articles I read over this time really struck me as a worthwhile reflection, which I wanted to share. Easter is not just a day but a way of living:

 Extract from LOYOLA PRESS:

As Alice Camille states so well, “Easter is truly a verb, a dynamic event pushing upward from the darkness into the light.”

Christians are Easter people. What that means to me is that we are dynamic: always growing, changing, moving, and engaging. Even those of us who cannot be “in motion” physically—because of necessary employment, family responsibilities, or health issues—can experience the interior “movements” of the soul that are such a focus in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

Every day the risen Christ invites us to move, to allow the breaking open that happens in a heart that is open to God and to all that divine love brings to us. We sense the inner movement, we listen to the voice of the Spirit, we pay attention to even fleeting emotions and responses that can be, in God’s hands, tools for our ongoing creation.

What does it mean to live Easter-ly?

It means that I allow myself to feel what I am feeling, and to work with those emotions, bringing them to prayer and asking the Holy Spirit to use the energy of those emotions to move me forward in some way.

It means that I attend to people and situations within my circle of influence, always looking for ways to “help souls,” to interpret God’s love in specific circumstances.

It means that I move into my life rather than try to avoid it, deny it, or run from it.

It means that I quiet my life enough to perceive what God is saying to me, in my one life, this day.

Blessed, happy, holy, lovely Easter to you!

It is great to see the students return this week very refreshed after the break and excited to see their friends. It is wonderful too that the weather continues to be relatively warm and we can really enjoy this beautiful season of Autumn. We have been monitoring the smoke from the burning off and have provided inside spaces during playtime for those feeling the effects particularly our students with Asthma. Please contact the office if you are concerned about your child during the local burning off period.

STAFF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

St Thomas Aquinas is very committed to continuing to up-skill our staff to ensure that we are providing the highest level of educational opportunities for our students. We have a number of improvement programs that we are focusing on this year that involves staff undertaking Professional Development (PD) and implementing into classrooms and across the school.

We continue to focus on Writing and Spelling, which has been a three-year project commencing in 2017 with the development of a K-6 approach.  This has involved:

• Developing SEEDS to inspire writing, encouraging deeper thinking and more extensive writing skills (particularly in the 3-6 years). A competition will be announced soon to encourage students to develop their thinking & ideas.
• Writing Conferences with teachers, providing students with specific feedback to improve & setting goals.
• Consistency of practice & expectation K-6 with an Agreed Practice developed by staff.
• Writing Case Management meetings to plan for interventions for students who are not improving as they should
• Spelling & Phonemic Awareness sessions with explicit teaching by Mrs Crittenden working across all classes 1-6 and the implementation of the Letters & Sounds Program.

The work we are doing in this area in underpinned by the research of Lyn Sharratt, a highly recognised educational expert who works closely with Prof John Hattie. The Diocese of Wollongong has committed to Lyn’s work on Collaborative Leadership Improving Learning and STA is excited to be working on this project.

To continue our PD in the area, the Leadership Team will be attending a day with Lyn Sharratt in Sydney on Monday 6th May where she is presenting her latest body of research titled Clarity.  The value of our team participating together in this PD is invaluable & I look forward to sharing our work in this area. Mrs Katrina West the Assistant Principal from St Michael’s Mittagong will be on site on Monday to assist with any issues or concerns. Mrs West has been at our school on a number of occasions & enjoys these days immensely.

Mrs Vicki Johnson as our Religious Education Co-ordinator is very involved in a number of exciting PD experiences which unfortunately does take her from her class. Mrs Johnson does regret not being on her class on a number of occasions at the beginning of this term but works very closely with Mrs Bull & Ms Smith who are the regular teachers on 4G.

Mrs Johnson is working on a very exciting new diocesan project Educating With a Mission Lens, which has been developed to respond to Pope Francis’ call for us to be Mission people. This project will be developed this year with us celebrating all the wonderful work students, staff & families do to spread God’s love to the world. Further details will be given following the PD for staff.

Mrs Erin Cleary is currently attending the ACEL Early Childhood conference as our Stage 1/Early Stage 1 Leader. We have had a significant change in our approach to Orientation & Transition over the last couple of years & we are keen to continue to develop links with parents, early childhood education services and community providers to ensure that all children have access to quality learning opportunities.

It is important that we all work together to provide learners in the early years with a sense of belonging, a seamless transition to school, and initiate a lifelong relationship with learning. This ACEL Conference will focus on the various factors that contribute to the development of the whole learner, from the early years and onwards with a focus on inclusion.

Mrs Virginia Preddey is attending the NSW Primary Library conference and Mrs Vicki Menzies at the Leading Indigenous Education Day both very significant areas of our school that is continually developing & improving. Other staff will be attending various PD experiences throughout the term.

Along with these focuses, we are also continuing our work on Challenging Tasks in Maths that staff has been developing and implementing. Hopefully, your children are talking about the difficult open-ended tasks where they are required to think mathematically to work through to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and understanding.

Please be very assured that if a teacher is away from their class that the learning continues with close collaboration between staff and casual teachers and class programs are not interrupted. We are really fortunate that we have very skilled casuals fully approved by the Catholic Education Office.

MacqLit – Macquarie University Reading Intervention Program –Year 3 - 6

This term we are undertaking a significant Reading support program to focus on specific intervention for students with reading difficulties in the primary years. This will involve students in small groups for an hour every day, participating in specific learning with a staff member implementing this research-based program.

Parents will be informed personally if your child is part of this program. Students have been undertaking the specific testing to develop the groups and our decisions are all based on this data. Mrs Eccleston, Mrs Gough, Mrs Hagan, Mrs Roberts, Miss Lord & Mrs Lane are all involved in this program and your child may have a different staff member throughout the week.

This is a huge investment by the school in terms of staffing and financially but we are very excited about the learning gains these students can make. It is critical if your child is involved they must be at school on time every day as some sessions commence at 9.00 am sharp and they need to attend school every day. Missed sessions will be a significant disadvantage.

As part of this program, these students need to read 1:1 for 20 mins every day at school as well as at home. We are asking for volunteers – parents, grandparents & others who are keen to support children and reading, to let us know any availability you have to help this term. Possible times would be at 9.00am after assembly or 2.30pm at the end of the day but we can accommodate any time. Please email the school on info@stabdow.catholic.edu.auor send your details via Skoolbag:

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:

Name _____________________________________________       Phone ______________________

Email address _____________________________________________

Availability: ______________________________________________________________________

We are holding a meeting regarding this Reading Buddy on Thursday 16^th May in our staffroom, so if you are wanting to hear more about this program please come along. We will also explain what is involved & clarify the confidentiality of working with our students. We’d love to have lots of you involved in this exciting program even if it is just 20mins a week. You do not need to come daily.

DIOCESAN CROSS COUNTRY

We wish our STA team all the very best of luck as they participate in our diocesan carnival on Tuesday.  We are very grateful to Mr Mark Preddey & Mrs Eileen Norman for all the organisation of our team and attending with them in Nowra.

MOTHER"S DAY 

The term is again another busy, event-filled 10 weeks with many exciting events coming up. Please prioritise our Mother’s Day breakfast 7.30am – 8.55 am next Friday 10^th Mayand remember that there will be a Market Place for students to purchase a gift. The organising committee is asking for a donation of a gift per child to be sent in ASAP. Wrapping will be on Monday & Tuesday next week, so please help by sending in the gift before then.

Another fundraiser is the Entertainment Book for $60 that we are running to raise funds for the school. See details in this newsletter.

PARENT MEETING - P&F

The Parent Meeting regarding P&F and fundraising will be next Wednesday 8th May at 9.00 am in the current Library space to discuss P&F funds and fundraising efforts, as well as sharing the school needs in terms of projects and resources that will help our students.

Rebecca Hill -Parent Partnership Professional Officer with The Catholic Education Office will be here to discuss parent involvement and facilitate discussions about ways of involvement for families. Please come along if possible – For those unable to attend we will share the minutes of this meeting to all.

SPORT

Good luck to Hugh W & Henry McM who are participating in the Rugby trials at Woonona tomorrow.  Good luck also to all those participating in the Diocesan Cross-Country in Nowra next Tuesday.

Warm regards,

Mary-Lynn Lane

Principal