Dear Parents and Carers,

Today we celebrated Ash Wednesday. The journey to becoming fully alive begins with Ash Wednesday. As we journey through Lent with its forty days, we intend to become more and more awake, more and more conscious, more and more alive. Our hope is to be as fully present as we can be for the feast of Easter.

During this season of Lent new life is waking from its winter death, the sun’s strength returns, and the natural world begins to vibrate more and more. An introduction to new life emerges.

Traditionally, the time of Lent is a time for praying more and has a tone of somberness. Giving up something for Lent as a spiritual discipline has been practiced for centuries. When many of us were children, we might remember giving up lollies for Lent. And it seemed like a real sacrifice. As we grew up, it was often more difficult to decide what thing to give up, to make Lent a special season - to get our attention and to prepare ourselves for deeper sacrifices.

When I reflect on this, I wonder if the giving up became the focus rather than the intention of becoming more alive. Lent offers us all a very special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism. In our busy world, Lent provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon our patterns, to pray more deeply, experience sorrow for what we’ve done and failed to do, and to be generous to those in need.

And so, we are led, in Lent, to, the place of transition, of waiting, and of not knowing. To help us in our experience of space and time we must use symbol, story and metaphor, poetry, prose and song, as tools and vehicles on the journey toward a deepening relationship with God and others. We use symbols to make things more meaningful, to communicate or represent something below the surface. In other words, symbols help us to remember and understand. The word “symbol” comes from two Greek words that mean, "to throw together," thus binding together an abstraction and an illustration and directing our thinking.

On Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, as our foreheads are marked with ash, we hear the words spoken: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. The symbol of the ashes reminds us of the reality of death and is intended to help us to enter a time of self-examination, confession and penitence. As we search and begin to look at who we are “warts” and all, we must enter into death. We must die to the person we think we are, that we pretend to be, that we wish we were, the masks we present to the world. Through this death we can come to new life and enter more fully into deep relationship with God and our neighbour.

Rachel Smith

Principal (Acting)

Principal’s Notes

COVID-19 Update

Thank you for continuing to monitor and test for COVID. We are continuing with our COVID safe practices within the school and have luckily had very few cases to date. Please remember to keep your child/ren home if they display any symptoms. We will continue to inform the community of cases as they arise. As announced by the ACT Government recently, the Rapid Antigen Tests will continue to be supplied to schools for distribution until the end of Week 8.

DONUT and Pick Up Arrangements

Thank you to those parents who are following our Donut and pick up procedures. Just a reminder to keep traffic flowing and to avoid the blocking of Heidelberg Street the students must be able to get themselves in the car. If your child requires help getting in or out of the car or you have child lock on your car door, please park your car in the carpark and assist your child to get in and out of the car and across the road. Thank you for your support in our endeavour to keep traffic flowing.

Who’s At The Front Door?

Most of us would expect visitors to our home to let us know they were there. It is even more important here that we know at any given time who is in the school. For that reason, ALL visitors are expected to sign in at the front office before going to the classroom and sign out again when leaving. The extra few minutes it takes you, helps us to ensure the safety of each child. Parents and Carers dropping off or picking up students after school do not need to sign in at the front office. If at this time you intend on staying on the school grounds longer than 10 minutes, you MUST sign in using the Canberra App.

I thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sunsmart

You are no doubt aware of our “no hat, no play” policy which is in place for most of the year. We also take other measures to ensure our school is SunSmart:

• Children eat (recess and lunch) under shelter
• Outdoor assemblies are under shelter
• Children are encouraged to bring and use sunscreen (we cannot provide it for all, as some children are allergic to specific products)
• Sporting activities are moved to cooler parts of the day when extremely hot
• Children are allowed to wear sunglasses at school
• Playground equipment is covered and inside areas are provided for use during lunch time

Dates for 2022

Today all students and teachers participated in a streamed liturgy from Holy Family Church for Ash Wednesday. The liturgy was enriched by our Year 6 Faith Leaders, who prepared 'Lent in a Bag' for every class, to help explain the meaning of Lent for Christians. The items from the bags were also used as the prayer focus for our liturgy. At school we will continue to focus on our Lenten journey for the 40 days (not including Sundays) leading up to Easter.

Before beginning his ministry, Jesus went into the desert to pray. He didn’t eat or drink; he fasted and used the time to focus on his relationship with God. Today, during the 40 days before Easter known as Lent, we too are called to focus on our relationship with God. Catholics do three things to grow closer to God during Lent: pray, fast and give alms to those in need. Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving are the three pillars of Lenten spirituality.

Over the next three weeks we will look at these pillars.

The first pillar of Lent is PRAYER.  We pray to grow in our relationship with God and ask God for guidance on how to live our lives. In our prayer, we also thank God for the gifts we have been given and we pray for those who have less than we do. During Lent, we can make an extra effort to pray each day to become the person God calls us to be.

Congratulations to the children who will be awarded white cards this week.

As we are now well into the new school year and families are establishing their daily routines, nightly reading is an important part of reinforcing the skills they are learning at school. Home reading should be happening in all grades from Kinder to Year Six. Children in the younger grades should be bringing home levelled readers and those in the upper grades who are confident readers will be expected to be reading novels for about 20 minutes each evening.

The purpose of reading at home is to build fluency, comprehension and most importantly a love for reading in a supportive environment. Home readers are only a small part of the reading at home expectation as these often only take a few minutes. It is also recommended that those students who are not yet confident readers spend more some more time being read to by any adult. Even students who are fluent readers benefit from reading aloud to an adult and being read to regularly.

When reading at home students should be bringing home a reader that is 2-3 levels below their instructional level. For example, if your child is reading at a level 9 they should be bringing home books that are around a level 6 or 7. This is because reading at home should be a positive experience and is to reinforce the learning that has happened at school.

Last year we purchased a large amount of new home readers, so there should be plenty of new and interesting books for students to be bringing home. It is really important that all students have a reading folder to protect the readers being transported to and from home. This helps to preserve the life of the books.

I’m sure many of you have seen statistics like these shown on the chart about the profound impact that reading at home can have. If there is one thing you can do to support your child to thrive at school it is by reading regularly at home.

Happy Reading

Jo Thomson

Literacy Coordinator

Dear parents,

The student and family counsellor will be holding an information session on ‘Building Resilience in Children – Parent guide’. This will include defining resilience and adversity, key factors influencing resilience in children, and a model for building resilience in children that identifies practical strategies, particularly regarding changing family dynamics, friendships and social media. This session will be held via Zoom on the 9^th of March from 5 – 6 pm, please save the Zoom link invite below to use on the day.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Topic: Building Resilience in Children - SCA Counsellor

Time: Mar 9, 2022 05:00 PM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/98326131592

Meeting ID: 983 2613 1592

Just a friendly reminder Term 1 fees are due this Friday, 4th March 2022.

Thanks to those parents who have settled their fees.